Hendry Needs To Go

[Keeper]

Oh, Jim Hendry, hast thou lost thy mind?

 

You sign Fukudome for way too much and now you're stuck with an overpaid, overhyped bust who doesn't know how to make basic adjustments at the plate.

 

You get rid of Kerry Wood, who has demonstrated that he has the potential to pull a John Smoltz and who has been a class act for 10 seasons on your ballclub. He also said he wanted to come back.

 

And you replace him with... Kevin Gregg. Probably your best move so far. If only because it's not really a downgrade so much as a push.

 

You get rid of Mark DeRosa, a fan favorite who was arguably the most valuable player on the team last year, certainly the most versatile.

 

And you replace him with... Aaron Miles. Aaron Miles? I like Fontenot, but he's as yet unproven as far as being an every day player.

 

You trade a bona fide 5th starter for a reliever who may or may not get his form back.

 

You sign Milton Bradley for 3 years, passing on Raul Ibanez and Adam Dunn, who was vocal about coming here.

 

But you must know more than us. You must know something about Bradley we don't know. Like we know that he's a head case. And we know that he has had only 1 season in 9 with over 450 ABs. And we know that he gets hurt like it's nobody's business. Surely, you must know something.

 

Oh yeah, this is the year. I can feel it.

Edited January 6, 2009 by Keeper

[Bote McBoteface]

All of the moves really make perfect sense, except for the Fukudome deal which only looks bad in hindsight.

[cubsfan26]

It's gonna take more then three bad months before I call Fukudome a bust. Lets see how he does next season, before we make any judgements. As for the rest of this garbage well ](*,) ](*,) #-o

[Keeper]

How's that Kool-Aid taste?

[17 Seconds]

It's gonna take more then three bad months before I call Fukudome a bust.

 

Just to be fair, Fukudome went .241/.340/.355 after April. From May 15th on, he went .231/.334/.344, etc. Of course these are arbitrary starting points, but the point is that he was bad for more than the last 3 months. His OBP just hung around for the first 3 months because it took pitchers awhile to realize they could just attack him and he wouldn't really hurt them

[Little Slide Rooter]

This thread ends one of 2 ways:

 

1. The usual suspects come in and tear it to shreds before Outshined One locks it

2. Outshined One locks it before the chaos begins

[biittner77]

In defense of Fukudome, Japanese players have an adjustment period and historically have fared better the 2nd year. We'll see what happens there.

 

Most of the other moves (Wood, Derosa, Marquis) are driven by money and the uncertain ownership status.

[NewUserName]

I go back and forth with Hendry a lot as a GM. Overall he has been pretty successful if you measure the teams record with past GMs. However this is measuring him with a low bar. Also similar to Brian Cashmen, is his apparent success more of a matter of having a larger checkbook or is it because he is truly a good GM. I tend to think the larger checkbook has more to do with it.

[Sever82]

Wow this has to be one of the dumbest posts. I think I stopped reading after you mentioned Fukudome as a bust, I guess all you need is one year to come to that conclusion. Anybody who calls Fukudome a bust already is a moron and knows nothing about baseball. And no i'm not drinking any Kool Aid because I do feel that Hendry has failed if he doesn't go out an get peavy or another starting pitcher. I still feel he needs one more big move and i feel the Bradley signing was a mistake. But again this is a pretty dumb post, this smells of a 13yr old with internet access to jump on this board.

[mlarner]

Well, at least this topic has its own thread now rather than taking over every other thread on the board. Maybe the other threads will actually stay on topic now?

[UMFan83]

Too bad he just signed a contract extension!

[BleacherBadger]

You're right. As a GM, he's supposed to put his team in a position to win. He hasn't done that, ever.

 

You're also making half your arguments on moves made this off-season. Personally, I find it hard to judge future performance, but that's just me.

[davell]

Hendry is probably in the top half of current GM's, if you ask me.

 

His strengths: Rock solid reputation among other GM's, players, and agents. Has done a great job of keeping players here once he gets them and their contract is up. Usually at a discounted price. Has done well for the most part in making trades with small market teams in need of salary relief. Is almost always one of the more active GM's around.

 

His weaknesses: Finds a model each year that he likes and won't deviate from it, to a fault. Seems to overload himself with high priced middle infielders and relief pitchers at times. Seems to hold onto certain players too long, destroying their trade value.

 

Neutral: Big time risk-taker. He held onto the notion that Wod and Prior would get healthy for too long. And has since traded for Harden and signed Bradley, both huge injury risks, to say the least. But, both players can be phenomenal when healthy. The definition of a gunslinger as far as I'm concerned. Not sure whether this is a good or bad thing honestly. Part of me loves that he'll take the risks, but it obviously can look extremely bad for him in a short time, if things go south.......Basically, if Hendry plays poker, I see him as a guy who goes All-In every chance he gets.

[apete6]

I made a Poll about this. You can give Hendry any grade from A+ to F. Check it out in the "Polls" section.

[davearm2]

It's highly amusing when someone whines about how Hendry wasn't willing to pay Kerry Wood $10M a year, and then turns around in the very same post and plays the injury card on Milton Bradley. Priceless.

 

And someone please find me a Cub fan that wasn't thrilled with the Fukudome signing at this time last year.

[davell]

The signings I didn't like whatsoever were Jacque, Rusch, Neifi, one of Howry or Eyre, and Burnitz.....Every other signing he's made, I was allright with. Maybe not necessarily the money involved on occasion, but the players have been fine.....If I'm missing someone, let me know.

 

The trades that were bad as far as I'm concerned were the Pierre deal(although unfortunately, I wanted him and Furcal that year, but we way overpaid and I have since come to my senses and realize that Juan sucks) the Trachsel deal, and the Maddux deal for sure. I may be missing one or two here, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

[TheDude]

You don't evaluate GM moves with hindsight. Signing Fukudome was the right thing to do at the time it was done and was generally regarded as B+ move.

 

Blast Hendry for signing fragile Bradley and also blast him for not signing fragile Wood. How about a little consistency?

 

Dumping Marquis was a good thing to do. Why block a 5th starter spot with a median salary veteran? Let the pitching youth battle it out. Pitching has dominated Cubs drafting for Hendry's tenure, so use it.

[Derwood]

Obvious Troll is Obvious

[Tracer Bullet]

It's highly amusing when someone whines about how Hendry wasn't willing to pay Kerry Wood $10M a year, and then turns around in the very same post and plays the injury card on Milton Bradley. Priceless.

 

There are several issues with his post, but you seriously think the Wood and Bradley situations are identical? You think you can just look at say "each costs $10m a year and has a high likelihood of injury. Thus, you must either like both deals or hate both deals." There's obviously more to it than that. Wood in a RP. If he goes down for a week or even the whole year, we have a couple of options to replace him: Marmol and Gregg (maybe others). He's also a huge fan favorite, he's been a great citizen of Chicago and seemed to want to play here. From what I know, teammates liked him.

 

Bradley is the starting RF. If he goes down for an extended period of time, which is likely, we get Reed or Gathright full time (maybe Pie, but that seems unlikely). Neither of whom is likely to come close to the OPS we're hoping to get from Bradley. He's got a pretty bad reputation as a teammate as well.

 

You can certainly like both deals or hate both deals, but a reasonable person can like one and hate the other.

[sneakypower]

You're also making half your arguments on moves made this off-season. Personally, I find it hard to judge future performance, but that's just me.

You don't evaluate GM moves with hindsight.

uh, uh...i guess we'll just never know

 

he's a crappy GM, to put it plainly. and i don't even care much about the Fukudome contract or the other debatable moves. repeatedly wasting like 5 mil on proven [expletive] players like Miles, Blanco, Neifi and Rusch is something that no intelligent GM does, unless you have fantastic player development and occasionally feel the need to splurge on veteran leadership or something. if he had run a low payroll organization he'd be a local area scout by now.

[Peoriaman]

It's highly amusing when someone whines about how Hendry wasn't willing to pay Kerry Wood $10M a year, and then turns around in the very same post and plays the injury card on Milton Bradley. Priceless.

 

There are several issues with his post, but you seriously think the Wood and Bradley situations are identical? You think you can just look at say "each costs $10m a year and has a high likelihood of injury. Thus, you must either like both deals or hate both deals." There's obviously more to it than that. Wood in a RP. If he goes down for a week or even the whole year, we have a couple of options to replace him: Marmol and Gregg (maybe others). He's also a huge fan favorite, he's been a great citizen of Chicago and seemed to want to play here. From what I know, teammates liked him.

 

Bradley is the starting RF. If he goes down for an extended period of time, which is likely, we get Reed or Gathright full time (maybe Pie, but that seems unlikely). Neither of whom is likely to come close to the OPS we're hoping to get from Bradley. He's got a pretty bad reputation as a teammate as well.

 

You can certainly like both deals or hate both deals, but a reasonable person can like one and hate the other.

 

 

Sure, you can like one deal and not like the other, but don't complain about signing the "fragile" Bradley while pimping for a Kerry Wood deal who is historically just as fragile.

[biittner77]

Bradley is the starting RF. If he goes down for an extended period of time, which is likely, we get Reed or Gathright full time (maybe Pie, but that seems unlikely). Neither of whom is likely to come close to the OPS we're hoping to get from Bradley. He's got a pretty bad reputation as a teammate as well.

 

You can certainly like both deals or hate both deals, but a reasonable person can like one and hate the other.

 

1. If his going down for an extended period of time is likely, wouldn't you expect that Hendry has thought of that and has a contingency plan in place?

 

2. Ryan Dempster said Bradley has a great reputation as a teammate. Who's right?

 

3. Hendry tried the "get a bunch of guys that like eachother" approach in 2005. I'm kinda glad he's at least trying the "Get guys that can hit" approach.

[Keeper]

Most of the other moves (Wood, Derosa, Marquis) are driven by money and the uncertain ownership status.

 

My thoughts as well.

[Derwood]

Most of the other moves (Wood, Derosa, Marquis) are driven by money and the uncertain ownership status.

 

My thoughts as well.

 

which means they have nothing to do with Hendry, thus weakening your original argument

[shnsajax]

It seems like every 2-3 months we get one of these posts.