Jacque Jones Traded to Detroit for Omar Infante

[Soul]

Maybe the Trib will give him enough power to make that one big deal, in RF as you say. It might be the only improvement we make this offseason.

 

I fear for '08. But then again, I think we saw this coming.

[Iceblink]

Cubs player at or near his lowest career trade value: check

Target player average or below offensively: check

Target player "toolsy", but doesn't put up any numbers: check

Target player had one good-ish year, and only a foolishly optimistic GM would expect him to repeat that: check

Target player redundant because of cheaper options that would probably perform no worse: check

Target player rarely draws walks: check

 

Hendry formula satisfied. Go time.

[Cubzfan64]

Cubs player at or near his lowest career trade value: check

Target player average or below offensively: check

Target player "toolsy", but doesn't put up any numbers: check

Target player had one good-ish year, and only a foolishly optimistic GM would expect him to repeat that: check

Target player redundant because of cheaper options that would probably perform no worse: check

Target player rarely draws walks: check

 

Hendry formula satisfied. Go time.

 

It's just more of the same - year after year after year... Your statement is exactly accurate!

 

I'd rather we just traded him for a couple minor leaguers - maybe we would have gotten lucky and fallen into a good player for down the road.

 

I have absolutely zero confidence in the Cubs organization anymore. It'll take a major change in philosophy to get me excited about our chances in the future.

[Guancous]

I don't know if anyone posted this but here are the top similar Infante players through age 25 (Thanks, baseball-reference.com!):

 

1. Shawon Dunston (978)

2. Michael Barrett (976)

3. Jay Bell (969)

4. Dib Williams (969)

5. Dick Green (968)

6. Alex Gonzalez (967)

7. Jeff Blauser (966)

8. Andujar Cedeno (965)

9. Cy Perkins (965)

10. Johnny Berardino (964)

[Guest]

I don't know if anyone posted this but here are the top similar Infante players through age 25 (Thanks, baseball-reference.com!):

 

1. Shawon Dunston (978)

2. Michael Barrett (976)

3. Jay Bell (969)

4. Dib Williams (969)

5. Dick Green (968)

6. Alex Gonzalez (967)

7. Jeff Blauser (966)

8. Andujar Cedeno (965)

9. Cy Perkins (965)

10. Johnny Berardino (964)

A list littered with former cubs.

[Careless]

I don't know if anyone posted this but here are the top similar Infante players through age 25 (Thanks, baseball-reference.com!):

 

1. Shawon Dunston (978)

2. Michael Barrett (976)

3. Jay Bell (969)

4. Dib Williams (969)

5. Dick Green (968)

6. Alex Gonzalez (967)

7. Jeff Blauser (966)

8. Andujar Cedeno (965)

9. Cy Perkins (965)

10. Johnny Berardino (964)

A list littered with former cubs.

it's the other Agonz, btw.

[Guest]

Maybe the Trib will give him enough power to make that one big deal, in RF as you say. It might be the only improvement we make this offseason.

 

I fear for '08. But then again, I think we saw this coming.

 

Can ARod play rightfield? :wink:

[Keener98]

I dont know if this has been posted in here yet, but Jones was on the Score yesterday, and he basically demanded a trade. Hendry and him sat down at the end of the year, and Hendry told him they would like him back if he would accept a bench role, because the plan is for Pie to start in CF, and acquire a new RF. Jones said that he came to Chicago to play, and not sit on the bench, so he asked Hendry to trade him.

[BigbadB]

I dont know if this has been posted in here yet, but Jones was on the Score yesterday, and he basically demanded a trade. Hendry and him sat down at the end of the year, and Hendry told him they would like him back if he would accept a bench role, because the plan is for Pie to start in CF, and acquire a new RF. Jones said that he came to Chicago to play, and not sit on the bench, so he asked Hendry to trade him.

 

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I rest my case.

[E.J.]

I dont know if this has been posted in here yet, but Jones was on the Score yesterday, and he basically demanded a trade. Hendry and him sat down at the end of the year, and Hendry told him they would like him back if he would accept a bench role, because the plan is for Pie to start in CF, and acquire a new RF. Jones said that he came to Chicago to play, and not sit on the bench, so he asked Hendry to trade him.

 

Bastard. Should have sent him to Japan. He can play all he wants there.

[CUBZ99]

I dont know if this has been posted in here yet, but Jones was on the Score yesterday, and he basically demanded a trade. Hendry and him sat down at the end of the year, and Hendry told him they would like him back if he would accept a bench role, because the plan is for Pie to start in CF, and acquire a new RF. Jones said that he came to Chicago to play, and not sit on the bench, so he asked Hendry to trade him.

 

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I rest my case.

 

Jim Hendry is a real swell guy.

[BigbadB]

But, that just makes Hendry that much more of an idiot to make such a horrible trade just to do a guy a favor. If the contract didn't say anything about playing everyday, you play out the contract you signed and YOU LIKE IT.

[BigbadB]

And while I'm on a role, I predict Jones will be platooning in LF before the end of the first month of the 2008 season. Detroit has too many decent RH bats to allow Jacque Jones to hit against a LHP.

[apete6]

But, that just makes Hendry that much more of an idiot to make such a horrible trade just to do a guy a favor. If the contract didn't say anything about playing everyday, you play out the contract you signed and YOU LIKE IT.

 

I couldn't agree more. If he didn't trade Jacque, what's JJ going to do, sit out? Trading a guy who demands a trade=50 cents on the dollar...even if that dollar is worth as much as an Iraqi dollar, you're still not getting back what you should.

 

Terrible move from Hendry. I can see it now "Fukodome to stay in Japan, Cubs sign Luis Gonzalez" Yuck.

[Mizzou]

But, that just makes Hendry that much more of an idiot to make such a horrible trade just to do a guy a favor. If the contract didn't say anything about playing everyday, you play out the contract you signed and YOU LIKE IT.

So you'd prefer disgruntled Jacque at 5M on the bench rather than Infante at 2M on the bench?

 

Why?

[CUBZ99]

But, that just makes Hendry that much more of an idiot to make such a horrible trade just to do a guy a favor. If the contract didn't say anything about playing everyday, you play out the contract you signed and YOU LIKE IT.

So you'd prefer disgruntled Jacque at 5M on the bench rather than Infante at 2M on the bench?

 

Why?

 

Mainly because you are more likely to get better production out of Jacque than you are out of Infante.

[BigbadB]

But, that just makes Hendry that much more of an idiot to make such a horrible trade just to do a guy a favor. If the contract didn't say anything about playing everyday, you play out the contract you signed and YOU LIKE IT.

So you'd prefer disgruntled Jacque at 5M on the bench rather than Infante at 2M on the bench?

 

Why?

 

Because disgruntled Jones at least provides a little bit of offense to a team that is in DIRE need of offense.

 

And I really don't care about whether someone is disgruntled or not. It's not like Jones can just go out there and try to suck, because his next contract with a big league team will be dependent on how he performs in his contract year.

[Mizzou]

But, that just makes Hendry that much more of an idiot to make such a horrible trade just to do a guy a favor. If the contract didn't say anything about playing everyday, you play out the contract you signed and YOU LIKE IT.

So you'd prefer disgruntled Jacque at 5M on the bench rather than Infante at 2M on the bench?

 

Why?

 

Because disgruntled Jones at least provides a little bit of offense to a team that is in DIRE need of offense.

 

And I really don't care about whether someone is disgruntled or not. It's not like Jones can just go out there and try to suck, because his next contract with a big league team will be dependent on how he performs in his contract year.

Is that little bit of offense really worth an extra three million that could be spent elsewhere though? Also, although in a somewhat limited sample size, Jacque has sucked coming off the bench in his career.

[Keener98]

But, that just makes Hendry that much more of an idiot to make such a horrible trade just to do a guy a favor. If the contract didn't say anything about playing everyday, you play out the contract you signed and YOU LIKE IT.

So you'd prefer disgruntled Jacque at 5M on the bench rather than Infante at 2M on the bench?

 

Why?

 

Because disgruntled Jones at least provides a little bit of offense to a team that is in DIRE need of offense.

 

And I really don't care about whether someone is disgruntled or not. It's not like Jones can just go out there and try to suck, because his next contract with a big league team will be dependent on how he performs in his contract year.

Is that little bit of offense really worth an extra three million that could be spent elsewhere though? Also, although in a somewhat limited sample size, Jacque has sucked coming off the bench in his career.

 

When its Hendry spending that extra 3 million elsewhere, that little bit of offense is probably worth it.

[SouthSideRyan]

How bout Hendry wait until there's actually a market for Jones rather than forcing the market and not saving nearly enough money on something that's supposed to be a salary dump. Hendry's as worried about being everybody's friend as Dusty was.

[Illini Iceman]

But, that just makes Hendry that much more of an idiot to make such a horrible trade just to do a guy a favor. If the contract didn't say anything about playing everyday, you play out the contract you signed and YOU LIKE IT.

So you'd prefer disgruntled Jacque at 5M on the bench rather than Infante at 2M on the bench?

 

Why?

 

Because disgruntled Jones at least provides a little bit of offense to a team that is in DIRE need of offense.

 

And I really don't care about whether someone is disgruntled or not. It's not like Jones can just go out there and try to suck, because his next contract with a big league team will be dependent on how he performs in his contract year.

Is that little bit of offense really worth an extra three million that could be spent elsewhere though? Also, although in a somewhat limited sample size, Jacque has sucked coming off the bench in his career.

 

When Hendry acquired Jones as a FA he was mocked for doing so. Jones has been panned on a pretty regular basis for the last two seasons (other than the occassional "he hasn't been as bad as I thought" backhanded compliment).

 

Now Hendry finds a way to get rid of him and save salary. In doing so he publicly states that this will open up the opportunity to give Pie a shot at the full time job, which many people around here have been clamoring for and lamenting the fact that the Cubs don't give the young players a chance to prove themselves.

 

And still somehow it spins around to Hendry screwing up.

 

Interesting.

[BigbadB]

When Hendry acquired Jones as a FA he was mocked for doing so. Jones has been panned on a pretty regular basis for the last two seasons (other than the occassional "he hasn't been as bad as I thought" backhanded compliment).

 

Now Hendry finds a way to get rid of him and save salary. In doing so he publicly states that this will open up the opportunity to give Pie a shot at the full time job, which many people around here have been clamoring for and lamenting the fact that the Cubs don't give the young players a chance to prove themselves.

 

And still somehow it spins around to Hendry screwing up.

 

Interesting.

 

If I was confident that Hendry had the ability to land a decent RF, I might not be making nearly as much noise. I'm glad Jones is gone, but at the same time I wouldn't have minded him as a 4th outfielder if Murton could have been packaged in a deal to improve elsewhere, and as protection for Pie if Pie poops the bed. If I'm the GM, Jones is my insurance policy if I can't get Crawford or Fukudome. Once I have an upgrade in RF locked up, THEN I consider trading him, and only when I feel like I'm getting value in return.

 

Only a day after Jones was traded, Minnesota traded us a PTBNL for Craig Monroe, the right handed version of Jacque Jones. Monroe is set to make nearly as much as Jones in 2008, and the Cubs aren't giving Minnesota any salary relief. Granted, Jones came from Minnesota, and they may not want him back. But, if you are a major league team in need of a cheap outfielder, you really aren't throwing yourself under the bus to trade for Jacque Jones.

 

There will be many teams this offseason trying to position themselves for cheap outfield help like Corey Patterson, Geoff Jenkins, Shawn Green and Luis Gonzalez. Those teams that aren't willing to pay the price or the years to grab what's left of the lousy free agent class towards the end of this offseason might have been willing to cough up a half way decent prospect for Jones.

 

To trade him for the likes of Omar Infante is assinine. With the addition of Infante, the Cubs have now had every crappy utility middle infielder in baseball in the last 10 years. The list is actually quite scary. If that's the best he could get for Jones, then he was better off just keeping him. I'm certainly not convinced that the 2.5-3m savings of not having Jones will be spent wisely.

 

If Prior and Wood are both back and Fukudome is in RF, I'll give Hendry a flyer.

 

But, it will never change the fact Hendry gave Jones away for next to nothing.

[CubColtPacer]

When Hendry acquired Jones as a FA he was mocked for doing so. Jones has been panned on a pretty regular basis for the last two seasons (other than the occassional "he hasn't been as bad as I thought" backhanded compliment).

 

Now Hendry finds a way to get rid of him and save salary. In doing so he publicly states that this will open up the opportunity to give Pie a shot at the full time job, which many people around here have been clamoring for and lamenting the fact that the Cubs don't give the young players a chance to prove themselves.

 

And still somehow it spins around to Hendry screwing up.

 

Interesting.

 

If I was confident that Hendry had the ability to land a decent RF, I might not be making nearly as much noise. I'm glad Jones is gone, but at the same time I wouldn't have minded him as a 4th outfielder if Murton could have been packaged in a deal to improve elsewhere, and as protection for Pie if Pie poops the bed. If I'm the GM, Jones is my insurance policy if I can't get Crawford or Fukudome. Once I have an upgrade in RF locked up, THEN I consider trading him, and only when I feel like I'm getting value in return.

 

Only a day after Jones was traded, Minnesota traded us a PTBNL for Craig Monroe, the right handed version of Jacque Jones. Monroe is set to make nearly as much as Jones in 2008, and the Cubs aren't giving Minnesota any salary relief. Granted, Jones came from Minnesota, and they may not want him back. But, if you are a major league team in need of a cheap outfielder, you really aren't throwing yourself under the bus to trade for Jacque Jones.

 

There will be many teams this offseason trying to position themselves for cheap outfield help like Corey Patterson, Geoff Jenkins, Shawn Green and Luis Gonzalez. Those teams that aren't willing to pay the price or the years to grab what's left of the lousy free agent class towards the end of this offseason might have been willing to cough up a half way decent prospect for Jones.

 

To trade him for the likes of Omar Infante is assinine. With the addition of Infante, the Cubs have now had every crappy utility middle infielder in baseball in the last 10 years. The list is actually quite scary. If that's the best he could get for Jones, then he was better off just keeping him. I'm certainly not convinced that the 2.5-3m savings of not having Jones will be spent wisely.

 

If Prior and Wood are both back and Fukudome is in RF, I'll give Hendry a flyer.

 

But, it will never change the fact Hendry gave Jones away for next to nothing.

 

First, the Twins only traded for Monroe because they plan to release him and re-sign him to a much lower salary. In fact, that's what the whole deal is contingent upon. They would never have wanted to take on Jones's money unless the Cubs paid half of it or more because of it being guaranteed.

 

Second, Hendry tried to wait until after the big names in free agency to trade Jones last year with little success. That had to be in his mind when he was working moves this year.

 

I do agree with you that the moves that are remaining will dictate what happens with Jones. If that extra 3 million is spent on a useful player (and I would lower that definition all the way down to Geoff Jenkins, who would simply be Jones again) then it's a good move. Infante may have value still (due to his age and his home/away splits), but you're right in that he's not a very valuable chip at this time. One thing that Infante does do for the ballclub is fill some specialty roles. Now they don't have to keep Angel Pagan on the roster to platoon with Pie, nor do they necessarily need a backup SS on the roster all the time. That allows the bench to hopefully be filled with more good hitters.

 

At the same time, that's only worth so much, and so the 3 mil will still be the key to the trade unless Infante shows that he can keep up his away numbers all the time when he's taken out of Comerica.

[neely crenshaw]

But, that just makes Hendry that much more of an idiot to make such a horrible trade just to do a guy a favor. If the contract didn't say anything about playing everyday, you play out the contract you signed and YOU LIKE IT.

So you'd prefer disgruntled Jacque at 5M on the bench rather than Infante at 2M on the bench?

 

Why?

 

Because disgruntled Jones at least provides a little bit of offense to a team that is in DIRE need of offense.

 

And I really don't care about whether someone is disgruntled or not. It's not like Jones can just go out there and try to suck, because his next contract with a big league team will be dependent on how he performs in his contract year.

Is that little bit of offense really worth an extra three million that could be spent elsewhere though? Also, although in a somewhat limited sample size, Jacque has sucked coming off the bench in his career.

 

only better if they actually use the 3 mil...of course if we had dumped him for prospects we woudl have even more. I hate to say this but we have a hand full of omar infante's..utility guys are not in short supply for this team...If we have a plan that we know is going to play out..great, if we are hoping that we can get fukdome....then we could have really hurt our team for next year. this lineup without jones/floyd and with pie/fuld is going to struggle or you will have to have derosa play OF...

I guess we will have to see how it plays out

last time we had big plans..we missed out on furcal and hendry force fed us jones and pierre as a substitute!

[Backtobanks]

When Hendry acquired Jones as a FA he was mocked for doing so. Jones has been panned on a pretty regular basis for the last two seasons (other than the occassional "he hasn't been as bad as I thought" backhanded compliment).

 

Now Hendry finds a way to get rid of him and save salary. In doing so he publicly states that this will open up the opportunity to give Pie a shot at the full time job, which many people around here have been clamoring for and lamenting the fact that the Cubs don't give the young players a chance to prove themselves.

 

And still somehow it spins around to Hendry screwing up.

 

Interesting.

 

If I was confident that Hendry had the ability to land a decent RF, I might not be making nearly as much noise. I'm glad Jones is gone, but at the same time I wouldn't have minded him as a 4th outfielder if Murton could have been packaged in a deal to improve elsewhere, and as protection for Pie if Pie poops the bed. If I'm the GM, Jones is my insurance policy if I can't get Crawford or Fukudome. Once I have an upgrade in RF locked up, THEN I consider trading him, and only when I feel like I'm getting value in return.

 

Only a day after Jones was traded, Minnesota traded us a PTBNL for Craig Monroe, the right handed version of Jacque Jones. Monroe is set to make nearly as much as Jones in 2008, and the Cubs aren't giving Minnesota any salary relief. Granted, Jones came from Minnesota, and they may not want him back. But, if you are a major league team in need of a cheap outfielder, you really aren't throwing yourself under the bus to trade for Jacque Jones.

 

There will be many teams this offseason trying to position themselves for cheap outfield help like Corey Patterson, Geoff Jenkins, Shawn Green and Luis Gonzalez. Those teams that aren't willing to pay the price or the years to grab what's left of the lousy free agent class towards the end of this offseason might have been willing to cough up a half way decent prospect for Jones.

 

To trade him for the likes of Omar Infante is assinine. With the addition of Infante, the Cubs have now had every crappy utility middle infielder in baseball in the last 10 years. The list is actually quite scary. If that's the best he could get for Jones, then he was better off just keeping him. I'm certainly not convinced that the 2.5-3m savings of not having Jones will be spent wisely.

 

If Prior and Wood are both back and Fukudome is in RF, I'll give Hendry a flyer.

But, it will never change the fact Hendry gave Jones away for next to nothing.

 

I would bet that if Wood and Prior were both back and Fukudome is in RF, Hendry would get ripped by the bashers for bringing back two unhealthy pitchers (for too much money) and spending way too much for an unproven RF.