Re: Cubs Step up pursuit of Byrd

[davearm2]

Judging a GM by WS trophies is about as valid as judging a starting pitcher by wins.

 

Commonly the starting pitcher is out of the game after the 6th inning. What happens in the three innings after that is out of his hands.

 

For all intents and purposes, a GM's roster-building work ends on July 31st. What happens in the three months after that is out of his hands.

 

As Dexter explained, the playoffs are a crapshoot, so all you can ask of a GM is to get the team there and give them a chance to get hot and catch the breaks needed to win it all. Hendry isn't lighting the world on fire, but three postseason appearances in seven seasons is nothing to apologize for either.

 

I agree with everything you said in this post except for the third paragraph and the last sentence, so I have to believe you aren't that far off on judgment of a GM's value. You just apparently have a lower expectation than most.

 

Jim Hendry's work might be done on July 31st, but every other GM in baseball is still looking to improve their teams all year long. There is a waiver trade deadline that extends to August 31. There is non-stop evaluation of the talent that will be available to fill your offseason holes, as well as evaluating other team's players that could potentially become available in a trade. There is the constant need to find quality scouts and areas that need to be scouted. There are needs to fill vacant managerial and coaching postions with personnel that are better than what you have now.

 

It's a big job. A lot of what I just mentioned got ignored this offseason because Hendry was too busy attempting to fix mistakes from the previous year. He wasn't acting in the best interests in the team in any way, shape or form. He was undoing last year's catastrophe. HIS catastrophe. Whether you want to admit that Bradley needed to be dumped off of this team or not, 2 months of the offseason was dedicated to just that rather than looking at what will improve this team moving forward. I expect more from my GM. If he was coming off a 95 win season, I might be able to be more forgiving. If he had a big chunk of payroll coming off the books where he was the one looking at guys like Halladay or Holliday, I could probably write off the disaster that was Milton Bradley. But, that's not the case. He made bad decisions. Several of them. Too many of them. It's time to go.

 

As bad as we thought Kevin Towers was in San Diego, he was limited by a very restricted budget, yet he was able to perform at nearly the same level as Jim Hendry with 1/3 of the payroll. San Diego got rid of him because that wasn't good enough. They hired a Theo Epstein disciple. Whether that will work in San Diego is hard to say, because that's a completely different type of work environment than what Epstein has to work with.

 

The only other team in the NL Central that even comes remotely close to the Cubs in payroll is the Cardinals. Every other team is restricting their budgets even more during tough economic times. Hendry's budget has grown during that time. 3 playoff appearances in 7 years is not even half the time, and it's completely unacceptable given the resources he has to work with, the teams he is competing against and the team that was handed to him at the very beginning.

Obviously the GM works all year long on various aspects of the baseball operation. (And FWIW, by all accounts Hendry works as hard as any GM in baseball.)

 

The point of the starting pitcher analogy is, the amount of improving a GM can do to THIS YEAR's major league roster is severely limited after July 31. Minor trades can be made during August. That's about it. Certainly the GM is not impacting the outcome of the World Series by his moves in September and October, and probably not in August either. But of course those are the most critical months on the field.

 

The activities you mentioned (bolstering scouting, evaluating potential trade candidates, monitoring the upcoming free agent market, recruiting coaches, etc. etc.) are obviously important, but when those activities are undertaken in the late summer, they don't have any effect on the current year's team, or their chances of winning the WS.

 

And FYI, the Astros have been pretty close to the Cardinals in payroll, although the larger point is taken.

[jersey cubs fan]

Does anyone have a breakdown of payroll size per year (just the Cubs) matched up with the wins for each season?

The problem with that is most sources only list opening day payroll, they don't list guys you are paying to play elsewhere (a Hendry specialty), guys you acquire midseason, or midseason salary dumps. For the a while the MO of the Cubs was to go into the season with a certain level of payroll, but be willing to add aggressively in July. Then the Cubs just went balls out spending that money in November.

[davearm2]

Does anyone have a breakdown of payroll size per year (just the Cubs) matched up with the wins for each season? That will be a real telling statistic. The Cubs have expanded payroll basically every year he's been here and they aren't any better today than they were in the first year that he took over. As a GM, I'd have to ask why I am paying almost double for the same production, especially when most of the other teams out there are reducing payrolls and staying somewhat productive. Even more disconcerting has to be watching teams like Florida and Tampa having measureable success in the playoffs with a miniscule portion of the salary Hendry has.

Opening day payroll and win totals during the Hendry years:

$79,868,333 88

$90,560,000 89

$87,032,933 79

$94,424,499 66

$99,670,332 85

$118,345,833 97

$134,809,000 83

[Guest]

Does anyone have a breakdown of payroll size per year (just the Cubs) matched up with the wins for each season? That will be a real telling statistic. The Cubs have expanded payroll basically every year he's been here and they aren't any better today than they were in the first year that he took over. As a GM, I'd have to ask why I am paying almost double for the same production, especially when most of the other teams out there are reducing payrolls and staying somewhat productive. Even more disconcerting has to be watching teams like Florida and Tampa having measureable success in the playoffs with a miniscule portion of the salary Hendry has.

Opening day payroll and win totals during the Hendry years:

$79,868,333 88

$90,560,000 89

$87,032,933 79

$94,424,499 66

$99,670,332 85

$118,345,833 97

$134,809,000 83

 

Thanks for the effort.

 

That's pretty similar to what I was looking for, but I do note Goony's observation that the payroll is affected by other parts. Since Hendry took over the team, only once has he been able to match the level of production he got from the 2003 and 2004 team. That's not good. Especially if you take into consideration the significant increases. 50m doesn't buy what it used to.

 

And speaking of 50m not buying what it used to, if you take the Yankees out of the equation, how much of an increase do the other 29 teams show over that same timeframe. I'm not referring to each team individually, but rather all of them combined. I sense that payrolls are smaller today than they were in 2003. They were handing out ridiculous contracts on just about every team between 2000 and 2003. While the Cubs have enjoyed a nice increase over that time, most other teams have reduced their payrolls.

[davearm2]

Does anyone have a breakdown of payroll size per year (just the Cubs) matched up with the wins for each season? That will be a real telling statistic. The Cubs have expanded payroll basically every year he's been here and they aren't any better today than they were in the first year that he took over. As a GM, I'd have to ask why I am paying almost double for the same production, especially when most of the other teams out there are reducing payrolls and staying somewhat productive. Even more disconcerting has to be watching teams like Florida and Tampa having measureable success in the playoffs with a miniscule portion of the salary Hendry has.

Opening day payroll and win totals during the Hendry years:

$79,868,333 88

$90,560,000 89

$87,032,933 79

$94,424,499 66

$99,670,332 85

$118,345,833 97

$134,809,000 83

 

Thanks for the effort.

 

That's pretty similar to what I was looking for, but I do note Goony's observation that the payroll is affected by other parts. Since Hendry took over the team, only once has he been able to match the level of production he got from the 2003 and 2004 team. That's not good. Especially if you take into consideration the significant increases. 50m doesn't buy what it used to.

 

And speaking of 50m not buying what it used to, if you take the Yankees out of the equation, how much of an increase do the other 29 teams show over that same timeframe. I'm not referring to each team individually, but rather all of them combined. I sense that payrolls are smaller today than they were in 2003. They were handing out ridiculous contracts on just about every team between 2000 and 2003. While the Cubs have enjoyed a nice increase over that time, most other teams have reduced their payrolls.

MLB opening day payrolls, by year ($Billions):

2003 $2.13

2004 $2.07 -3%

2005 $2.19 6%

2006 $2.33 6%

2007 $2.48 7%

2008 $2.69 8%

2009 $2.67 -1%

 

MLB opening day payrolls, by year, net of NYY ($Billions):

2003 $1.98

2004 $1.89 -4%

2005 $1.98 5%

2006 $2.13 7%

2007 $2.29 7%

2008 $2.48 8%

2009 $2.46 -1%

 

Baseball payrolls grew steadily through the middle of the decade, ending in 2009. They're definitely not smaller now than in 2003.

[Guest]

MLB opening day payrolls, by year ($Billions):

2003 $2.13

2004 $2.07 -3%

2005 $2.19 6%

2006 $2.33 6%

2007 $2.48 7%

2008 $2.69 8%

2009 $2.67 -1%

 

MLB opening day payrolls, by year, net of NYY ($Billions):

2003 $1.98

2004 $1.89 -4%

2005 $1.98 5%

2006 $2.13 7%

2007 $2.29 7%

2008 $2.48 8%

2009 $2.46 -1%

 

Baseball payrolls grew steadily through the middle of the decade, ending in 2009. They're definitely not smaller now than in 2003.

 

I guess I should have asked for one without the Yankees and Cubs, but it doesn't look like it would be affected all that much. I guess I sensed wrong. But, that still doesn't change my opinion that Hendry just isn't getting the job done.

[jersey cubs fan]

I can't believe this discussion is still going. It's absurd. Hendry has done a worse job than higher payroll teams and he's done a worse job than lower payroll teams. Most teams that aren't doing a bang up job during that timeframe have switched GMs.

 

 

It's absolutely absurd that anybody would even attempt to justify supporting Jim Hendry. He has been horrible.

[CubColtPacer]

Does anyone have a breakdown of payroll size per year (just the Cubs) matched up with the wins for each season? That will be a real telling statistic. The Cubs have expanded payroll basically every year he's been here and they aren't any better today than they were in the first year that he took over. As a GM, I'd have to ask why I am paying almost double for the same production, especially when most of the other teams out there are reducing payrolls and staying somewhat productive. Even more disconcerting has to be watching teams like Florida and Tampa having measureable success in the playoffs with a miniscule portion of the salary Hendry has.

Opening day payroll and win totals during the Hendry years:

$79,868,333 88

$90,560,000 89

$87,032,933 79

$94,424,499 66

$99,670,332 85

$118,345,833 97

$134,809,000 83

 

Thanks for the effort.

 

That's pretty similar to what I was looking for, but I do note Goony's observation that the payroll is affected by other parts. Since Hendry took over the team, only once has he been able to match the level of production he got from the 2003 and 2004 team. That's not good. Especially if you take into consideration the significant increases. 50m doesn't buy what it used to.

 

And speaking of 50m not buying what it used to, if you take the Yankees out of the equation, how much of an increase do the other 29 teams show over that same timeframe. I'm not referring to each team individually, but rather all of them combined. I sense that payrolls are smaller today than they were in 2003. They were handing out ridiculous contracts on just about every team between 2000 and 2003. While the Cubs have enjoyed a nice increase over that time, most other teams have reduced their payrolls.

 

In addition to what Davearm said, it looks like that other than the Cubs or the Yankees, the other 28 teams have increased their payroll by an average of around 15-16 million over that timeframe. 8 teams have cut payroll while 19 have increased (1 team was almost exactly the same). 12 teams of those 28 have raised their payrolls by 20 million or more. 10 teams of those 28 have raised it by 30 million or more. 5 of those teams have raised it by 40 million or more.

 

Now if we were looking at just the last couple years, the Cubs payroll was exploding a lot faster than other teams. Before that it was pretty normal growth.

[CubColtPacer]

I can't believe this discussion is still going. It's absurd. Hendry has done a worse job than higher payroll teams and he's done a worse job than lower payroll teams. Most teams that aren't doing a bang up job during that timeframe have switched GMs.

 

 

It's absolutely absurd that anybody would even attempt to justify supporting Jim Hendry. He has been horrible.

 

I'm not trying to support Hendry other than the fact that some of the suppositions about how easy his job should have been are probably incorrect. He didn't walk into a great situation and he didn't have this massive payroll advantage for his entire tenure. It would have been an amazing GM job to completely overhaul the offense (which is what was needed because when he got the team the offense was both not that good and the only good players were aging quickly) and have the team rebuilt to have them solidly in the playoffs during 05/06. Hendry did do a decent job of rebuilding that offense, but he also destroyed the one thing the Cubs had going for them when he took the job by hiring Baker and letting him destroy the young arms. That led to the terrible seasons in those two years.

 

Since then, he's done a mediocre job of spending money and building a team. There have been some extenuating circumstances, but he still has plenty of reasons to lose his job. He's easily replaceable. But he hasn't done such a horrible job that it should be a no brainer that he loses his job either (we've seen several GM's around the country that are that bad). He's just one of those guys in the middle tier of GM's who is going to lose his job one day because he hasn't done enough.

[davearm2]

I can't believe this discussion is still going. It's absurd. Hendry has done a worse job than higher payroll teams and he's done a worse job than lower payroll teams. Most teams that aren't doing a bang up job during that timeframe have switched GMs.

 

 

It's absolutely absurd that anybody would even attempt to justify supporting Jim Hendry. He has been horrible.

 

I'm not trying to support Hendry other than the fact that some of the suppositions about how easy his job should have been are probably incorrect. He didn't walk into a great situation and he didn't have this massive payroll advantage for his entire tenure. It would have been an amazing GM job to completely overhaul the offense (which is what was needed because when he got the team the offense was both not that good and the only good players were aging quickly) and have the team rebuilt to have them solidly in the playoffs during 05/06. Hendry did do a decent job of rebuilding that offense, but he also destroyed the one thing the Cubs had going for them when he took the job by hiring Baker and letting him destroy the young arms. That led to the terrible seasons in those two years.

 

Since then, he's done a mediocre job of spending money and building a team. There have been some extenuating circumstances, but he still has plenty of reasons to lose his job. He's easily replaceable. But he hasn't done such a horrible job that it should be a no brainer that he loses his job either (we've seen several GM's around the country that are that bad). He's just one of those guys in the middle tier of GM's who is going to lose his job one day because he hasn't done enough.

Hendry has to take the heat for turning a 97-win team into an 83-win team with an offseason in which every significant acquisition he made blew up in his face. That's on him, no doubt. Whether he deserves to be fired for it is open to discussion.

 

However his track record from 03-08 is pretty easy to defend, IMO. Not that he didn't make some mistakes those years too, but on balance he did a lot more good than bad, and that's reflected in the fact that he fielded contending teams in 4 of those 6 seasons.

[SouthSideRyan]

However his track record from 03-08 is pretty easy to defend,

 

I'd say it's damn near impossible to defend 2006.

 

It's hard to take the '07-'08 seasons in a vaccum, because the current payroll nightmare is a direct function of his spending in those seasons.

[Guest]

FWIW, here are the 10 highest-spending clubs over the last 7 years, and how much they've spent per win.

 

1 New York Yankees $2.0M

2 Boston Red Sox $1.3M

3 New York Mets $1.5M

4 Los Angeles Angels $1.1M

5 Los Angeles Dodgers $1.2M

6 Chicago Cubs $1.2M

7 Seattle Mariners $1.2M

8 Atlanta Braves $1.1M

9 Philadelphia Phillies $1.0M

10 St. Louis Cardinals $1.0M

 

As you can see, the efficiency with which the Cubs have turned dollars into wins is right in line with the other big-payroll teams.

 

I'm sorry, but this is pretty useless.

 

What you would need to do is calculate marginal payroll (actual payroll minus league minimum times 25) over marginal wins (actual wins minus how many games a replacement level team would win [depending on the definition, usually between 30-50 games... probably on the higher side of that now that BP has adjusted their silly idea of replacement level fielding.]).

 

And for what it's worth, the last few studies I've seen done like that had the Cubs in last or next to last.

 

Without doing all the math, that formula would seem to put all the big payroll teams near the bottom and all of the low payroll teams toward the top.

Small payroll teams that win an average or above number of games games ARE more efficient, though, so what is your point?

 

In a system such as baseball free agency, each additional dollar you spend buys you a smaller incremental improvement. There are a lot of reasons why this is the case, but the biggest driver is the non-linear pay increases received at the top of the talent pyramid. If you have the worst third baseman in MLB history on your roster, he will make the minimum salary. If you improve your third baseman up to standard replacement level...you pay $0 incremental money because that guy will still make the minimum salary. You can most likely find some cheap guy to man the position at somewhere around halfway between replacement and average for very little above minimum salary. But...if you want to find a guy who will reliably give you league average performance, you're going to start to pay several million a year. And it starts to go up radically from there. Aramis is going to cost you a lot of money. If you want ARod-level performance...you have to pay ARod type money.

 

There's an optimal point in there somewhere to get marginal performance per marginal dollar invested, which probably falls just below league average salary. Which is why the only way to beat the system and win championships as a small market team is to grow your own players from within and pay non-free agent wages.

 

The discussion seemed to be that the Cubs overspend wildly for the number of wins they have produced especially against other large payroll teams. If someone is happy with a 65-win team that has a payroll of under $20 million because they're cost efficient, so be it. That's why I thought Davearm 2 had the right statistics. As I posted earlier, anyone can find statistics to prove or disprove just about anything.

Davearm is the one who brought $/win into this to show that Hendry is doing a decent job. Rob made a correction (and a valid one, btw). You questioned whether that would make the small market teams look artificially better (they're better using the average analysis in addition to the marginal analysis, btw). I pointed out why small market teams ARE better from an efficiency standpoint.

 

The only one who is using any of this to justify anything is davearm.

[davearm2]

The discussion seemed to be that the Cubs overspend wildly for the number of wins they have produced especially against other large payroll teams. If someone is happy with a 65-win team that has a payroll of under $20 million because they're cost efficient, so be it. That's why I thought Davearm 2 had the right statistics. As I posted earlier, anyone can find statistics to prove or disprove just about anything.

Davearm is the one who brought $/win into this to show that Hendry is doing a decent job. Rob made a correction (and a valid one, btw). You questioned whether that would make the small market teams look artificially better (they're better using the average analysis in addition to the marginal analysis, btw). I pointed out why small market teams ARE better from an efficiency standpoint.

 

The only one who is using any of this to justify anything is davearm.

I'm not justifying anything. I'm just dispelling the misconception that Hendry's spending has been either more prolific or less efficient per win than other big-market teams around baseball. This notion that Hendry's constantly throwing away good money after bad just simply is not supported by the data.

[Guest]

The discussion seemed to be that the Cubs overspend wildly for the number of wins they have produced especially against other large payroll teams. If someone is happy with a 65-win team that has a payroll of under $20 million because they're cost efficient, so be it. That's why I thought Davearm 2 had the right statistics. As I posted earlier, anyone can find statistics to prove or disprove just about anything.

Davearm is the one who brought $/win into this to show that Hendry is doing a decent job. Rob made a correction (and a valid one, btw). You questioned whether that would make the small market teams look artificially better (they're better using the average analysis in addition to the marginal analysis, btw). I pointed out why small market teams ARE better from an efficiency standpoint.

 

The only one who is using any of this to justify anything is davearm.

I'm not justifying anything. I'm just dispelling the misconception that Hendry's spending has been either more prolific or less efficient per win than other big-market teams around baseball. This notion that Hendry's constantly throwing away good money after bad just simply is not supported by the data.

No, your data doesn't really say that. It means he's been around as efficient as the other top 10 spending teams, who also may have a habit of wasting lots of money.

[davearm2]

The discussion seemed to be that the Cubs overspend wildly for the number of wins they have produced especially against other large payroll teams. If someone is happy with a 65-win team that has a payroll of under $20 million because they're cost efficient, so be it. That's why I thought Davearm 2 had the right statistics. As I posted earlier, anyone can find statistics to prove or disprove just about anything.

Davearm is the one who brought $/win into this to show that Hendry is doing a decent job. Rob made a correction (and a valid one, btw). You questioned whether that would make the small market teams look artificially better (they're better using the average analysis in addition to the marginal analysis, btw). I pointed out why small market teams ARE better from an efficiency standpoint.

 

The only one who is using any of this to justify anything is davearm.

I'm not justifying anything. I'm just dispelling the misconception that Hendry's spending has been either more prolific or less efficient per win than other big-market teams around baseball. This notion that Hendry's constantly throwing away good money after bad just simply is not supported by the data.

No, your data doesn't really say that. It means he's been around as efficient as the other top 10 spending teams, who also may have a habit of wasting lots of money.

OK then, so apparently what folks really want is not a new GM, but rather for the Cub to no longer be a big-market team, since big-market teams inherently waste lots of money.

[davell]

I would have been fine with the massive overspending of a few seasons ago, IF it had resulted in a world series win. It didn't and that's the life of a GM with a large payroll. If you take gambles and they don't pay off, you're going to be squarely in the hotseat, which is where Hendry is and deserves to be.......

[YearofDaCubs]

I would have been fine with the massive overspending of a few seasons ago, IF it had resulted in a world series win. It didn't and that's the life of a GM with a large payroll. If you take gambles and they don't pay off, you're going to be squarely in the hotseat, which is where Hendry is and deserves to be.......

I'm still shocked he gave a 30 year Soriano an 8 year deal.

[davell]

I would have been fine with the massive overspending of a few seasons ago, IF it had resulted in a world series win. It didn't and that's the life of a GM with a large payroll. If you take gambles and they don't pay off, you're going to be squarely in the hotseat, which is where Hendry is and deserves to be.......

I'm still shocked he gave a 30 year Soriano an 8 year deal.

 

 

Yeah, I remember being pissy about the length of the deal too. I remember them reasoning it out, saying that Soriano was in such good shape that he'd be fine in the latter parts of the deal.

 

In the end, he was the first guy we had signed that was considered the "top" guy on the market and I was pretty stoked about it, at first. Mainly because it seemed like we were committed to winning for the first time since salaries had escalated. I wish that we had went with Carlos Lee instead NOW and wasn't sure which was the better option then either actually. But, it's neither here, nor there really. Right now, it's obviously looking like a horrible contract and Hendry was the one who signed him and has to bear the brunt of it.

[jersey cubs fan]

I would have been fine with the massive overspending of a few seasons ago, IF it had resulted in a world series win. It didn't and that's the life of a GM with a large payroll. If you take gambles and they don't pay off, you're going to be squarely in the hotseat, which is where Hendry is and deserves to be.......

I'm still shocked he gave a 30 year Soriano an 8 year deal.

 

 

Yeah, I remember being pissy about the length of the deal too. I remember them reasoning it out, saying that Soriano was in such good shape that he'd be fine in the latter parts of the deal.

 

In the end, he was the first guy we had signed that was considered the "top" guy on the market and I was pretty stoked about it, at first. Mainly because it seemed like we were committed to winning for the first time since salaries had escalated. I wish that we had went with Carlos Lee instead NOW and wasn't sure which was the better option then either actually. But, it's neither here, nor there really. Right now, it's obviously looking like a horrible contract and Hendry was the one who signed him and has to bear the brunt of it.

 

It was obviously a horrible contract the day he signed it. Soriano was overhyped because of his Yankee pedrigree and meaningless 40/40 reputation. He was only the top outfielder available and the Cubs were absolutely desperate for outfielders. And even then Barry Bonds was obviously a better option since he could be had short-term. I was resigned to the fact that they pretty much needed to go with Soriano or Lee out of their own pathetic desperation and poor planning, but it was obvious Soriano didn't have longterm productivity coming his way.

[Guest]

OK then, so apparently what folks really want is not a new GM, but rather for the Cub to no longer be a big-market team, since big-market teams inherently waste lots of money.

No, I don't really think you're correctly stating what it is that people want.

[SouthSideRyan]

The discussion seemed to be that the Cubs overspend wildly for the number of wins they have produced especially against other large payroll teams. If someone is happy with a 65-win team that has a payroll of under $20 million because they're cost efficient, so be it. That's why I thought Davearm 2 had the right statistics. As I posted earlier, anyone can find statistics to prove or disprove just about anything.

Davearm is the one who brought $/win into this to show that Hendry is doing a decent job. Rob made a correction (and a valid one, btw). You questioned whether that would make the small market teams look artificially better (they're better using the average analysis in addition to the marginal analysis, btw). I pointed out why small market teams ARE better from an efficiency standpoint.

 

The only one who is using any of this to justify anything is davearm.

I'm not justifying anything. I'm just dispelling the misconception that Hendry's spending has been either more prolific or less efficient per win than other big-market teams around baseball. This notion that Hendry's constantly throwing away good money after bad just simply is not supported by the data.

No, your data doesn't really say that. It means he's been around as efficient as the other top 10 spending teams, who also may have a habit of wasting lots of money.

OK then, so apparently what folks really want is not a new GM, but rather for the Cub to no longer be a big-market team, since big-market teams inherently waste lots of money.

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_EpWyBZJXhgI/SP0y5vTJYWI/AAAAAAAACR8/PK-UV2WLDJs/s400/warden_norton.jpg

[soapy]

The discussion seemed to be that the Cubs overspend wildly for the number of wins they have produced especially against other large payroll teams. If someone is happy with a 65-win team that has a payroll of under $20 million because they're cost efficient, so be it. That's why I thought Davearm 2 had the right statistics. As I posted earlier, anyone can find statistics to prove or disprove just about anything.

Davearm is the one who brought $/win into this to show that Hendry is doing a decent job. Rob made a correction (and a valid one, btw). You questioned whether that would make the small market teams look artificially better (they're better using the average analysis in addition to the marginal analysis, btw). I pointed out why small market teams ARE better from an efficiency standpoint.

 

The only one who is using any of this to justify anything is davearm.

I'm not justifying anything. I'm just dispelling the misconception that Hendry's spending has been either more prolific or less efficient per win than other big-market teams around baseball. This notion that Hendry's constantly throwing away good money after bad just simply is not supported by the data.

No, your data doesn't really say that. It means he's been around as efficient as the other top 10 spending teams, who also may have a habit of wasting lots of money.

OK then, so apparently what folks really want is not a new GM, but rather for the Cub to no longer be a big-market team, since big-market teams inherently waste lots of money.

 

oh man, you busted us.

[Sever82]

I know its Phill Rogers but this is an interesting read.

 

http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2009/12/cabrera-trade-could-impact-cubs.html

 

Especially this Part:

 

There are not many attractive center fielders on the market, and it's unclear if Hendry would reacquire Felix Pie, who is being shopped by Baltimore. The free-agent options under consideration are Marlon Byrd, Rick Ankiel and Scott Podsednik, along with re-signing Reed Johnson.

 

I honestly wouldn't mind having Pie back, as long as it doesn't cost the cubs much of anything. Maybe a Fontenot for Pie swap.

[SouthSideRyan]

If we acquire Pie, won't that just make Reed Johnson (or similar garbage) the starting CF by April 9th?

[davearm2]

OK then, so apparently what folks really want is not a new GM, but rather for the Cub to no longer be a big-market team, since big-market teams inherently waste lots of money.

No, I don't really think you're correctly stating what it is that people want.

Ok then where'd I jump the tracks:

 

Chorus: "Hendry wastes too much money so we need a new GM."

Davearm: "Hendry doesn't spend differently or less effectively than other big-market teams."

Tim: "All big-market teams waste money."

Davearm: "So the big-market thing is the problem, not the GM."

Tim: "Wrong."

Davearm: :confused: