Baby and Bathwater

[bc2k]

If the Cubs fail to make the playoffs this year, I hope the public doesn't try to push Hendry out the door with John Baker.

 

Without doing a thorough search, I think Hendry has provided his club with the deepest pitching in baseball, 1-14. If Prior and Wood were 100%, this would be our rotation:

 

Zambrano

Prior

Wood

Williams

Maddux

 

with a healthy Wade Miller available sometime in May, if someone happened to go down at that point. I can't fault Hendry for banking on Prior and Wood making it through the first 6 weeks of the season. Hendry's Miller acquisition took foresight.

 

The bullpen would be even deeper, complete with a closer, two solid lefty relievers, three plus set up men, and not ONE guy Baker would have to hold back for junkball time.

 

Wuertz

Rusch

Williamson

Eyre

Howry

Dempster

 

As if this assembly wasn't dominant enough, Hill and Ohman are also worthy of major league roster spots, rounding out the deep 14. These two (and Wade Miller, if not needed) are quality arms that could be used to trade for the missing offensive spare part midseason.

 

Jim Hendry, lights out. =D>

[SouthSideRyan]

And the offense?

[TheDude]

And the offense?

 

Several respectable starters, with only a couple of weak spots/question marks surrounding two stud all-stars - much the same as every team not located in Boston or New York, including playoff teams.

[CubinNY]

The Cubs have been a very medicore team for four years. Don't let the 88 win division championship season fool you.

 

If they are medicore again this year it is time to clean house

[snoodmonger]

He continually builds the team around pitching at the expense of hitting. Our margin for error is nil, so if a pitcher goes down, we're screwed. And our pitchers continue to go down.

 

He's seen this formula fail, yet he goes back to it again and again.

 

On top of that, he is overly frugal with impact players and a spendthrift with role players. We're paying a lot of money for Rusch, Neifi, Eyre, and Howry. I expect we could match the production of at least two of those guys with cheap prospects.

[ManEatingTarp]

I mean this seriously. Not as a jab.

 

100 million dollar payroll and a 4th place finish. Cub fans should be marching on the Trib Tower screaming for Hendry's head. He has made some outstanding trades but his free agent signings have been horrendous. The Kerry Wood and Maddux contracts are good examples.

You can't plan around injuries, but that record has been played too much. The GM has to be held accountable at some point.

[Backtobanks]

If the Cubs fail to make the playoffs this year, I hope the public doesn't try to push Hendry out the door with John Baker.

 

Without doing a thorough search, I think Hendry has provided his club with the deepest pitching in baseball, 1-14. If Prior and Wood were 100%, this would be our rotation:

 

Zambrano

Prior

Wood

Williams

Maddux

 

with a healthy Wade Miller available sometime in May, if someone happened to go down at that point. I can't fault Hendry for banking on Prior and Wood making it through the first 6 weeks of the season. Hendry's Miller acquisition took foresight.

 

The bullpen would be even deeper, complete with a closer, two solid lefty relievers, three plus set up men, and not ONE guy Baker would have to hold back for junkball time.

 

Wuertz

Rusch

Williamson

Eyre

Howry

Dempster

 

As if this assembly wasn't dominant enough, Hill and Ohman are also worthy of major league roster spots, rounding out the deep 14. These two (and Wade Miller, if not needed) are quality arms that could be used to trade for the missing offensive spare part midseason.

 

Jim Hendry, lights out. =D>

 

I don't know what's going to happen with Baker, but I think MacPhail thinks the world of Hendry and wouldn't replace him. Of course, if the Tribune ended up selling the Cubs to someone like Mark Cuban, all bets are off on retaining MacPhail, Hendry, and Baker.

[MeatampPotatoesMan]

I mean this seriously. Not as a jab.

 

100 million dollar payroll and a 4th place finish. Cub fans should be marching on the Trib Tower screaming for Hendry's head. He has made some outstanding trades but his free agent signings have been horrendous. The Kerry Wood and Maddux contracts are good examples.

You can't plan around injuries, but that record has been played too much. The GM has to be held accountable at some point.

 

Wood never has been a FA. That was an extension. At the time it looked like an awesome contract given his talent and recent health/performance. Whoops. I can't fault Hendry for that one.

[TB_11]

For all the praise he deserves for putting together the pitching staff, he deserves just as much criticism for putting the success of the team squarely on the staff.

 

He had an opportunity this offseason to significantly upgrade the offense, and he didn't. The offense now isn't strong enough to overcome a mediocre performance from our pitching staff. Hendry deserves the blame for this.

 

Additionally as good as the staff is when healthy, the bullpen additions from this offseason were completely overpaid for.

[MeatampPotatoesMan]

For all the praise he deserves for putting together the pitching staff, he deserves just as much criticism for putting the success of the team squarely on the staff.

 

He had an opportunity this offseason to significantly upgrade the offense, and he didn't. The offense now isn't strong enough to overcome a mediocre performance from our pitching staff. Hendry deserves the blame for this.

 

Additionally as good as the staff is when healthy, the bullpen additions from this offseason were completely overpaid for.

 

Is there an offense capable of overcoming a mediocre staff? Maybe an elite offense, which wasn't in the cards looking at the list of available players these past two seasons.

 

I don't blame him for the offense (Jones in RF is freaking ridiculous) so much. Having crap like Neifi and Rusch eating payroll kills me.

[TheDude]

He had an opportunity this offseason to significantly upgrade the offense, and he didn't. The offense now isn't strong enough to overcome a mediocre performance from our pitching staff. Hendry deserves the blame for this.

 

I get frustrated by this line. There was what, two significant FA upgrade options? One seemed like a lock and bolted for an absurd contract and the other wasn't going anywhere to begin with.

 

It wasn't the best year for FA. There were trading opportunites out there, but any significant upgrade would come at the cost of players named Prior or Zambrano, at which point people freaked-out.

 

Hendry's only missteps this offseason were granting extra years to Jones and Perez. I don't mind either of those guys on one-year deals, but neither were good fits for this team on multi-year deals. Otherwise, he turned within to fill holes at SS and LF, acquired very solid bullpen help, and upgraded CF significantly.

 

The current offense isn't anywhere near as bad as people make it out to be. It stacks up with either World Series team from last year.

Edited March 23, 2006 by TheDude

[CubinNY]

The current offense isn't anywhere near as bad as people make it out to be. It stacks up with either World Series team from last year.

 

Not even in your wildest dreams

[TheDude]

The current offense isn't anywhere near as bad as people make it out to be. It stacks up with either World Series team from last year.

 

Not even in your wildest dreams

 

Did you even bother to look up the numbers before posting this?

 

The Cubs outproduced the Sox and Astros in 2005 in many offensive categories, including: BA, OBP, SLG, OPS, and TB

 

The Sox hit 6 more HR, while the Astros hit 33 less.

 

The Cubs have upgraded production in LF, SS, and CF, while maintaining status quo everywhere else. What's the problem?

[SouthSideRyan]

The current offense isn't anywhere near as bad as people make it out to be. It stacks up with either World Series team from last year.

 

Not even in your wildest dreams

 

Yeah you're offbase on this one, the White Sox and Astros offenses were pretty poor.

[CubinNY]

The current offense isn't anywhere near as bad as people make it out to be. It stacks up with either World Series team from last year.

 

Not even in your wildest dreams

 

Did you even bother to look up the numbers before posting this?

 

The Cubs outproduced the Sox and Astros in 2005 in many offensive categories, including: BA, OBP, SLG, OPS, and TB

 

The Sox hit 6 more HR, while the Astros hit 33 less.

 

The Cubs have upgraded production in LF, SS, and CF, while maintaining status quo everywhere else. What's the problem?

 

2005 Runs scored

 

CWS 741

HOU 693 (but they only gave up 609 runs)

ChC 703 (but they gave up 714 runs)

 

Even so we are talking about this year's team not last year's, no?

 

The Cubs might have an upgrade in Cedeno, Pierre is an upgrade but that would be next to impossible not acheive and we will see what Murton is all about.

 

Lee and Barrett cannot regress and Aramis has to say healthy. And they still will not score as many runs as last year.

[TB_11]

He had an opportunity this offseason to significantly upgrade the offense, and he didn't. The offense now isn't strong enough to overcome a mediocre performance from our pitching staff. Hendry deserves the blame for this.

 

I get frustrated by this line. There was what, two significant FA upgrade options? One seemed like a lock and bolted for an absurd contract and the other wasn't going anywhere to begin with.

 

It wasn't the best year for FA. There were trading opportunites out there, but any significant upgrade would come at the cost of players named Prior or Zambrano, at which point people freaked-out.

 

Hendry's only missteps this offseason were granting extra years to Jones and Perez. I don't mind either of those guys on one-year deals, but neither were good fits for this team on multi-year deals. Otherwise, he turned within to fill holes at SS and LF, acquired very solid bullpen help, and upgraded CF significantly.

 

The current offense isn't anywhere near as bad as people make it out to be. It stacks up with either World Series team from last year.

 

That's the point. While the Astros and White Sox offenses were mediocre and average respectively, both teams were able to succeed because they had excellent and durable starting pitching. Hendry thought that the Cubs could get by on the same, and given the injury risks that exist to starting pitching (namely our starting pitching), it was an unwise decision.

 

Additionally the decision to sign Perez for an additional 2 years and $5M was an indefensible move. The Jones signing wasn't as bad, but there were still better options available.

[wastra]

This is a very unbalanced offense with TONS of question marks. Anyone confident about it placing their confidence in little mroe than hope.

 

Pierre and Jones are coming off pretty poor seasons- Jones may actually be a downgrade in right from Burnitz if he doesn't bounce back.

 

Cedeno is unknown- although since we didn't have Nomar much at all at short, it's probably a wash at worst.

 

Murton is actually the only player I'm fairly certain will be an upgrade, and I still have to caveat that with saying he's only had a couple hundred major league a t bats, so it's risky to think pitchers won't find a weakness.

 

Lee and Barrett had career years- Lee by a wide margin. Will he repeat? Will Barret stay healthy? To be fair, the only positions we can be fairly certain of getting solid production are 1st, 3rd, and second, with Barret being a likely 4th. The other 5 positions stand a chance based upon what we know, of all being below average.

[EricG]

I say fire Hendry for letting Dusty mismanage the team so long. Baker is getting a free pass for winning the division when it was at it's weakest and he still insists on getting Neifi playing time. I hoping that Hendry signed Neifi only to have a reason to fire Dusty when he starts Perez at 2B on opening day.

[wastra]

And as has already been said in so many words:

 

It's bad management to throw all your eggs into one basket (starting pitching) when that basket has a LOOOOOONG history of injury risk, and you back it up with mediocre defense at at least 2 of 3 outfield spots and 2 of 4 infield spots AND at the starting catcher.

 

This team lacks a strategy. The Sox last year were built to hit and run, pitch well, and plays great defense. The whole roster was geared for that. Ours has no rhyme nor reason. What we're going for with the pitching staff isn't reflected in the roster that will hit and field for them.

 

 

And I applaud Hendry for the bullpen signings. There was a stretch last year when there wasn't an arm in the pen I wanted to see warming up. At least gettign a strong pen fits into the pitching strategy.

[CubinNY]

This is a very unbalanced offense with TONS of question marks. Anyone confident about it placing their confidence in little mroe than hope.

 

Pierre and Jones are coming off pretty poor seasons- Jones may actually be a downgrade in right from Burnitz if he doesn't bounce back.

 

Cedeno is unknown- although since we didn't have Nomar much at all at short, it's probably a wash at worst.

 

Murton is actually the only player I'm fairly certain will be an upgrade, and I still have to caveat that with saying he's only had a couple hundred major league a t bats, so it's risky to think pitchers won't find a weakness.

 

Lee and Barrett had career years- Lee by a wide margin. Will he repeat? Will Barret stay healthy? To be fair, the only positions we can be fairly certain of getting solid production are 1st, 3rd, and second, with Barret being a likely 4th. The other 5 positions stand a chance based upon what we know, of all being below average.

 

My prediction is that the Cubs are in the 675-687 range in runs scored this year. That means the pitching will have to be low 600s for any shot at the playoffs.

[TheDude]

That's the point. While the Astros and White Sox offenses were mediocre and average respectively, both teams were able to succeed because they had excellent and durable starting pitching. Hendry thought that the Cubs could get by on the same, and given the injury risks that exist to starting pitching (namely our starting pitching), it was an unwise decision.

 

I'll give the White Sox credit for gambling on the durability of their pitching because all of their starters had a history of durable pitching. But the Astros had just as much a gamble as the Cubs. Because it worked out for their GM and not Hendry, Hendry is a goat somehow?

 

Clemens was the only sure thing on the Astros. Petitte and Oswalt had injury histories to rival Prior and Wood, and Backe and Rodriguez were unknown quantities.

 

A GM has to trust in the guys he has on the roster. Hendry built the team on pitching and has to trust that pitching to come through.

 

The Cubs have the winning formula for the playoffs. They need to realize it with good health.

[TheDude]

This team lacks a strategy. The Sox last year were built to hit and run, pitch well, and plays great defense. The whole roster was geared for that. Ours has no rhyme nor reason. What we're going for with the pitching staff isn't reflected in the roster that will hit and field for them.

 

I disagree with most of this. The Sox were not built for great defense (excepting 2B, SS, and CF) and got unexpected career year pitching which should recede (funny how the Cubs career year players are expected to recede but not the Sox players). You're right about the running however.

 

The strategy is in place and has been discussed ad nauseum. If you don't like the strategy, that's your choice. But it's wrong to claim it doesn't exist.

[CardsFanInChiTown]

No disrespect, however every year the Hendry tries to fix the bullpen without much success. The side effect of coarse is Dusty is “forced” to overwork his starters. I think it's one of his most overlooked failings.

[XZero771679666304]

No disrespect, however every year the Hendry tries to fix the bullpen without much success. The side effect of coarse is Dusty is “forced” to overwork his starters. I think it's one of his most overlooked failings.

 

Last year Hendry screwed the pen. Going into 2004 the Cubs pen looked to be the best in the league. In 2003, the pen was good. On paper, the Cubs pen is the best in the division this year. Other than last season, I can't fault Hendry for the pen.

 

However, he is responsible for the offense (ignoring OBP), and facilitating Dusty's lousy veteran fetish.

[TheDude]

No disrespect, however every year the Hendry tries to fix the bullpen without much success. The side effect of coarse is Dusty is “forced” to overwork his starters. I think it's one of his most overlooked failings.

 

Bullpen pitchers are hard to gauge. It's one of the most unpredictable things in baseball. Hendry has tried to go after solid bullpen people in the past, and it just didn't work out. You'd be hard-pressed to find people that were against the Hawkins or Remlinger signings at the time, as a few examples.