[frostwyrm]

After Z's new deal we'll have about $90M committed in 2009 to 7 players who collectively are a very shaky group. That is utterly indefensible.

Z - outstanding

ARam - pretty darned good

Lee - pretty good

Soriano - pretty good

 

DeRosa - meh (pretty minor dollars in the grand scheme)

 

Lilly - meh to blech (but tradeable if he stays healthy)

 

Marquis - double blech

 

The top 4 guys are a pretty solid core, though. Yeah, Soriano's going to be overpaid. The others are worth their money, though.

 

Well, you do think more highly of this bunch than I do. I don't suppose you think they're worth the whole $90M? That's enough money to pay a whole team.

My guess is that Lilly & Marquis have been traded away by 2009. That brings the price down to $70 for Zambrano, Ramirez, Lee, Soriano & DeRosa. That doesn't sound nearly as bad to me.

Marquis is due $9.88M in 2009. It will be very tough to find a taker for that. Lilly? Could be tradeable, but probably not without eating some salary. I coud be wrong about that. I don't have much confidence in Aram's work ethic or his ability to age gracefully. I foresee sagging fitness, resulting in a parade of nagging lower-body injuries cutting into his playing time. Lee will regress from his 2005 numbers and his wrist injury might have longterm effects. Z is great but I wouldn't pay any pitcher what he will get. Soriano's is the contract that will turn out to be the real stinkbomb of the bunch. I HATE that contract.

[BigbadB]

If Cub fans are willing to absorb ticket price increases each and every year like they have been, maybe 90m for 7 players won't really be that hard to work around. :wink:

[CubsWin]

It wasn't a sure thing that Wood, Prior and Garciaparra would get injured. If they hadn't, it seems logical that the Cubs may have performed like a 90-95 million dollar team should. Don't you think?

Nomar was a known injury risk and the Cubs should've stopped counting on Kerry Wood a whole lot sooner than they did.

I couldn't agree more with you on Kerry. And, yes, Nomar was an injury risk and I believe I acknowledged that Hendry took a gamble and lost, but when the facts are reviewed, Nomar's average games played per season going into 2005 was 123 games. He played in half that many in '05 (62 games) and had his worst year statistically because he rushed back and was still playing injured. So the 62 games Hendry did get out of Nomar weren't very Nomar like, thus is was like not having him there at all. Had Nomar missed his usual 35-40 games and performed like he had the previous three seasons, the Cubs would certainly have won more games. Its not fair to call Nomar an injury risk and then stop the discussion. The facts show that while he clearly was/is an injury risk, the Cubs got unlucky with the extent of his injury and his performance level when he returned. Expecting Hendry or anyone to know that Nomar would have his worst year of his career in '05 (or 2nd to worst if you consider '01 worse) is kind of crazy. I seriously doubt that there exists a statistical analysis that could have accurately predicted Nomar's '05 outcome.

 

I admit Prior's situation was unfortunate and unforeseeable, but bear in mind Prior never ate up much payroll.

I did, but I may not have been clear about it. The payroll I was referring to was paid to Wood and Nomar in '05. If you remove their salaries from the Cubs payroll that season, they drop into the middle of the pack.

 

But every team, even high priced ones rely on some cheaper, younger players to contribute to their success. Maybe only the Yankees can afford to have 10 million dollar plus veterans fill every position. Even the Red Sox with their payroll still needed more than what Jonathon Papelbon could give them last season to get into the playoffs. Imagine what their record would have been had he gotten injured for a large chunk of the season. Prior's injury counts because of how good he was and how their really was no reason to think going into '05 that he wouldn't be completely healthy. If there was reason, Hendry would have had the chance to do something about it. Of course with the way he dragged his feet in preparing for the eventuality that Wood might get injured, he might not have done anything at all. :wink:

[CubsWin]

Soriano's is the contract that will turn out to be the real stinkbomb of the bunch. I HATE that contract.

I agree it's got a good chance to be an albatross towards the end, and Hendry should have broke the bank for Beltran and not Soriano, but it is impossible to know if he had the green light to do so back then. Plus, with the way Soriano is built and the shape he keeps himself in, he might not be so terrible at 37 and 38.

 

Unfortunately, you can't pick and choose who is going to be the best free agent in a given off season. I believe Hendry when he says that if the Cubs didn't pay Soriano that much money, someone else would have. We see it happen every year. Why should this season be any different? So given that, the choice isn't between Soriano at 8/136 or Soriano at 6/90. The choice is Soriano at 8/136 or not Soriano and who knows who else. Maybe Drew, maybe not. There was no clear overture from his camp that he was willing to play for the Cubs. If not Drew in CF or RF, then who? The drop-off was pretty steep after J.D.

 

So it seems to me that you aren't looking at these contracts from a realistic point of view. Of course Soriano is overpaid and in comparison to other FA contracts signed last year or the year before, it looks ridiculous. But in reality, every market is different and impossible to anticipate. And who knows what a bargain will be next year or 2-3 years down the road. Plus, if you had to choose between Soriano or who knows what else, which in reality may have been the choice Hendry faced, which would you choose?

[CubsWin]

Not to take anything away from any other posters here, but I just wanted to thank CubsWin for his contributions to this board. His posts are always seem to be especially well thought out, well-reasoned, level-headed, and fair.

 

Agreed. It's fun having someone to argue with.

Thanks, guys. It is fun.

 

And Danny82, Bertrand Russell is a wise man. :wink:

[tkenm356]

I don't have anything new to add, I just want to say kudos on the Harrison Ford film reference

[soccer10k]

Not that anyone really needs this level of information but here goes anyway...

 

Drawing a linear trendline through (67, 88, 89, 79, 66) yields a slightly downward-sloping line of the form:

 

y = -1.1x + 81.1

 

The key piece of information here is the -1.1.

 

It tells us that if the 5 year "Hendry trend" continues, the Cubs should be expected to win 1.1 fewer games every year going forward. In year 6, the Cubs' win total projects to ~75.

 

So the guy who drew that perfectly flat line through the datapoints was actually being generous. :(

 

Thank you. And it is worse if you want to say Hendry started in 2003.

 

The key point which all of you are forgetting here is the correlation. For that data, the R^2 value is 0.0249 and the R value is -0.1578. Those low values show there is a very little linear relationship for the data provided.

[RichHillIsABeast]

Not that anyone really needs this level of information but here goes anyway...

 

Drawing a linear trendline through (67, 88, 89, 79, 66) yields a slightly downward-sloping line of the form:

 

y = -1.1x + 81.1

 

The key piece of information here is the -1.1.

 

It tells us that if the 5 year "Hendry trend" continues, the Cubs should be expected to win 1.1 fewer games every year going forward. In year 6, the Cubs' win total projects to ~75.

 

So the guy who drew that perfectly flat line through the datapoints was actually being generous. :(

 

Thank you. And it is worse if you want to say Hendry started in 2003.

 

The key point which all of you are forgetting here is the correlation. For that data, the R^2 value is 0.0249 and the R value is -0.1578. Those low values show there is a very little linear relationship for the data provided.

 

Don't spoil this for him.

[Backtobanks]

After Z's new deal we'll have about $90M committed in 2009 to 7 players who collectively are a very shaky group. That is utterly indefensible.

Z - outstanding

ARam - pretty darned good

Lee - pretty good

Soriano - pretty good

 

DeRosa - meh (pretty minor dollars in the grand scheme)

 

Lilly - meh to blech (but tradeable if he stays healthy)

 

Marquis - double blech

 

The top 4 guys are a pretty solid core, though. Yeah, Soriano's going to be overpaid. The others are worth their money, though.

 

Well, you do think more highly of this bunch than I do. I don't suppose you think they're worth the whole $90M? That's enough money to pay a whole team.

My guess is that Lilly & Marquis have been traded away by 2009. That brings the price down to $70 for Zambrano, Ramirez, Lee, Soriano & DeRosa. That doesn't sound nearly as bad to me.

Marquis is due $9.88M in 2009. It will be very tough to find a taker for that. Lilly? Could be tradeable, but probably not without eating some salary. I coud be wrong about that. I don't have much confidence in Aram's work ethic or his ability to age gracefully. I foresee sagging fitness, resulting in a parade of nagging lower-body injuries cutting into his playing time. Lee will regress from his 2005 numbers and his wrist injury might have longterm effects. Z is great but I wouldn't pay any pitcher what he will get. Soriano's is the contract that will turn out to be the real stinkbomb of the bunch. I HATE that contract.

 

Boy, you must have been a Cub fan for a long time to be that pessimistic. If they're paying $10 million per for mediocre pitchers in 2006, Marquis and Lilly might be bargains by 2009. I don't see any real reason why Lee shouldn't rebound. As for the other contract issues, baseball owners are rolling in money and they will end up passing the additional costs on to the fans anyhow. If you look at what the Cubs (and a few other teams) spent this offseason, you realize that these owners have been pocketing a ton of profits over the years.

[CubinNY]

If you remove their salaries from the Cubs payroll that season, they drop into the middle of the pack.

 

This is the type of thing you do every freaking time you try to defend Hendry and the Cubs.

 

Anyone can play the "if" game. It doesn't change history.

[CubinNY]

Not that anyone really needs this level of information but here goes anyway...

 

Drawing a linear trendline through (67, 88, 89, 79, 66) yields a slightly downward-sloping line of the form:

 

y = -1.1x + 81.1

 

The key piece of information here is the -1.1.

 

It tells us that if the 5 year "Hendry trend" continues, the Cubs should be expected to win 1.1 fewer games every year going forward. In year 6, the Cubs' win total projects to ~75.

 

So the guy who drew that perfectly flat line through the datapoints was actually being generous. :(

 

Thank you. And it is worse if you want to say Hendry started in 2003.

 

The key point which all of you are forgetting here is the correlation. For that data, the R^2 value is 0.0249 and the R value is -0.1578. Those low values show there is a very little linear relationship for the data provided.

 

Don't spoil this for him.

 

We are not talking about corelations. The data are for years and wins. That is the data set. The reason why their isn't a linear relationship is because the Cubs didn't win more games every year.

 

As the years go up the wins must go up to have a linear relationship. Analyzing trends has nothing to do with corelations though. Correlations have to do with things like runs scored and wins or runs allowed and wins. Time is not an independent variable unless one is talking about human development over the life span.

 

RichHillisaBeast you never have a clue. Not even a hint of one any time you post in a thread.

[Guest]

Not that anyone really needs this level of information but here goes anyway...

 

Drawing a linear trendline through (67, 88, 89, 79, 66) yields a slightly downward-sloping line of the form:

 

y = -1.1x + 81.1

 

The key piece of information here is the -1.1.

 

It tells us that if the 5 year "Hendry trend" continues, the Cubs should be expected to win 1.1 fewer games every year going forward. In year 6, the Cubs' win total projects to ~75.

 

So the guy who drew that perfectly flat line through the datapoints was actually being generous. :(

 

Thank you. And it is worse if you want to say Hendry started in 2003.

 

The key point which all of you are forgetting here is the correlation. For that data, the R^2 value is 0.0249 and the R value is -0.1578. Those low values show there is a very little linear relationship for the data provided.

What exactly are you correlating here? I only see one variable. Or are you using time, for crying out loud?

[Guest]

RichHillisaBeast you never have a clue. Not even a hint of one any time you post in a thread.

Debunking the point was enough. No need for this.

[CubinNY]

RichHillisaBeast you never have a clue. Not even a hint of one any time you post in a thread.

Debunking the point was enough. No need for this.

 

Noted. I will attempt more civilitiy, but "don't spoil it for him" kind of got to me.

[Soul]

I'm too lazy a mind to work out all these statistics. It makes me want to go scratch my fingernails on a chalk board for a couple hours and then shoot myself.

 

Regarding Mr. Hendry: this is his last hurrah, the last ditch effort to turn this thing around before he's fired. At least he's making an effort of it. I do appreciate his hard work, but it needs to start paying off, right now.

[BigbadB]

I'm too lazy a mind to work out all these statistics. It makes me want to go scratch my fingernails on a chalk board for a couple hours and then shoot myself.

 

Regarding Mr. Hendry: this is his last hurrah, the last ditch effort to turn this thing around before he's fired. At least he's making an effort of it. I do appreciate his hard work, but it needs to start paying off, right now.

 

I wouldn't have a problem with worst to first, but how often does it happen? I'll go into it with an open mind because he did do some good this offseason, but something does need to happen this year for him to retain his job.

[CubColtPacer]

I'm too lazy a mind to work out all these statistics. It makes me want to go scratch my fingernails on a chalk board for a couple hours and then shoot myself.

 

Regarding Mr. Hendry: this is his last hurrah, the last ditch effort to turn this thing around before he's fired. At least he's making an effort of it. I do appreciate his hard work, but it needs to start paying off, right now.

 

I wouldn't have a problem with worst to first, but how often does it happen? I'll go into it with an open mind because he did do some good this offseason, but something does need to happen this year for him to retain his job.

 

I have a feeling if they are at least in contention for most of the year Hendry will keep his job. Remember that he has a contract through 2008, and if the team shows that improvement they'll let him have his last year of the deal to see if he can get the team into the playoffs.

[FergieJ31]

For all the sophistication usually demonstrated on nsbb I'm astonished by the direction this thread has taken. Evaluating a GM via a linear regression based on 5 data points? Wow. I won't even go into how awful a linear model is here. Correlation has nothing to do with it - I'm not even sure what the correlating variables would be here.

 

Yes the "trend" is -1.1 wins per year but the standard error of that slope is a whopping +/- 12. You can conclude nothing statistically there; it's absurd to even bring it up.

[Amazing_Grace]

I think the real issue with Hendry is not how he negotiates with individual players or how he handles free agent signings and trades. Hendry's record signing FA's and trading is not much different than most GMs. There's some very good, and some very bad.

 

I think the real issue is how he chooses to build a team and the problems inherent with that philosophy. The stats he looks at when evaluating players are laughable (RISP AVG for hitters, are there ANY pitching stats he mentions), and the ones he ignores are perhaps the most important to actually winning baseball games. He makes the same mistake on both sides of the ball, undervaluing the walk. Our pitchers walk too many people (WHIP) and our hitters don't take enough walks (OBP). The Cubs will have to get better in these two areas in order to be a consistently better team. Will they be better this year in those areas? Maybe, but it isn't because Hendry saw the light and changed what he was doing. If we do get better, it will be mainly because we stayed healthy and spent a ton of money in the FA market this offseason.

 

Now, when I said the Cubs record got worse every season under Hendry, that was wrong. I still maintain, however, the Cubs organization has gotten consistently worse. When he leaves, he'll most likely leave the Cubs in a worse state than when he started.

[soccer10k]

Not that anyone really needs this level of information but here goes anyway...

 

Drawing a linear trendline through (67, 88, 89, 79, 66) yields a slightly downward-sloping line of the form:

 

y = -1.1x + 81.1

 

The key piece of information here is the -1.1.

 

It tells us that if the 5 year "Hendry trend" continues, the Cubs should be expected to win 1.1 fewer games every year going forward. In year 6, the Cubs' win total projects to ~75.

 

So the guy who drew that perfectly flat line through the datapoints was actually being generous. :(

 

Thank you. And it is worse if you want to say Hendry started in 2003.

 

The key point which all of you are forgetting here is the correlation. For that data, the R^2 value is 0.0249 and the R value is -0.1578. Those low values show there is a very little linear relationship for the data provided.

 

Don't spoil this for him.

 

We are not talking about corelations. The data are for years and wins. That is the data set. The reason why their isn't a linear relationship is because the Cubs didn't win more games every year.

 

As the years go up the wins must go up to have a linear relationship. Analyzing trends has nothing to do with corelations though. Correlations have to do with things like runs scored and wins or runs allowed and wins. Time is not an independent variable unless one is talking about human development over the life span.

 

RichHillisaBeast you never have a clue. Not even a hint of one any time you post in a thread.

 

You can have a linear relationship whether the Cubs win more or lose more games every year. It doesn't matter whether the trendline goes up or down, you can come up with a linear trendline and relationship.

 

Thanks for the clarification (by you and Tim) about the time not being an independent variable, I forgot about that. But either way, the gist of my point remains and a linear trendline is an absolutely horrible predictor for this data and you can tell that just by looking at the data. You can make the argument that the team has gotten progressively worse over the five years but it would be an extremely weak argument to use the trendline to do so.

[frostwyrm]

Soriano's is the contract that will turn out to be the real stinkbomb of the bunch. I HATE that contract.

I agree it's got a good chance to be an albatross towards the end, and Hendry should have broke the bank for Beltran and not Soriano, but it is impossible to know if he had the green light to do so back then. Plus, with the way Soriano is built and the shape he keeps himself in, he might not be so terrible at 37 and 38.

 

Unfortunately, you can't pick and choose who is going to be the best free agent in a given off season. I believe Hendry when he says that if the Cubs didn't pay Soriano that much money, someone else would have. We see it happen every year. Why should this season be any different? So given that, the choice isn't between Soriano at 8/136 or Soriano at 6/90. The choice is Soriano at 8/136 or not Soriano and who knows who else. Maybe Drew, maybe not. There was no clear overture from his camp that he was willing to play for the Cubs. If not Drew in CF or RF, then who? The drop-off was pretty steep after J.D.

 

So it seems to me that you aren't looking at these contracts from a realistic point of view. Of course Soriano is overpaid and in comparison to other FA contracts signed last year or the year before, it looks ridiculous. But in reality, every market is different and impossible to anticipate. And who knows what a bargain will be next year or 2-3 years down the road. Plus, if you had to choose between Soriano or who knows what else, which in reality may have been the choice Hendry faced, which would you choose?

 

Easy choice for me: use 2007 to rebuild, look to make a run in 2008. Not for one second would I have considered going 8/136 for Alfonso Soriano. This entire spending spree would been postponed for a year. Z would already have been traded for ARod. No way do I give any pitcher a Zito type deal, which is what Z will be getting soon. Neither of Lilly/Marquis would be here, especially not Marquis. IMO Marquis is purely a panic move to save Hendry's job. Aram gave us a hometown discount, so I guess I would have kept him. Pie and EPat would have all of 2007 to show us what they've got, and all the young starting pitchers would be given a chance to step up and claim a rotation slot for 2008. Obviously Pierre should have been traded for a prospect who could have helped the big team in 2008.

 

 

Edit: changed dates.

Edited January 27, 2007 by frostwyrm

[Guest]

For all the sophistication usually demonstrated on nsbb I'm astonished by the direction this thread has taken. Evaluating a GM via a linear regression based on 5 data points? Wow. I won't even go into how awful a linear model is here. Correlation has nothing to do with it - I'm not even sure what the correlating variables would be here.

 

Yes the "trend" is -1.1 wins per year but the standard error of that slope is a whopping +/- 12. You can conclude nothing statistically there; it's absurd to even bring it up.

:D

[A New Era]

Soriano's is the contract that will turn out to be the real stinkbomb of the bunch. I HATE that contract.

I agree it's got a good chance to be an albatross towards the end, and Hendry should have broke the bank for Beltran and not Soriano, but it is impossible to know if he had the green light to do so back then. Plus, with the way Soriano is built and the shape he keeps himself in, he might not be so terrible at 37 and 38.

 

Unfortunately, you can't pick and choose who is going to be the best free agent in a given off season. I believe Hendry when he says that if the Cubs didn't pay Soriano that much money, someone else would have. We see it happen every year. Why should this season be any different? So given that, the choice isn't between Soriano at 8/136 or Soriano at 6/90. The choice is Soriano at 8/136 or not Soriano and who knows who else. Maybe Drew, maybe not. There was no clear overture from his camp that he was willing to play for the Cubs. If not Drew in CF or RF, then who? The drop-off was pretty steep after J.D.

 

So it seems to me that you aren't looking at these contracts from a realistic point of view. Of course Soriano is overpaid and in comparison to other FA contracts signed last year or the year before, it looks ridiculous. But in reality, every market is different and impossible to anticipate. And who knows what a bargain will be next year or 2-3 years down the road. Plus, if you had to choose between Soriano or who knows what else, which in reality may have been the choice Hendry faced, which would you choose?

 

Easy choice for me: use 2008 to rebuild, look to make a run in 2009. Not for one second would I have considered going 8/136 for Alfonso Soriano. This entire spending spree would been postponed for a year. Z would already have been traded for ARod. No way do I give any pitcher a Zito type deal, which is what Z will be getting soon. Neither of Lilly/Marquis would be here, especially not Marquis. IMO Marquis is purely a panic move to save Hendry's job. Aram gave us a hometown discount, so I guess I would have kept him. Pie and EPat would have all of 2008 to show us what they've got, and all the young starting pitchers would be given a chance to step up and claim a rotation slot for 2009. Obviously Pierre should have been traded for a prospect who could have helped the big team in 2009.

 

Here's the problem with that. One of Hendry's "cards" to get Aram to stay was probably telling him how the purse was opened and they were going to be really aggressive this off-season. As Aram probably wanted to be on a team that would compete to win now. I do agree with you on Lilly and Marquis. However I am happy we are in a win now mode.

[frostwyrm]

Soriano's is the contract that will turn out to be the real stinkbomb of the bunch. I HATE that contract.

I agree it's got a good chance to be an albatross towards the end, and Hendry should have broke the bank for Beltran and not Soriano, but it is impossible to know if he had the green light to do so back then. Plus, with the way Soriano is built and the shape he keeps himself in, he might not be so terrible at 37 and 38.

 

Unfortunately, you can't pick and choose who is going to be the best free agent in a given off season. I believe Hendry when he says that if the Cubs didn't pay Soriano that much money, someone else would have. We see it happen every year. Why should this season be any different? So given that, the choice isn't between Soriano at 8/136 or Soriano at 6/90. The choice is Soriano at 8/136 or not Soriano and who knows who else. Maybe Drew, maybe not. There was no clear overture from his camp that he was willing to play for the Cubs. If not Drew in CF or RF, then who? The drop-off was pretty steep after J.D.

 

So it seems to me that you aren't looking at these contracts from a realistic point of view. Of course Soriano is overpaid and in comparison to other FA contracts signed last year or the year before, it looks ridiculous. But in reality, every market is different and impossible to anticipate. And who knows what a bargain will be next year or 2-3 years down the road. Plus, if you had to choose between Soriano or who knows what else, which in reality may have been the choice Hendry faced, which would you choose?

 

Easy choice for me: use 2008 to rebuild, look to make a run in 2009. Not for one second would I have considered going 8/136 for Alfonso Soriano. This entire spending spree would been postponed for a year. Z would already have been traded for ARod. No way do I give any pitcher a Zito type deal, which is what Z will be getting soon. Neither of Lilly/Marquis would be here, especially not Marquis. IMO Marquis is purely a panic move to save Hendry's job. Aram gave us a hometown discount, so I guess I would have kept him. Pie and EPat would have all of 2008 to show us what they've got, and all the young starting pitchers would be given a chance to step up and claim a rotation slot for 2009. Obviously Pierre should have been traded for a prospect who could have helped the big team in 2009.

 

Here's the problem with that. One of Hendry's "cards" to get Aram to stay was probably telling him how the purse was opened and they were going to be really aggressive this off-season. As Aram probably wanted to be on a team that would compete to win now. I do agree with you on Lilly and Marquis. However I am happy we are in a win now mode.

 

If the price of keeping Aram was handing out all these insane contracts to win now then I would have let Aram walk, as painful as that would have been. He's not Albert Pujols. You don't base a team's entire future around placating Aramis Ramirez. Also, it's very possible Aram might have been persuaded to stay if he believed the Cubs were making a big push in 2008.

 

 

 

Edit: changed date.

Edited January 27, 2007 by frostwyrm

[CubinNY]

For all the sophistication usually demonstrated on nsbb I'm astonished by the direction this thread has taken. Evaluating a GM via a linear regression based on 5 data points? Wow. I won't even go into how awful a linear model is here. Correlation has nothing to do with it - I'm not even sure what the correlating variables would be here.

 

Yes the "trend" is -1.1 wins per year but the standard error of that slope is a whopping +/- 12. You can conclude nothing statistically there; it's absurd to even bring it up.

Which is why I didn't do it in the first place. To look at the trend you don't need to use the least square method or statistics. It is the wrong tool for the job in this case. The point I orginally made was that the Cubs are right where they were 10 years ago. They have gone nowhere.

Edited January 27, 2007 by CubinNY