Jim Hendry on WGN radio 2-nite and he will take calls

[rocket]

i wonder if jim hendry secretly works for the reds now

[YearofDaCubs]

Oh cripes.

 

"You just hit your way on, you don't walk your way on."

 

You have to be kidding me.

And therein lies the problem..

[Outshined_One]

i wonder if jim hendry secretly works for the reds now

 

So, are you saying we're going to trade Murton, Cedeno, and Wuertz to Seattle for Rafael Soriano, Clint Nageotte, Yuniesky Betancourt, and two minor leaguers?

[Drew Doughty]

i wonder if jim hendry secretly works for the reds now

 

So, are you saying we're going to trade Murton, Cedeno, and Wuertz to Seattle for Rafael Soriano, Clint Nageotte, Yuniesky Betancourt, and two minor leaguers?

 

would you be surprised?

[Outshined_One]

i wonder if jim hendry secretly works for the reds now

 

So, are you saying we're going to trade Murton, Cedeno, and Wuertz to Seattle for Rafael Soriano, Clint Nageotte, Yuniesky Betancourt, and two minor leaguers?

 

would you be surprised?

 

Frankly, I'd expect him to throw Rich Hill into that trade for good measure.

 

I was just trying to match up deals. ;)

[soccer10k]

Oh cripes.

 

"You just hit your way on, you don't walk your way on."

 

You have to be kidding me.

 

 

Tell me you made that up. Tell me he did not say that.

Word for word.

 

Kill me.

 

Oh my lord.

 

*Opens bottle of Jack Daniels and takes HUGE swig*

[soccer10k]

I need to stop posting in threads after O_O already perfectly says what I want to.

 

Agreed. As I was reading along, I started to look up stats and was about to post but then read what O_O said and realized that my idea was basically what he said. And he probably stated it better than I would have.

[Banedon]

This thread makes me sad.

[CuseCubFan69]

This thread makes me sad.

 

Do you realize that Baker may get an extension if the Cubs "improve" because they've been without the horses? That's what my money is on. I was going to Chicago next year but not if this happens.

[Banedon]

This thread makes me sad.

 

Do you realize that Baker may get an extension if the Cubs "improve" because they've been without the horses? That's what my money is on. I was going to Chicago next year but not if this happens.

 

I hate not enjoying baseball season. I really do.

[RynoRules]

Hendry is one stubborn SOB. I don't expect him to throw himself on his sword, but it would be nice if he found an artful way to acknowledge the team's weaknesses.

[Soul]

Hendry will have to be fired before this club turns it around. I'm convinced of that now.

 

 

No GM in his right mind would say something as stupid as "you don't walk your way on."

 

 

Either he's lost his mind, or he just had a lucky year in '03 and a lucky offseason heading into '04. Not sure which it is, but the end result is the same. Hendry's not the guy to take us where we need to go.

[CubinNY]

The reason why they are such good hitters is because they get hits, not because they know how to work counts and draw walks.

 

That is exactly right. That is the organization's philosophy right there. Agreesivness is great and if you are agressive and get lots of hits you'll get walked more by the pitcher because the hitter has nothing to do with getting a walk. Hendry and Co. don't believe in the concept of drawing a walk by being selective.

 

They have the direction of causality exactly backwords.

 

They are killing my love of the Cubs.

[goonys evil twin]

With Hendry's philosophy, the best outcome you can expect from a minor

leaguer in your system will be Jacque Jones - a high OPS guy who doesn't walk enough, a prototypical #6 hitter. If the Cubs want to be successful, they should just concentrate on drafting pitchers and getting their starting lineups with trades and free agents signings.

 

That's what they've been trying for 12 years under MacPhail and it has failed miserably. You simply have to develop good hitters.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

Hendry must go. There is no other course of action that would suffice.

[BigbadB]

Either he's lost his mind, or he just had a lucky year in '03 and a lucky offseason heading into '04. Not sure which it is, but the end result is the same. Hendry's not the guy to take us where we need to go.

 

It wasn't luck. It was good pitching.

 

Remember that horrid 2002 season? The team scored 706 runs and posted a .321 OBP that year. In 2003, they weren't much better. They scored 724 runs and posted a .324 OBP.

 

They made some strides in 2004 by improving the OBP to .328 and increasing their run output to 789, but they fell off dramatically last year with 703 runs and a .324 OBP.

 

They weren't lucky in 2003. The pitching was so good that they won games in spite of the poor hitting attack.

 

If you had great pitching, you might be able to get away with what Houston and the White Sox accomplished last year. But, it's risky to do nothing to improve a bad offense and assume your pitching will carry you. And right now you are seeing why that is such a risky game plan.

 

The White Sox didn't sit on their hands after winning the World Series by living and dying on a strong pitching staff. They went out and improved the offense this offseason while also working on improving the pitching staff.

 

Hendry had an average pitching staff at best last year. He had a horrible offense. Instead of focusing on improving the offense, he focused on speed and defense. Gee, why is this team 20 games under .500?

 

And I'm no rocket scientist.

[USSoccer]

If there was any doubt left that Hendry is the right man for the job this radio interview surely has to be the final nail in that coffin. He truly has no idea how to put together a consistently winning team.

 

And I just knew more people would ask about Ramirez's hustle than anything else. That speaks really poorly about that part of the fanbase.

[3Dog]

This franchise will never be a serious pennant contender as long as Andy MacPhail is Team President.

[goonys evil twin]

Football equivalent of what Hendry is doing.

 

GM wants to build his team based on team defense, and he really wants to focus on stopping the run. So, he goes out and gets the biggest fattest d tackles he can find, to plug up the holes. He notices that teams are just running outside and pasing deep, so he finds the biggest D ends and linebackers he can find, because if big fat tackles can stop the inside run, big fat backers and ends should stop the outside run. When teams keep running on them, he just keeps looking for bigger and fatter players. Offensively, he wants a QB that has won big before, so he signs all the Heisman winning/contending QB's who have played for winners. All of a suddent Eric Crouch, Jason White and Chris Weinke constitute your QB depth chart. The RB is a 33 year old former rushing champion who has had 4 knee surgeries and hasn't rushed for 1000 yards in 3 years. The receivers are all extremely tall, and very fast, but they can't catch the ball. To counteract what he thinks is the best defense possible, big fat lineman, he finds himself 5 of the biggest fattest O lineman out there.

 

His RB keeps getting injured, and the lineman all need major knee surgeries since they can't support their own weight. And the team just keeps getting worse and worse. To combat this freefall he vows to find bigger, fatter lineman, a real champion QB in Vinny Testeverde, with Gino Torretta and Danny Wuerful to back him up. And he gets a RB who backed up the RB on last year's Super Bowl team.

[ConstableRabbit]

Football equivalent of what Hendry is doing.

 

GM wants to build his team based on team defense, and he really wants to focus on stopping the run. So, he goes out and gets the biggest fattest d tackles he can find, to plug up the holes. He notices that teams are just running outside and pasing deep, so he finds the biggest D ends and linebackers he can find, because if big fat tackles can stop the inside run, big fat backers and ends should stop the outside run. When teams keep running on them, he just keeps looking for bigger and fatter players. Offensively, he wants a QB that has won big before, so he signs all the Heisman winning/contending QB's who have played for winners. All of a suddent Eric Crouch, Jason White and Chris Weinke constitute your QB depth chart. The RB is a 33 year old former rushing champion who has had 4 knee surgeries and hasn't rushed for 1000 yards in 3 years. The receivers are all extremely tall, and very fast, but they can't catch the ball. To counteract what he thinks is the best defense possible, big fat lineman, he finds himself 5 of the biggest fattest O lineman out there.

 

His RB keeps getting injured, and the lineman all need major knee surgeries since they can't support their own weight. And the team just keeps getting worse and worse. To combat this freefall he vows to find bigger, fatter lineman, a real champion QB in Vinny Testeverde, with Gino Torretta and Danny Wuerful to back him up. And he gets a RB who backed up the RB on last year's Super Bowl team.

 

Funny to think of Hendry signing someone incapable of catching the ball

[FergieJ31]

Either he's lost his mind, or he just had a lucky year in '03 and a lucky offseason heading into '04. Not sure which it is, but the end result is the same. Hendry's not the guy to take us where we need to go.

 

It wasn't luck. It was good pitching.

 

Remember that horrid 2002 season? The team scored 706 runs and posted a .321 OBP that year. In 2003, they weren't much better. They scored 724 runs and posted a .324 OBP.

 

They made some strides in 2004 by improving the OBP to .328 and increasing their run output to 789, but they fell off dramatically last year with 703 runs and a .324 OBP.

 

They weren't lucky in 2003. The pitching was so good that they won games in spite of the poor hitting attack.

 

If you had great pitching, you might be able to get away with what Houston and the White Sox accomplished last year. But, it's risky to do nothing to improve a bad offense and assume your pitching will carry you. And right now you are seeing why that is such a risky game plan.

 

The White Sox didn't sit on their hands after winning the World Series by living and dying on a strong pitching staff. They went out and improved the offense this offseason while also working on improving the pitching staff.

 

Hendry had an average pitching staff at best last year. He had a horrible offense. Instead of focusing on improving the offense, he focused on speed and defense. Gee, why is this team 20 games under .500?

 

And I'm no rocket scientist.

 

I agree 100% with your analysis with respect to the White Sox and Astros. And I didn't know the diff between the Cubs' 2002 offense and 2003 offense was so marginal. Great post.

[beowulf28]

I'm confused about your comment. What did he say that was incorrect? Care to prove that most of the High OBP guys are not also good hitters?

 

I was speaking from their perspective rather than my own.

 

Also, there are plenty of guys out there with high averages and OBPs that are not much higher. The guy batting leadoff for the Cubs, for example.

 

Like I pointed out in my other post, if you look up the top 40 OBP guys in the majors 37-38 of them are good hitters. Sure there are some good hitters that don't have high OBP, just as there are bad hitters that have outstanding OBP, but they tend to be the exception rather than the norm.

 

How many walks do they have? Are they above average? Do they hit better because they have more patience?

[beowulf28]

The OBP problem with the Cubs isn't their middle of the lineup hitters such as Lee, Barrett, and ARam. The problem is ignoring that walks for their #1 and #2 hitters are as important as hits for the purposes of scoring runs. It's ignoring that walks for their #7 and #8 hitters can start big innings. It's ignoring that plate discipline will raise the pitch counts of their opponent's top starters, allowing the Cub hitters to face the opponent's bullpen sooner.

 

Bingo! :D

[ToupeeOnFire]

If there was any doubt left that Hendry is the right man for the job this radio interview surely has to be the final nail in that coffin. He truly has no idea how to put together a consistently winning team.

 

And I just knew more people would ask about Ramirez's hustle than anything else. That speaks really poorly about that part of the fanbase.

It kills me when fans yap about lack of hustle and fundamentals. Not that I like to see players dogging it or poor execution (although, even good teams make errors, fail to score the runner from 3rd with less than 2 outs, botch hit and run attempts, bunts, etc.), but when the team is broken, hustle and fundamentals should be the least of their concern. Fans are deluding themselves with this stuff. It's like being in on the Titanic and complaining of a broken fixture while the ship is going down.

[Soul]

Either he's lost his mind, or he just had a lucky year in '03 and a lucky offseason heading into '04. Not sure which it is, but the end result is the same. Hendry's not the guy to take us where we need to go.

 

It wasn't luck. It was good pitching.

 

Remember that horrid 2002 season? The team scored 706 runs and posted a .321 OBP that year. In 2003, they weren't much better. They scored 724 runs and posted a .324 OBP.

 

They made some strides in 2004 by improving the OBP to .328 and increasing their run output to 789, but they fell off dramatically last year with 703 runs and a .324 OBP.

 

They weren't lucky in 2003. The pitching was so good that they won games in spite of the poor hitting attack.

 

If you had great pitching, you might be able to get away with what Houston and the White Sox accomplished last year. But, it's risky to do nothing to improve a bad offense and assume your pitching will carry you. And right now you are seeing why that is such a risky game plan.

 

The White Sox didn't sit on their hands after winning the World Series by living and dying on a strong pitching staff. They went out and improved the offense this offseason while also working on improving the pitching staff.

 

Hendry had an average pitching staff at best last year. He had a horrible offense. Instead of focusing on improving the offense, he focused on speed and defense. Gee, why is this team 20 games under .500?

 

And I'm no rocket scientist.

 

I agree 100% with your analysis with respect to the White Sox and Astros. And I didn't know the diff between the Cubs' 2002 offense and 2003 offense was so marginal. Great post.

 

I also agree and thanks for the responses.

 

I would add that given the fact that our last 2 months in 2003 we actually *did* score and put baserunners on at a decent clip-----the first part of the season we must have been incredibly bad.