[BigbadB]

Let's see the A's lose their two best pitchers to injuries and make the playoffs, much less post winning seasons.

 

Glass half empty I guess.

 

I might go along with your line of thinking if there was no doubt that the organization itself had zero to do with those injuries. Overuse is well documented. Pitcher abuse is well documented.

 

The injuries suffered by these two starting pitchers are related to overuse. I can't just quickly excuse Hendry from these injuries when one considers that there is a very good chance that they could have been avoided.

[RichHillIsABeast]

Let's see the A's lose their two best pitchers to injuries and make the playoffs, much less post winning seasons.

 

Glass half empty I guess.

 

I might go along with your line of thinking if there was no doubt that the organization itself had zero to do with those injuries. Overuse is well documented. Pitcher abuse is well documented.

 

The injuries suffered by these two starting pitchers are related to overuse. I can't just quickly excuse Hendry from these injuries when one considers that there is a very good chance that they could have been avoided.

 

How did overuse lead to injuries? Prior had some fluke injuries. Any injury to a pitcher (his weren't minor) affects your delivery and mechanics. Bad things resulted. Overuse didn't help, but I doubt it killed his arm. Giles and Hawpe took care of that.

 

I don't blame the Cubs for Prior.

 

Woody may be a different story, then again he could have been damaged coming out of high school.

 

Lots of organizations lose pitchers, we just happened to lose two high profiles guys. I wouldn't say the Cubs are worse than other orgs. It just seems that way b/c of the guys we lost.

[BigbadB]

I'm not saying that the injuries were caused by overuse. I'm just saying that it is possible. And because it is possible, I can't simply excuse those 2 injuries from Hendry's portfolio.

 

It is recommended that you get an oil change every 3,000 miles. If you wait until 5,000 miles, you may not see the damage created by waiting so long until well down the road. Then, you don't know if the damage is normal where and tear or if it was from waiting too long to get those oil changes.

[imb]

He's made plenty of mistakes. I list them often. But I also list his accomplishments.

 

The problem is he doesn't have any accomplishments.

 

Yup. 2003 was crap. So was 2004.

 

He accomplished to construct an 88 and then an 89 win team, that in the end accomplished nothing more than one playoff series win. So, I guess that's what we have in the accomplishment category, one playoff series. 4 years, one series win. A sub .500 record. Yay for lowered expectations.

 

So the A's didn't accomplish anything until recently? Right on.

 

The A's also did managed their accomplishments in a tougher league, with payrolls under consistently under 60 million dollars. Why is context so difficult?

[Soul]

He's made plenty of mistakes. I list them often. But I also list his accomplishments.

 

The problem is he doesn't have any accomplishments.

 

Yup. 2003 was crap. So was 2004.

 

He accomplished to construct an 88 and then an 89 win team, that in the end accomplished nothing more than one playoff series win. So, I guess that's what we have in the accomplishment category, one playoff series. 4 years, one series win. A sub .500 record. Yay for lowered expectations.

 

So the A's didn't accomplish anything until recently? Right on.

 

The A's also did managed their accomplishments in a tougher league, with payrolls under consistently under 60 million dollars. Why is context so difficult?

 

Who cares about context? Just win the damn series. Cardinals won it with 83 wins and a couple boxes of band aids for their ailing lineup. Why does it matter that they did it in an easy division? They're the Champs....and the A's aren't. That's what matters.

[frostwyrm]

One of Hendry's worst traits is grossly overvaluing fluky good seasons from mediocre talents. Eyre, Howry, Dempster, Neifi, and obviously Soriano have all gotten fat contracts based largely on one season. Hollandsworth was named an opening day starter based on a quarter season's worth of AB's. Macias parlayed an 11-20 streak into 2 full years with the Cubs. Burnitz got a starting gig based on playing one half of one season at Coor's Field. Howry's been good so far but he's only one third of the way thru his contract. Can't really say Howry's been a bargain, since he ought to be good considering he's being paid top dollar for his role.

 

No pitchers gained through FA are going to be a bargain. But Howry and Eyre could be both easily moved w/o eating salary.

 

Probably true. The market is sky high right now, and Howry had a good season. Eyre wasn't particulary good(.800 OPS allowed) but the market always overvalues lefties.

[RichHillIsABeast]

One of Hendry's worst traits is grossly overvaluing fluky good seasons from mediocre talents. Eyre, Howry, Dempster, Neifi, and obviously Soriano have all gotten fat contracts based largely on one season. Hollandsworth was named an opening day starter based on a quarter season's worth of AB's. Macias parlayed an 11-20 streak into 2 full years with the Cubs. Burnitz got a starting gig based on playing one half of one season at Coor's Field. Howry's been good so far but he's only one third of the way thru his contract. Can't really say Howry's been a bargain, since he ought to be good considering he's being paid top dollar for his role.

 

No pitchers gained through FA are going to be a bargain. But Howry and Eyre could be both easily moved w/o eating salary.

 

Probably true. The market is sky high right now, and Howry had a good season. Eyre wasn't particulary good(.800 OPS allowed) but the market always overvalues lefties.

 

Eyre was pretty good when he wasn't injured (or nursing a boo boo or 2). If you look at his splits he did great until then.

 

Eyre really needs to get in shape. I think he dropped 20+ lbs this offseason. We'll see. The guy was happy to work under Dusty and Larry b/c they didn't make you run a lot... :lol:

[frostwyrm]

One of Hendry's worst traits is grossly overvaluing fluky good seasons from mediocre talents. Eyre, Howry, Dempster, Neifi, and obviously Soriano have all gotten fat contracts based largely on one season. Hollandsworth was named an opening day starter based on a quarter season's worth of AB's. Macias parlayed an 11-20 streak into 2 full years with the Cubs. Burnitz got a starting gig based on playing one half of one season at Coor's Field. Howry's been good so far but he's only one third of the way thru his contract. Can't really say Howry's been a bargain, since he ought to be good considering he's being paid top dollar for his role.

 

No pitchers gained through FA are going to be a bargain. But Howry and Eyre could be both easily moved w/o eating salary.

 

Probably true. The market is sky high right now, and Howry had a good season. Eyre wasn't particulary good(.800 OPS allowed) but the market always overvalues lefties.

 

Eyre was pretty good when he wasn't injured (or nursing a boo boo or 2). If you look at his splits he did great until then.

 

Eyre really needs to get in shape. I think he dropped 20+ lbs this offseason. We'll see. The guy was happy to work under Dusty and Larry b/c they didn't make you run a lot... :lol:

 

Dude was fat.

[imb]

He's made plenty of mistakes. I list them often. But I also list his accomplishments.

 

The problem is he doesn't have any accomplishments.

 

Yup. 2003 was crap. So was 2004.

 

He accomplished to construct an 88 and then an 89 win team, that in the end accomplished nothing more than one playoff series win. So, I guess that's what we have in the accomplishment category, one playoff series. 4 years, one series win. A sub .500 record. Yay for lowered expectations.

 

So the A's didn't accomplish anything until recently? Right on.

 

The A's also did managed their accomplishments in a tougher league, with payrolls under consistently under 60 million dollars. Why is context so difficult?

 

Who cares about context? Just win the damn series. Cardinals won it with 83 wins and a couple boxes of band aids for their ailing lineup. Why does it matter that they did it in an easy division? They're the Champs....and the A's aren't. That's what matters.

 

Who cares about context? If you don't understand the importance of context when comparing two teams accomplishments, then i dont know what to say. The rest of the stuff you wrote has nothing to do with what I said, so I'm not sure why you posted it. You certainly formed letters into words, though, so nice job on that.

[RynoRules]

Context matters.

 

Here is context I wish to see in the future: "Cubs are 07' WS Champs".

 

I don't care how they do it - with a 60 mill payroll or a 200 mill payroll - so long as it is within the rules of the game.

 

Just win baby.

[CubsWin]

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.

Since you removed the context of the above quote, allow me to put it back in.

 

I agree that Hendry could have done a better job of having a back-up plan for Wood. But going into '05, Kerry was just one year removed from two fully healthy seasons in '02 and '03. Using straight statistical analysis and no scouting info or medical reports, leading up to the '05 season Kerry was averaging 27.3 starts per season. Not bad. In '05, he started just 10. That's clearly an unpredictable, tough luck loss for the Cubs.

 

The same goes for Nomar in '05. He was averaging 123 games per year going into '05 which means on average he missed about 35-40 games a year. In '05 he missed 100. And in the 62 he played, he produced his worst numbers of his career, so it was really like not having Nomar on the team at all, yet the Cubs were still paying him his full salary.

 

If Wood and Nomar still get injured, but play their normal amount of games and perform to their norms of the previous 3 seasons, the Cubs are going to win a lot more than 79 games.

 

That was the context of the sentence you quoted. It was in response to a post about how Hendry wasn't able to produce more wins despite spending 90 million plus in team salary which is a position that completely ignores the magnitude of the injuries incurred by several key Cubs over the last 3 seasons.

 

I wasn't saying just magically remove these two large salaries and the Cubs would be near the middle of the pack of team payrolls. I was saying that since wins are being used as the sole judge of Hendry as GM and because happenstance caused two all-star caliber Cubs to basically be taken off the team, it is only fair to look at their team payroll as if Nomar's and Wood's salaries weren't on it when comparing team payroll to team wins. If I remember correctly what they each got paid that year, removing their combined salaries would have dropped the Cubs near the middle of the pack in team payroll and their 79 wins would also have been near the middle of the pack that season.

 

Now, other teams also had to deal with injuries, but it would be difficult to come up with another team that lost a starter the caliber of Kerry Wood for all but 10 starts and a hitter the caliber of Nomar Garciaparra for essentially the whole year that still finished well above .500.

Any thoughts/response, CubinNY?

[CubsWin]

Falling back on the injuries excuse won't work forever. At some point, you have to show some results.

You say that like there haven't been any major injuries to big time players over the last three seasons. If the Cubs suffer the league average type and amount of injuries over that span, they certainly make the playoffs in '04 and possibly some of the other years, too. Its difficult to say. Having Sosa deteriorate so quickly made it hard. Hendry had to rebuild on the fly. Before Hendry, as Sosa went, so went the Cubs. Now, the team has several good hitters. That's improvement. That's results. Wins and losses are not the only way to judge a GM. In fact, they're not even a good way to judge a GM.

 

Look, Hendry has signed guys that I hate. He has failed to provide a good bench, got bit taking gambles on some players like Nomar, failed to go the extra mile on Beltran, made a dumb trade for Pierre, failed to do what it took to get the Cubs in the playoffs in '04 and waited a year or two too long to stop counting on Kerry Wood. The list goes on. He's made plenty of mistakes. I list them often. But I also list his accomplishments.

 

You make a good point about wins and losses not being the only way to evaluate a general manager. Again, I don't think he is much better or worse than other GM's in the players he's signed and traded for. He's done some good, Barrett and Ramirez in particualar, and Lee to a somewhat lesser extent. He's done some bad, Jacque Jones, Neifi Perez, Juan Pierre. He's had some things that should have been good backfire because of injury, like Nomar.

I basically agree. Though, so far, I would put Jones in the good catagory. Its not like he had a lot of RFers to choose from that off season and looking back, he did pretty well. Jones wasn't who I wanted him to sign. I was pulling for Brian Giles who apparently never wanted to leave San Diego. And a good thing that was, too, when you look at the numbers he put up last season.

 

If that were the bottom line, I'd be fine with Hendry as GM, but it isn't. He has repeatedly and consistently ignored the value of OBP on both sides of the ball, while overvaluing speed, SBs, and RISP AVG (which isn't useful at all because there isn't any evidence that the stat is related to anything other than the hitter's non RISP AVG). He refuses to recognize the problem, even though last year's team was middle of the pack in batting average, and 21st in slugging, but 29th in OBP and 28th in runs scored. This is not a new pattern, but one that has been clear and present during Hendry's term.

First, you seem rather convinced that Hendry doesn't value OBP. I have to ask on what evidence do you base this opinion? I agree that he may not value it as much as some might want him to, but I believe there is a lot of evidence that he is trying, but failing, to improve it on a team wide basis.

 

Hendry took over in July of '02. He didn't really have much time to construct the team in his image that season so lets call '02, the last MacPhail season. That year, the team put up an OBP of .321 which was most influenced by Sosa's team-leading OBP of .399. The next season the Cubs team OBP gained two points on its way to .323 even though Sosa's OBP dropped to .358 and his team lead in that catagory was taken over by Hendry acquisition Mark Grudzielanek's .366. Grudz's trade partner Eric Karros put up a .340 OBP along with Hendry-guided farmhand Hee Seop Choi's OBP of .350.

 

Next, Jimbo traded for Derrek Lee, who had posted OBP's in the mid-.370s the previous two seasons. Lee produced a .356 OBP in his 1st season with the Cubs. Still an improvement over Choi/Karros/Simon of the year before. Aramis Ramirez, another Hendry acquisition and still a younger player just coming into his own in '03, exploded OBP-wise in his 2nd full season with the Cubs posting a .373. Hendry traded for Michael Barrett that off season and his .337 OBP was a sizeable improvement over Damien Miller's .310 the year before. Hendry also brought in Todd Walker to split time with Grudzy. Walker posted a .352 OBP in his first year with the Cubs. Hendry had struggled to find the Cubs a decent SS all year long so at the trade deadline, he pulls off a miracle and gets Nomar Garciaparra (and Matt Murton) for next to nothing. Nomar posts a .364 OBP in August and September which was a vast improvement over the OBPs of Neifi Perez (.295) and Ramon Martinez (.313) that season. And even though Cubs lynchpin Sammy Sosa's OBP plummeted all the way to .332, the Cubs still managed to improve their team OBP for the 2nd straight year in a row to .328.

 

No great shakes to be sure, but when you factor in an offense that was built around a dying superstar, the improvement that Hendry is providing becomes clearer. They are still 11th in the league in OBP, but Hendry has managed to move the Cubs to 2nd in SLG and 6th in AVG when they were 8th and 15th respectively the year he took over.

 

Now comes the injury-riddled season of '05. The Cubs had put together the greatest infield the northside had seen in my lifetime and had finally freed themselves of the incredibly shrinking superstar. Sosa's OBP in Baltimore that year was .295. Burnitz was not the Carlos Beltran I was hoping for, but his .322 OBP was 27 points higher than Sosa's. Unfortunately, injury struck the Cubs infield hard. Walker missed 52 games. Ramirez missed 39 and Nomar missed 100, and wasn't himself in the 62 he played, posting the worst OBP of his career (.320). Hendry's weak bench came back to bite him as Neifi saw major playing time filling in at all 3 infield positions. Couple that with the absolute collapse of Corey Patterson who had been posting OBPs in the .320s, but in '05 only managed one of .254 and it explains the Cubs poor team OBP that season of .324 which would have been much worse if not for Derrek Lee's breakout season in which he had an OBP of .418. Despite all those injuries, the Cubs still managed to finish 2nd in SLG for the second year in a row and 2nd in AVG.

 

That brings us to 2006 and we all know what a disaster last year was. Some of it is Hendry's fault for not having a stronger bench...again, a lot of it is losing Derrek Lee for the basically the season. Along with Prior, Wood, Cedeno playing as bad as he possibly could given his two previous seasons, etc.

 

Clearly, the evidence shows Hendry is attempting to improve the OBP of this Cubs team. Injuries and his weak OBP bench players have lessened the impact of his efforts. I agree that he might not value it as much as some would like him too, but to say that he doesn't value it at all simply doesn't mesh with the facts that clearly show him acquiring players with the ability to get on base more often than the guys he is letting go.

 

Do you at least agree that it's a flawed approach to not focus on OBP and SLG as the primary offensive stats, and look at WHIP and OBP against for pitchers?

I would agree that not considering those stats in the eval of your roster would definitely be a flawed approach. I haven't seen the evidence that shows that that is what Hendry is doing. In fact, given that the Cubs SLG% went from .413 in 2002, still the height of the Sosa HR hey day, to .416 in '03, .458 in '04 and .440 in '05 with the Cubs finishing 2nd in the league in that catagory '04 and '05, I would say the evidence shows that Hendry rather strongly values SLG%. Save major season-ending injuries to key hitters again this season, and the Cubs should once again be among the league leaders in SLG% this season.

[CubsWin]

He's made plenty of mistakes. I list them often. But I also list his accomplishments.

 

The problem is he doesn't have any accomplishments.

Thank you, goony, for in just 8 words crystalizing my argument that your opinion of Hendry is unbalanced to the negative and mine is a well-thought out, middle of the road view that includes both the good and the bad of his career as GM.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

He's made plenty of mistakes. I list them often. But I also list his accomplishments.

 

The problem is he doesn't have any accomplishments.

Thank you, goony, for in just 8 words crystalizing my argument that your opinion of Hendry is unbalanced to the negative and mine is a well-thought out, middle of the road view that includes both the good and the bad of his career as GM.

 

You are truly a beacon of rationality.

[CubsWin]

He's made plenty of mistakes. I list them often. But I also list his accomplishments.

 

The problem is he doesn't have any accomplishments.

Thank you, goony, for in just 8 words crystalizing my argument that your opinion of Hendry is unbalanced to the negative and mine is a well-thought out, middle of the road view that includes both the good and the bad of his career as GM.

 

You are truly a beacon of rationality.

With the factual argument to back it up.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

He's made plenty of mistakes. I list them often. But I also list his accomplishments.

 

The problem is he doesn't have any accomplishments.

Thank you, goony, for in just 8 words crystalizing my argument that your opinion of Hendry is unbalanced to the negative and mine is a well-thought out, middle of the road view that includes both the good and the bad of his career as GM.

 

You are truly a beacon of rationality.

With the factual argument to back it up.

 

No doubt, you're kind of a big deal. People know you.

[CubsWin]

He's made plenty of mistakes. I list them often. But I also list his accomplishments.

 

The problem is he doesn't have any accomplishments.

Thank you, goony, for in just 8 words crystalizing my argument that your opinion of Hendry is unbalanced to the negative and mine is a well-thought out, middle of the road view that includes both the good and the bad of his career as GM.

 

You are truly a beacon of rationality.

With the factual argument to back it up.

 

No doubt, you're kind of a big deal. People know you.

Nope. They don't. But if ridicule is all you got, good for you.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

He's made plenty of mistakes. I list them often. But I also list his accomplishments.

 

The problem is he doesn't have any accomplishments.

Thank you, goony, for in just 8 words crystalizing my argument that your opinion of Hendry is unbalanced to the negative and mine is a well-thought out, middle of the road view that includes both the good and the bad of his career as GM.

 

You are truly a beacon of rationality.

With the factual argument to back it up.

 

No doubt, you're kind of a big deal. People know you.

Nope. They don't. But if ridicule is all you got, good for you.

 

My bad, I read the last few posts and mistook it for the thread where everyone told CubsWin how awesome he is.

 

Your argument is middle of the road because you have no argument. You are a perpetual devil's advocate.

[CubsWin]

Your argument is middle of the road because you have no argument. You are a perpetual devil's advocate.

That would mean that I don't take any position on the matter, but I do. The evidence that I've seen suggests that Hendry has succeeded at improving this team. That he does care about OBP and SLG. I think he has taken gambles that have failed, and it has cost the Cubs dearly. I think he has been unlucky in the scale and scope of the injuries the team has suffered over the last 3 seasons.

 

Basically, I think an honest look at all the evidence shows that he has been a good, but not great GM to date who has definitely made mistakes, gotten unlucky and yet still improved the team over the last 4 seasons. That's my position. Can't be a perpetual devil's advocate and have a specific position at the same time. Its impossible.

[frostwyrm]

You want a balanced argument? Okay, people talk about Hendry's bad luck, but how about his good luck? In 2003 he inherited two starting pitchers(Z, Prior) who delivered a full season of superstar-level pitching despite having only half a season of big league experience. That is one gigantic piece of good fortune there. If those guys matured at a normal rate they wouldn't have peaked before 2005. And of course Hendry was lucky enough to take over right as ownership decided to bump up the payroll, which has remained higher than any other payroll in the division, and it's still rising. If you total up all his good and bad luck Hendry deserves no sympathy. He should have been shoved into the same Greyhound bus as MacPhail.

[Amazing_Grace]

Falling back on the injuries excuse won't work forever. At some point, you have to show some results.

You say that like there haven't been any major injuries to big time players over the last three seasons. If the Cubs suffer the league average type and amount of injuries over that span, they certainly make the playoffs in '04 and possibly some of the other years, too. Its difficult to say. Having Sosa deteriorate so quickly made it hard. Hendry had to rebuild on the fly. Before Hendry, as Sosa went, so went the Cubs. Now, the team has several good hitters. That's improvement. That's results. Wins and losses are not the only way to judge a GM. In fact, they're not even a good way to judge a GM.

 

Look, Hendry has signed guys that I hate. He has failed to provide a good bench, got bit taking gambles on some players like Nomar, failed to go the extra mile on Beltran, made a dumb trade for Pierre, failed to do what it took to get the Cubs in the playoffs in '04 and waited a year or two too long to stop counting on Kerry Wood. The list goes on. He's made plenty of mistakes. I list them often. But I also list his accomplishments.

 

You make a good point about wins and losses not being the only way to evaluate a general manager. Again, I don't think he is much better or worse than other GM's in the players he's signed and traded for. He's done some good, Barrett and Ramirez in particualar, and Lee to a somewhat lesser extent. He's done some bad, Jacque Jones, Neifi Perez, Juan Pierre. He's had some things that should have been good backfire because of injury, like Nomar.

I basically agree. Though, so far, I would put Jones in the good catagory. Its not like he had a lot of RFers to choose from that off season and looking back, he did pretty well. Jones wasn't who I wanted him to sign. I was pulling for Brian Giles who apparently never wanted to leave San Diego. And a good thing that was, too, when you look at the numbers he put up last season.

 

If that were the bottom line, I'd be fine with Hendry as GM, but it isn't. He has repeatedly and consistently ignored the value of OBP on both sides of the ball, while overvaluing speed, SBs, and RISP AVG (which isn't useful at all because there isn't any evidence that the stat is related to anything other than the hitter's non RISP AVG). He refuses to recognize the problem, even though last year's team was middle of the pack in batting average, and 21st in slugging, but 29th in OBP and 28th in runs scored. This is not a new pattern, but one that has been clear and present during Hendry's term.

First, you seem rather convinced that Hendry doesn't value OBP. I have to ask on what evidence do you base this opinion? I agree that he may not value it as much as some might want him to, but I believe there is a lot of evidence that he is trying, but failing, to improve it on a team wide basis.

 

Hendry took over in July of '02. He didn't really have much time to construct the team in his image that season so lets call '02, the last MacPhail season. That year, the team put up an OBP of .321 which was most influenced by Sosa's team-leading OBP of .399. The next season the Cubs team OBP gained two points on its way to .323 even though Sosa's OBP dropped to .358 and his team lead in that catagory was taken over by Hendry acquisition Mark Grudzielanek's .366. Grudz's trade partner Eric Karros put up a .340 OBP along with Hendry-guided farmhand Hee Seop Choi's OBP of .350.

 

Next, Jimbo traded for Derrek Lee, who had posted OBP's in the mid-.370s the previous two seasons. Lee produced a .356 OBP in his 1st season with the Cubs. Still an improvement over Choi/Karros/Simon of the year before. Aramis Ramirez, another Hendry acquisition and still a younger player just coming into his own in '03, exploded OBP-wise in his 2nd full season with the Cubs posting a .373. Hendry traded for Michael Barrett that off season and his .337 OBP was a sizeable improvement over Damien Miller's .310 the year before. Hendry also brought in Todd Walker to split time with Grudzy. Walker posted a .352 OBP in his first year with the Cubs. Hendry had struggled to find the Cubs a decent SS all year long so at the trade deadline, he pulls off a miracle and gets Nomar Garciaparra (and Matt Murton) for next to nothing. Nomar posts a .364 OBP in August and September which was a vast improvement over the OBPs of Neifi Perez (.295) and Ramon Martinez (.313) that season. And even though Cubs lynchpin Sammy Sosa's OBP plummeted all the way to .332, the Cubs still managed to improve their team OBP for the 2nd straight year in a row to .328.

 

No great shakes to be sure, but when you factor in an offense that was built around a dying superstar, the improvement that Hendry is providing becomes clearer. They are still 11th in the league in OBP, but Hendry has managed to move the Cubs to 2nd in SLG and 6th in AVG when they were 8th and 15th respectively the year he took over.

 

Now comes the injury-riddled season of '05. The Cubs had put together the greatest infield the northside had seen in my lifetime and had finally freed themselves of the incredibly shrinking superstar. Sosa's OBP in Baltimore that year was .295. Burnitz was not the Carlos Beltran I was hoping for, but his .322 OBP was 27 points higher than Sosa's. Unfortunately, injury struck the Cubs infield hard. Walker missed 52 games. Ramirez missed 39 and Nomar missed 100, and wasn't himself in the 62 he played, posting the worst OBP of his career (.320). Hendry's weak bench came back to bite him as Neifi saw major playing time filling in at all 3 infield positions. Couple that with the absolute collapse of Corey Patterson who had been posting OBPs in the .320s, but in '05 only managed one of .254 and it explains the Cubs poor team OBP that season of .324 which would have been much worse if not for Derrek Lee's breakout season in which he had an OBP of .418. Despite all those injuries, the Cubs still managed to finish 2nd in SLG for the second year in a row and 2nd in AVG.

 

That brings us to 2006 and we all know what a disaster last year was. Some of it is Hendry's fault for not having a stronger bench...again, a lot of it is losing Derrek Lee for the basically the season. Along with Prior, Wood, Cedeno playing as bad as he possibly could given his two previous seasons, etc.

 

Clearly, the evidence shows Hendry is attempting to improve the OBP of this Cubs team. Injuries and his weak OBP bench players have lessened the impact of his efforts. I agree that he might not value it as much as some would like him too, but to say that he doesn't value it at all simply doesn't mesh with the facts that clearly show him acquiring players with the ability to get on base more often than the guys he is letting go.

 

Do you at least agree that it's a flawed approach to not focus on OBP and SLG as the primary offensive stats, and look at WHIP and OBP against for pitchers?

I would agree that not considering those stats in the eval of your roster would definitely be a flawed approach. I haven't seen the evidence that shows that that is what Hendry is doing. In fact, given that the Cubs SLG% went from .413 in 2002, still the height of the Sosa HR hey day, to .416 in '03, .458 in '04 and .440 in '05 with the Cubs finishing 2nd in the league in that catagory '04 and '05, I would say the evidence shows that Hendry rather strongly values SLG%. Save major season-ending injuries to key hitters again this season, and the Cubs should once again be among the league leaders in SLG% this season.

 

That may be a balanced argument but it still isn't a good one. I said Hendry wasn't valuing OBP as a stat and I'll stand by that. Let's look at Patterson. You say that Hendry couldn't predict the terrible season Corey had in 05, yet many on this board pointed out how Corey was an impatient hitter, rarely drew walks, and would likely always be a player whose OBP was driven by batting average. Corey had an awful year with the bat, and his OBP fell through the floor. I, for one, wasn't terribly surprised. Further, you also give Hendry credit for several things that happened that were unexpectedly good (more later). Now, when Hendry traded Corey for squadoosh, he proceeded to sign another impatient player whose OBP was driven by batting average, only this one (Pierre) had no power.

 

Let's look at the Karros/Grudz deal. Those players were gotten from the Todd Hundley trade, which was a good trade, to be sure. However, the main motivation for it was to get rid of Hundly and his contract, not to acquire Karros and Grudz, who were also considered to have terrible contracts, the difference being theirs were for just 1 year. Now, they overachieved that season and made that trade look great. If he can't predict bad things like injuries, then he can't predict good things like old players having career years. You can't have it both ways.

 

How about Michael Barrett. You mention his OBP of .337 being higher than Miller's .310, but that's hindsight. Barrett had been an often injured and inconsistent performer in the Montreal organization before coming to the Cubs. Hendry didn't have a .337 OBP to look at. He had three previous seasons of .280, .337, and .289. So, again, which is it. Either Hendry can predict things or he can't. If he can, it should include bad things and good things, and he gets blamed for injury prone players getting injured and also credited for inconsistent or old players making major contributions.

 

How about Todd Walker? He was signed many times, and that is to Hendry's credit. However, not once was he simply handed the full time starting 2b job. He was part-timed for the likes of Grudz, Perez, Bynum, etc., simply because Dusty and Hendry valued speed and defense at 2b more than OBP and SLG, and in Grudz's case, playing the guy with the bigger contract. Hendry might have removed Perez from Dusty's sight at any time. He had no big money contract, but Hendry didn't deal Perez until the fans and media basically forced him to.

 

How about the Lee trade. Sure, Lee worked out great, and had shown an ability to get on base at Florida, but the man Hendry traded, Choi, had shown such patience that he posted a .350 OBP despite a .218 average. Now, hindsight shows Choi never amounted to anything, and that that was a good trade, but again, let's be even handed and remember that Hendry couldn't possibly have anticipated that. At the time, that deal could have gone either way, as we traded a promising, cheap young player, for an older, more proven, but more expensive player.

 

The Nomar are Ramirez trades were both brilliant, and those, in my mind were the capstone of Hendry's career. I still don't believe he was targeting those guys for their OBP, and in the end, they weren't enough.

 

Finally, we come to the crux of your argument, the improvement in team OBP. The stats say it happened, but there's a catch. What stat is Hendry really valuing? The year's 2003 through 2006 saw the Cubs OBP ranking in MLB go from 24th, to 23rd, to 20th, then down again to 29th. During those same years the Cubs BA went from 22nd, to 14th, to 9th, and then down to 17th. So, since BA is a component of OBP and it went up faster, which does Hendry value more? The differential between Cubs BA and Cubs OBP rankings in MLB went 2, 9, 11, 12. So, tell me again that Hendry values drawing the walk, plate discipline, and getting on base however it's accomplished. It looks to me like if Hendry values OBP at all, he values it less than the rest of baseball does, and chooses to value BA more. What was it he said this offseason "5th in the league in hitting so we're getting guys on, and not knocking them in" or some such rubbish.

 

All this, and we haven't touched on perhaps the worst indictment of his career, his abuse of pitchers. Hendry could have overruled Dusty in favor of Rothschild, if, in fact, Rothschild had a differing view. He could have overruled them both and put Prior, Wood, Zambrano on pitch counts and demand they be pulled from games where the outcome isn't in doubt. He is Dusty's boss and should be held partly responsible for everything Dusty did, just as my boss is held partly responsible if I screw up under his watch.

 

Hendry is not a good GM. It could be argued he is an average or OK GM. But I'm not buying that he values OBP. I'm not buying that he be excused for the bad things that were unexpected then given credit for good things that were unexpected. In the final analysis, it's the results that matter, and as we've all seen, the results since 03 leave much to be desired in many more ways than just wins and losses.

 

EDIT: As for SLG, it went up in 03 and 04, but then went back down in 05 and 06 when JH made the critical mistake of having terrible offensive players (Perez) to back up injury prone great offensive players (Nomar), and of course, made the horrible Pierre trade and signed Jones, who has neither the SLG nor the OBP I want to see out of a corner OF. I'll give credit for valuing SLG and power to some extent since the numbers remained high and the players he signed had decent power numbers. He still overvalues speed (Pierre) and defense (Perez, Bynum, Pagan), but he at least has some concept of power being a key to driving in runs, (though I still believe that like with OBP, he's looking more at component stats like BA and HR rather than SLG itself).

Edited February 3, 2007 by Amazing_Grace

[frostwyrm]

By midseason the Pierre trade will look like a complete disaster even to casual fans. Nolasco will easily outproduce his replacement Jason Marquis at a fraction of the cost.

[BigbadB]

I think he's finally figuring out the value of OBP, but I still don't think he embraces it.

 

There is no way you can sit there and bat Cedeno, Bynum, Perez, Pierre, Izturis and Womack as many times as he did at the top of the order and embrace OBP.