So in all the previews-n-such that you have likely digested by now, you always find that returning starters are usually a big part of said preview.  You know the drill - usually the more returning starters from the prior season, the perception is that the team will indeed be a better outfit in the upcoming season.  But is that rationale actually right?  Well, yes and no.

First, Ted Miller rolled out this year's official tally of returning starters.  If you don't want to click over, here's the cut-n-paste job from ESPN:

PAC-10 RETURNING STARTERS

Team	Offense	Defense	Punter/kicker	Total
Washington	10	7	2	19
Oregon	9	8	1	18
Oregon State	8	7	2	17
Stanford	8	7	2	17
California	8	6	2	16
Washington State	8	6	2	16
Arizona	8	4	2	14
UCLA	7	5	2	14
USC	6	6	1	13
Arizona State	3	4	2	9
Average	7.5	6	2	15.3

• Seven teams have returning starters at QB. Only Arizona State, Oregon and Oregon State will have new starting QBs.
  
  
• 16 of the 23 leaders in the individual statistical categories are back.

Again, looks good.  But should judging returning starters really be the barometer of what's to come?  Or shouldn't one dig a little deeper, such as looking at the two-deep rosters, to get a better feel for the upcoming season?

Phil Steele has been on this kind of thing for a while, looking beyond just returning starters.  Instead, he's looked at the two-deeps, but also weighs out the sheer number of returning lettermen to try and formulate a thorough picture of the year ahead.  What does it all mean?  What did Steele find?  Read on....

Happy Monday Cougs.  And happy Monday to all those M's fans out there......eeesh.  Quick, anyone remember when they actually WON a game?  What a dreadful tailspin.  And with that, we can officially welcome M's fans to the world of WSU's football struggles the last couple of years.  Not a lot of fun, is it?

The thing is, from where you sit today, who would you rather be - Don Wakamatsu or Paul Wulff??  I don't mean who's life would you rather have, or where you would rather live and work in your chosen profession.  But in terms of flat-out job security, who do you think wakes up this morning and feels better about his situation?

I'm sure Wak never thought he'd be sitting where he is today, not after last year's surprising success in his rookie season.  Now, he's the skipper of one of the most disappointing M's teams in franchise history.  A team widely picked to at least contend for the AL west, the M's have been done since Memorial Day.  Is it Wak's fault?  That's one thing that is highly controversial/overrated in MLB, and that is the impact that a manager actually has on his team.  For the most part, 162 games is all about players performing up to their abilities.  The manager has to fill out the lineup, make correct decisions on use of his bullpen, decide when to hit-and-run, things of that nature.  But this isn't the NFL, where coaches are paid between $3 and $5 million per year over the course of 16 games.  Or even the NCAA, where the Mack Brown's and Urban Meyer's of the world earn that same kind of money, for even less games than the NFL.  MLB managers make what, $700K or so per year?  It's not even a fair comparison.

But one of the biggest duties an MLB manager has is to keep ego's in check, and you know, keep players happy and content to live up to the numbers on the back of their baseball cards over the long, grueling marathon that is the MLB regular season.  And right now, it's not looking good for Wak.

It really started to look bad with the abrupt retirement of Junior this spring.  If you recall, Junior wasn't hitting a lick, and really didn't deserve to be in the lineup anymore.  He simply fell down to what all other clean MLB players succomb to in their careers - THEY GET OLD - and it's awfully hard to catch up to a mid-90 MPH fastball when you are on the other side of 40.  But the word around the M's was that Wak and Griffey weren't really on the same page this year.  Once Junior was benched, it got worse and worse, culminating with the infamous "sleepgate" story, where it was reported Junior was napping in the clubhouse during a game.  Next thing you know Junior hangs it up, and announces his retirement from his cell phone....in Montana.  Buh-bye.

But what now makes it even worse is that there are reports that Junior and Wak simply stopped talking, and didn't even speak for Junior's final two weeks as a Mariner!  Now, I know this is big-time sports.  Things like this can sometimes happen when you have stubborn alpha males who refuse to budge an inch.  But to not speak to one of your players?  That, my friends, is simply AWFUL management of personnel.  Yes, there are personalities and ego's at play here.  Yes, it's been widely reported over the years that Junior is an enigma if you will, a tough nut to crack who is prone to extreme moodiness.  But as a manager of a 25-man roster, it is your job to at least try and keep the peace in the clubhouse.  It is your JOB to communicate, or at least act like you give a rip about one of your employees.  But to give the silent treatment to one of the greatest players of the modern era, a guy you pointed to last year as one of the key reasons the clubhouse was so great and Ichiro was so happy and engaged with what was going on?  Unforgivable.


But that was just the start.  As you know, it gets a heck of a lot worse from there.  The team has just completely fallen off the tracks, and losing breeds a miserable clubhouse.  But there was the now-infamous Figgins "fiasco", where you actually had a player and manager go after each other in the dugout during a game.  Think about that for a second - a player and a manager go at it during a game?  That's crazy.  Most of you won't remember, and I wasn't old enough to understand it, but there was a similar dust-up a long time ago between Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin.  Reggie loafed after a fly ball, and right in the middle of the game Martin pulled him.  On national TV, Reggie and Billy went at it in a heated manner, but that's where it ended as no blows or wrestling matches ensued.


So, back to the M's incident with Figgy and Wak.  There must have been major suspensions and all that stuff, right??  Uh, no.  Not only did Figgins and Wak go after each other and cause a melee, but Figgins was back in the lineup the next night.  And, Figgins has never even attempted to apologize for any role he had in the craziness.  And, if you want to go further with it, GM Jack Z?  He didn't give his manager a single vote of confidence.  Not a "we stand by our manager" or "Figgins was wrong to confront the manager like that during a game".  Nothing but a "we had a five minute meeting and cleared the air."  That's it?  A national story replayed time and again on MLB Network, and all you can do is take five minutes to talk about it? 

It shows one thing, if you ask me.  The M's as an organization do not seem to have Wak's back.  It has been pointed out by Geoff Baker at the Seattle Times several times in the last few weeks, but what organization would let their skipper "twist in the wind" like this without making some sort of move or statement to back him up?  Baker has been speculating that the end could be near, maybe even today.  Pretty strong stuff from a beat writer.  Anyway, it started with the silent treatment of Junior, and it's culminated with the Figgins incident, and oh yeah, some AWFUL baseball in the process.  But unless they come out and say otherwise, there seems to be little doubt that he's a "dead man Waking".......  :)

Why the Wak talk??  Well, it's a perfect "segue" into none other than our own ballcoach, Paul Wulff, that's why!  Read on....

So the Pac-10 media blitz is finally over, and one of the most "visable" few days in Pac-10 football memory is now complete.  What did you get out of it?  Did you learn anything new?  There is SO MUCH to digest after the last few days, but let's at least try to round up some of the best things to take from yesterday, shall we?  Read on....

So, Pac-10 media day is today, and it's time for even more interviews and such amongst the head coaches of this here conference.  While these things can be a little tedious at times, you generally can get a few nuggets unearthed here and there, such as player injuries/suspensions/whatever.  But for the most part, it should be a lot of talking points-style interviews and answers you have probably heard at some point or another along the way.  Who knows though, maybe we'll get a surprise this year?  Maybe a few shots from Neuheisel at USC?  And who knows what Lane Kiffin is going to say, or who he'll piss off next? 

For those of you wondering, coach Wulff and senior d-end Kevin Kooyman are representing Wazzu, and they should do quite well answering the barrage of "how can you possibly expect to win a conference game this year?" type questions.

Anyway, since it's media day and the writers will turn in their picks for the upcoming year, and since our own Sutra weighed in on Tuesday, I thought the rest of us should lend our two cents on how, exactly, we think the conference will shake out this year.  All I can say is that I picked Cal to win it a year ago, and resisted the temptation to pick Oregon (and yes, Sutra did pick Oregon last year.....but IN A TIE WITH USC for the title!  BURN!  Check out the post from a year ago here.). 

Now excuse me while we get our thinking caps on and try to hash this out, all to the soothing tunes of Lisa Simpson rocking the little brown jug:


Read on for all our picks for 2010 - Sean, LucasCoug and Longball - and with a link to each team's spring Fish Wrap to boot: