Is Jim Hendry's job REALLY safe??

[don_kessinger_was_good]

Unlike a high-profile field manager making $4MM a year, the GM is relatively anonymous to most casual fans. And he ain't making no $4MM, even for both years of his contract combined.

 

Someone needs to answer for turning a team five outs from the pennant into a last place, 100-loss team in just three short years, with a near-$100MM payroll; and the "woe is me" injury excuse isn't going to cut it.

 

I say there is a 1 in 3 chance the Cubs do a complete house-cleaning immediately after the season ends, and Hendry gets the boot like Lynch before him.

 

Needless to say, I would support this move 110% and twice on Sundays.

[soccer10k]

220% on Sunday's, eh? That's a lot of support.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

I agree that it isn't for certain that Hendry's job is safe. But we also haven't heard much rumbling that he could be gone, and for that reason I don't think he's on the hot seat, but he should be.

[goonys evil twin]

Bad odds.

 

Andy hasn't really fired many GM's. Lynch quit. Andy is completely in Jim's corner. In order to fire him, he'd have to admit a huge mistake that he made in April, when he extended Hendry months before it was necessary to even think about (it should have been done before last offseason to give the GM credibility, or well into this season, to see how his team looked).

 

Basically, our only hope is that Andy moves on to a new job, and whoever the new boss is, cleans house.

[soccer10k]

If the Cubs suck again next year with what will likely be a new manager, then Hendry will be on the hot seat. But I don't think he is right now even though he should be.

[UMFan83]

Yeah, what is the rule of thumb, a GM gets 1 hand selected manager or two?

 

Either way, from what I've read Hendry was influenced to hire Dusty so I am not sure he counts. Furthermore, he was hired what 6 months into Hendry's rein?

 

I think he gets at least another year

[Soriano12]

I bash Hendry alot, but who knows. His back is up against the wall..he needs

to deliver an ace this offseason. Maybe he can save his job.

 

He needs to:

 

1) Sign players you think the team needs not the manager(ie Neifi)

 

2) Consider Wood's career done and Prior's in doubt. I'm not saying get rid

of them, just conisder them non-facotrs. If they come back strong. Bonus.

 

3) There might be something to this OBP thing.

 

4) No re-tread managers. Get Girardi or Gonzales.

 

5) He needs to hustle a team again with a trade. ie a Derrek Lee deal

 

I actually wouldn't want to fire Jim after this season. The idiot created a mess, lets see if he can fix it.

[goonys evil twin]

Yeah, what is the rule of thumb, a GM gets 1 hand selected manager or two?

 

Either way, from what I've read Hendry was influenced to hire Dusty so I am not sure he counts. Furthermore, he was hired what 6 months into Hendry's rein?

 

I think he gets at least another year

 

I don't think there is a rule of thumb. But Lynch got two, correct?

 

Everything I heard was that Jim was head over heals for Dusty, and had been for quite some time. He absolutely counts. Jim was asst GM for a long time, supposedly doing much of the work.

[neely crenshaw]

a few weeks ago the had an interview with a gm. it may have been scherholz but i can not remember. regardless, what he said was very interesting. he was asked what made him better than other gm's. he said he thought the thing that set him apart was that recognizing mistakes and fixing them he said all gm's make mistakes..it's just that many of them won't admit it and go down trying to justify there move.

 

it really seems like that is happening at all levels with the cubs.

the trib won't can MacPhail because he was there guy to fix this..he hasn't

MacPhail won't fire hendry because he was handpicked to fix and extended..but he also hasn't sone it.

baker did not get fired because he was hendry's guy and he also didn't get it done

the other thing is that as long as hendry had baker...baker took far more heat than hendry. if he had been fired last year or early this and we fell apart..it would certainly point more towards hendry.

this also works for MacPhail. if he cans hendry, it will his 3rd gm, if the next gm does not get it done won't that reflect even more on MacPhail?

they each had a built in buffer as long as they were all here...

 

now that will have to be changed. if hendry hires his guy, whoever that may be, and the team does not improve, it has got to be hendry's fault.

i still can't see how hendry has a job period, let alone got an extension! i certainly could see a move made after the season also..but we can only hope!

is there anyway he has a job if next year continues the trend?

[garsky]

The only smart move Andy MacPhail can make is to fire both Baker AND Hendry. I say this for two reasons, one economic, one baseball.

 

Economically speaking, the Trib is in trouble. Their bond rating is just above junk status. They're having some serious shareholder trouble. The newspaper division just went through a wave of layoffs and circulation, ad revenue and classified revenue are all down. In the light of that, what do you think the sight of empty seats at Wrigley is doing to their execs? Hint: it involves having to change one's underwear.

 

They can't afford to have their cash cow hurting; an easy fix would be to spend a couple of million dollars and remake the front office. I'd even go so far as to say they may allow a small bump in budget to allow a big-name free-agent signing; anything to make sure they don't have a problem selling tickets next spring.

 

Baseball-wise, there simply cannot be a decent potential manager out there who doesn't recognize that Hendry's on the hot seat. Who'd want to work for a boss who is close to being fired? The Cubs will have real trouble trying to get a decent manager to take their job with Hendry halfway out the door.

 

For once, I fully expect Andy MacPhail to do the right thing and clean house.

[Soriano12]

 

For once, I fully expect Andy MacPhail to do the right thing and clean house.

 

 

Then he should be fair about it and fire himself.

 

If the Cubs would have accepting the sosa contract as a operating loss and

not tied it into their budget they could have had the $$$ to get Beltran.

 

Beltran was a key signing to offset the power loss of Alou and Sosa.

 

You can blame McFailure and that tool FitzSimmons for that.