Hendry on 670/Mac and Spiegs

[Prizefight]

Sorry I didn't know this was happening earlier, happen to flip on the radio and catch the interview.

 

The interview will be up on podcast at this site later I'd assume:

http://www.670thescore.com/The-Danny-Mac-Show---General-Interviews/4574715

 

 

 

Credit to Mac and Spiegs asking some tough questions about Zambrano's behavior, the inflated long contracts etc. Jim clearly wasn't in the mood to deal with anything other than softball questions and there was some palpable tension in the interview.

 

 

Edit: Some people might view his responses differently, and I'm sure my personal view of Hendry and how he's dealt with the media in the past comes out in my assessment of the interview.

Edited September 3, 2009 by Prizefight

[chuckywang]

Hendry should be a man and face the music.

[kujay]

They asked some pretty loaded questions. I don't really blame Hendry for being a little irked, if he was.

[Prizefight]

/bump

 

Interview is up.

 

Yes, maybe loaded questions. But I think they needed to serve as the voice of the fans and everything Mac/Spiegs asked are questions I want to know the answers to and topics we've discussed here ad naseum.

[Keener98]

They asked some pretty loaded questions. I don't really blame Hendry for being a little irked, if he was.

 

Why should Hendry be irked? Truth hurts?

[Banedon]

Not sure why Hendry would be doing interviews right now anyway. And if he does, why he'd expect softballs.

[Grit amp Heart]

Hendry's getting too much blame for this season, but oh well.

[jersey cubs fan]

Hendry's getting too much blame for this season, but oh well.

 

He's not getting nearly enough. He put this crap show together. And the media is focused on Bradley's personality. When you have a bunch of 30+ year olds with injury histories you can't blame a season on flukey injuries. They've had 2 guys underperform reasonable expectations. You have to assume some guys are going to struggle. What you can't do is pay superstar money to non-superstars and expect to cruise. He's spent a ton of money on this team and it's been a big waste.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Hendry's getting too much blame for this season, but oh well.

 

He's not getting nearly enough. He put this crap show together. And the media is focused on Bradley's personality. When you have a bunch of 30+ year olds with injury histories you can't blame a season on flukey injuries. They've had 2 guys underperform reasonable expectations. You have to assume some guys are going to struggle. What you can't do is pay superstar money to non-superstars and expect to cruise. He's spent a ton of money on this team and it's been a big waste.

 

Fontenot, Miles, Gregg, Marmol, Soriano, Soto, Bradley, and that's without touching injuries.

[chuckywang]

Hendry's getting too much blame for this season, but oh well.

 

He's not getting nearly enough. He put this crap show together. And the media is focused on Bradley's personality. When you have a bunch of 30+ year olds with injury histories you can't blame a season on flukey injuries. They've had 2 guys underperform reasonable expectations. You have to assume some guys are going to struggle. What you can't do is pay superstar money to non-superstars and expect to cruise. He's spent a ton of money on this team and it's been a big waste.

 

Fontenot, Miles, Gregg, Marmol, Soriano, Soto, Bradley, and that's without touching injuries.

 

Who forsaw Fontenot, Marmol, Soriano, and Soto struggling so much this season?

Letting go of DeRosa and adding Miles is the only mistake you can blame Hendry for, but it's a huge one.

[SouthSideRyan]

Hendry's getting too much blame for this season, but oh well.

 

He's not getting nearly enough. He put this crap show together. And the media is focused on Bradley's personality. When you have a bunch of 30+ year olds with injury histories you can't blame a season on flukey injuries. They've had 2 guys underperform reasonable expectations. You have to assume some guys are going to struggle. What you can't do is pay superstar money to non-superstars and expect to cruise. He's spent a ton of money on this team and it's been a big waste.

 

Fontenot, Miles, Gregg, Marmol, Soriano, Soto, Bradley, and that's without touching injuries.

 

Who forsaw Fontenot, Marmol, Soriano, and Soto struggling so much this season?

Letting go of DeRosa and adding Miles is the only mistake you can blame Hendry for, but it's a huge one.

 

You can blame him for Dempster and Soriano's contracts hamstringing the team.

[jersey cubs fan]

Hendry's getting too much blame for this season, but oh well.

 

He's not getting nearly enough. He put this crap show together. And the media is focused on Bradley's personality. When you have a bunch of 30+ year olds with injury histories you can't blame a season on flukey injuries. They've had 2 guys underperform reasonable expectations. You have to assume some guys are going to struggle. What you can't do is pay superstar money to non-superstars and expect to cruise. He's spent a ton of money on this team and it's been a big waste.

 

Fontenot, Miles, Gregg, Marmol, Soriano, Soto, Bradley, and that's without touching injuries.

Soriano and Soto have performed below reasonable expectations, but you can't go into a season assuming you can avoid such things. And you can't touch the injuries because guys who gets injured a lot and are old got injured. Ramirez may have missed more time than expected, but Bradley played more than you could expect. If you insist on building the team as inefficiently as Hendry has done, you have to live with the consequences. You can't just say "well when these guys are all on the team is great".

 

Gregg has done what he's usually done. Bradley has done what any reasonable person would hav expected. Marmol has been ridiculously wild and hard to hit, same as always. Miles sucks ass and never should have been signed. Soriano was a disaster waiting to happen, it just happened earlier than expected.

[jersey cubs fan]

Hendry's getting too much blame for this season, but oh well.

 

He's not getting nearly enough. He put this crap show together. And the media is focused on Bradley's personality. When you have a bunch of 30+ year olds with injury histories you can't blame a season on flukey injuries. They've had 2 guys underperform reasonable expectations. You have to assume some guys are going to struggle. What you can't do is pay superstar money to non-superstars and expect to cruise. He's spent a ton of money on this team and it's been a big waste.

 

Fontenot, Miles, Gregg, Marmol, Soriano, Soto, Bradley, and that's without touching injuries.

 

Who forsaw Fontenot, Marmol, Soriano, and Soto struggling so much this season?

Letting go of DeRosa and adding Miles is the only mistake you can blame Hendry for, but it's a huge one.

 

HE BUILT THE WHOLE FREAKING TEAM!!!

 

Don't give me this "who could foresee" nonsense. He decided to build a team of 30-something nonsuperstars with injury histories making superstar money.

[jersey cubs fan]

And Fontenot was a nobody. He did a nice job as a role player and failed as an everyday guy. Too freaking bad, don't build a team where you need to count on a midget like Fontenot to maintain surprisingly high production that was built around being Mark DeRosa's backup.

[jersey cubs fan]

Two years ago nobody would have said Fontenot and Theriot should be the starting middle infield for a major league team, let alone one that spends $140m on personel. The fact that the Cubs are getting piss poor production from a middle infield of Theriot, Fontenot, Miles, Blanco, etal should not be some shocking revelation that poor old Jim Hendry could never have foreseen.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Hendry's getting too much blame for this season, but oh well.

 

He's not getting nearly enough. He put this crap show together. And the media is focused on Bradley's personality. When you have a bunch of 30+ year olds with injury histories you can't blame a season on flukey injuries. They've had 2 guys underperform reasonable expectations. You have to assume some guys are going to struggle. What you can't do is pay superstar money to non-superstars and expect to cruise. He's spent a ton of money on this team and it's been a big waste.

 

Fontenot, Miles, Gregg, Marmol, Soriano, Soto, Bradley, and that's without touching injuries.

Soriano and Soto have performed below reasonable expectations, but you can't go into a season assuming you can avoid such things. And you can't touch the injuries because guys who gets injured a lot and are old got injured. Ramirez may have missed more time than expected, but Bradley played more than you could expect. If you insist on building the team as inefficiently as Hendry has done, you have to live with the consequences. You can't just say "well when these guys are all on the team is great".

 

Gregg has done what he's usually done. Bradley has done what any reasonable person would hav expected. Marmol has been ridiculously wild and hard to hit, same as always. Miles sucks ass and never should have been signed. Soriano was a disaster waiting to happen, it just happened earlier than expected.

 

If you talk in generalities it's easier to make it sound that way, but Hendry built a better team than this. The problem going in was that it wasn't going to be able to withstand injuries/underperformance as much as past teams, but still should've earned a playoff spot. Then this year happened and they got hammered with both injuries and underperformance on a large scale. Hendry didn't have a very good offseason, but with the way 2009 played out the Cubs simply weren't going to be great, and the only move going much further back than that is Soriano, so it's difficult to claim this is a situation of Hendry's moves catching up to himself.

[chuckywang]

Hendry's getting too much blame for this season, but oh well.

 

He's not getting nearly enough. He put this crap show together. And the media is focused on Bradley's personality. When you have a bunch of 30+ year olds with injury histories you can't blame a season on flukey injuries. They've had 2 guys underperform reasonable expectations. You have to assume some guys are going to struggle. What you can't do is pay superstar money to non-superstars and expect to cruise. He's spent a ton of money on this team and it's been a big waste.

 

Fontenot, Miles, Gregg, Marmol, Soriano, Soto, Bradley, and that's without touching injuries.

 

Who forsaw Fontenot, Marmol, Soriano, and Soto struggling so much this season?

Letting go of DeRosa and adding Miles is the only mistake you can blame Hendry for, but it's a huge one.

 

You can blame him for Dempster and Soriano's contracts hamstringing the team.

 

The team was good enough coming into this year, a lot of key players massively underperformed, with Soriano at the top of the list. I'm not even upset at Bradley's production. Sure I want him to hit for more power, but a .400 OBP is exactly what I wanted out of him.

[chuckywang]

Hendry's getting too much blame for this season, but oh well.

 

He's not getting nearly enough. He put this crap show together. And the media is focused on Bradley's personality. When you have a bunch of 30+ year olds with injury histories you can't blame a season on flukey injuries. They've had 2 guys underperform reasonable expectations. You have to assume some guys are going to struggle. What you can't do is pay superstar money to non-superstars and expect to cruise. He's spent a ton of money on this team and it's been a big waste.

 

Fontenot, Miles, Gregg, Marmol, Soriano, Soto, Bradley, and that's without touching injuries.

 

Who forsaw Fontenot, Marmol, Soriano, and Soto struggling so much this season?

Letting go of DeRosa and adding Miles is the only mistake you can blame Hendry for, but it's a huge one.

 

HE BUILT THE WHOLE FREAKING TEAM!!!

 

Don't give me this "who could foresee" nonsense. He decided to build a team of 30-something nonsuperstars with injury histories making superstar money.

 

Soriano, Marmol, and Soto don't have injury histories. Bradley does, but he's been fairly healthy this year. The team, more or less, is the same as last year's 97 win team.

[abuck1220]

i don't know about everybody else, but i sure as hell thought fonenot would struggle this year.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

i don't know about everybody else, but i sure as hell thought fonenot would struggle this year.

 

You thought he would hit .226/.299/.382 in a platoon situation?

[dew1679666265]

i don't know about everybody else, but i sure as hell thought fonenot would struggle this year.

 

There's struggling and then there's not being able to OPS .700. I wasn't really high on Fontenot entering the year, but I never would have thought he'd come near OPSing in the low .700s, much less have a .665 OPS in September.

 

Here are some of the projections prior to the season:

 

Marcel: .816 OPS

Chone: .773

Zips: .758

Oliver: .768

[abuck1220]

i don't know about everybody else, but i sure as hell thought fonenot would struggle this year.

 

You thought he would hit .226/.299/.382 in a platoon situation?

 

i didn't think he would suck that bad, but i definitely thought there was a high probability of him sucking pretty bad.

[abuck1220]

you see, i'm not just making stuff up...

 

Expected 2009 Fontenot/Miles = Expected 2009 DeRosa

 

Expected 2009 Gregg > Expected 2009 Ascanio/Guzman/Stevens/Olson/whoever would've gotten that extra spot

 

 

well, i guess i just disagree with this. and i'm not a huge derosa fan by any means. hope i'm wrong.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

you see, i'm not just making stuff up...

 

Expected 2009 Fontenot/Miles = Expected 2009 DeRosa

 

Expected 2009 Gregg > Expected 2009 Ascanio/Guzman/Stevens/Olson/whoever would've gotten that extra spot

 

 

well, i guess i just disagree with this. and i'm not a huge derosa fan by any means. hope i'm wrong.

 

Oh I know you've said that for a while, I'm just saying that going in to the season you were pretty alone in that sentiment, as there was both popular opinions and projections that said otherwise.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I'm not a huge fan of the "nobody could have foreseen" argument.

 

Predicting which players do and do not do well is more or less the entirety of his job.