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

[Warpticon]

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.

 

Actually, there was only marginal difference between those periods. (this comes up often when the We Need A Legit Leadoff Guy Like Lofton arguments begin.) As in a few hundredths of a run per game.

[beowulf28]

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

 

And with him, MacPhail.

[beowulf28]

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.

 

He went after speed w/o OBP. That won't get you on base. You need both with power and OBP, as well.

[Andy]

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

He only signs people who can catch the ball when it's not an important part of the package.