New Gm, New Manager

[Tarver]

No chance in hell Girardi comes to Chicago

 

Hopefully this is true.

 

What if the alternative is Sandberg?

 

Death.

 

Short bench or not, should've pinch ran for Ortiz.

[Garwilly]

No chance in hell Girardi comes to Chicago

 

Hopefully this is true.

 

What if the alternative is Sandberg?

 

Death.

 

Short bench or not, should've pinch ran for Ortiz.

 

With a pitcher or Arod?

[Tarver]

Seriously?

[Garwilly]

Seriously?

 

You want to burn your only bench spot on a runner for a non-tying run? Its not like his being slow would have prevented any potential runners behind him from scoring to tie. That Ortiz got stuck between bases was a fluke. If you want to complain about not using Arod in the 9th, the situation would have been for Kinsler.

[Elrhino]

With no end in sight to the Rangers ownership/bankruptcy debacle, I really think Jon Daniels could be had ... especially if Nolan Ryan's ownership group doesn't look like they're going to win. There's already a lot of uneasiness in Texas that someone is going to snatch him away.

[TruffleShuffle]

i'm still having trouble getting past the chris young/adrian gonzalez/termel sledge for otsuka/eaton trade that daniels pulled off early in his tenure. that deal was bad when it was made and obviously it turned into a disaster for the rangers. the danks trade wasn't so hot either.

 

the teixeira trade, on the other hand, was very good.

[Elrhino]

No doubt he made some horrible trades early in his tenor, but he's completely built up the Rangers farm system from nothing (especially in terms of pitching), been extremely shrewd in free agency despite having next to nothing to work with in budget (Vlad, Colby Lewis) and his trades the last several years have been quite good. He has baseball's 27th ranked payroll playing at the 6th best winning percentage. His drafting record is very good.

 

But you're right .. those early trades are almost so bad that I almost wonder if he's not undervalued because people can't get past the spectacular nature of them ... also the fact the Rangers don't get much publicity, even within Texas.

[swordsman]

No doubt he made some horrible trades early in his tenor, but he's completely built up the Rangers farm system from nothing (especially in terms of pitching), been extremely shrewd in free agency despite having next to nothing to work with in budget (Vlad, Colby Lewis) and his trades the last several years have been quite good. He has baseball's 27th ranked payroll playing at the 6th best winning percentage. His drafting record is very good.

 

But you're right .. those early trades are almost so bad that I almost wonder if he's not undervalued because people can't get past the spectacular nature of them ... also the fact the Rangers don't get much publicity, even within Texas.

 

tenor?

[CubsWin]

No doubt he made some horrible trades early in his tenor, but he's completely built up the Rangers farm system from nothing (especially in terms of pitching), been extremely shrewd in free agency despite having next to nothing to work with in budget (Vlad, Colby Lewis) and his trades the last several years have been quite good. He has baseball's 27th ranked payroll playing at the 6th best winning percentage. His drafting record is very good.

 

But you're right .. those early trades are almost so bad that I almost wonder if he's not undervalued because people can't get past the spectacular nature of them ... also the fact the Rangers don't get much publicity, even within Texas.

 

tenor?

Yes. Early on he was a tenor. Now Daniels is a bass. Everyone knows that.

[YearofDaCubs]

Apparently Hendry is staying on board. The Ricketts family has disappointed all Cubs fans IMO if this is true. There's no excuse for letting that clown run this team any longer.

 

http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2010/07/cubs-piniella-says-retirement-plans-leaked-out.html

[bhogg]

one can only hope that Cub fans will sufficiently express their disappointment with this bullcrap move.

[CubsWin]

I'm not one of the guys who despises Jim Hendry on this board. I think he's done a lot of good things and a lot of bad things. But I am one who believes that the Cubs could do better and would like to see them try someone else. I don't think that's going to happen however for a couple of reasons. One is what Ricketts said earlier today...

"Jim is our general manager full stop and will be our general manager going into next year," said Ricketts, adding that president Crane Kenney also will be involved in the search. "We have a good organization"

(Sorry, Truffle, looks like the head honcho disagrees with your sig. :wink: )

 

And the other is the way the Cubs front office is currently constructed. They seem to have put their eggs firmly in the scouting basket. From everything I've read, they use sabermetrics, but only as a part of the player's profile. Rightly or wrongly, I think they still trust a proven scout's trained eye and opinion more than the abstract metric. And unless that changes, it doesn't matter if they do ship out Hendry, he would likely be replaced with someone of a similar ilk and not a Theo Epstein type.

 

I'm not sure exactly why, but my initial reaction on who I'd like to replace Lou is Joe Torre. I'm a Girardi fan, but I don't see the Yankees letting him go anytime soon. I'm not intrigued by Sandberg yet. I'd need to learn more about him as a manager. There's been some turmoil in the Cubs clubhouse recently with Bradley and Zambrano. Torre seems like the best man for the job to deal with stuff like that. The question I have is how well does he work with and develop younger players. The Cubs seem to have some of those on the horizon as well as those already on the team. And I need to learn more about Bobby V. But it seems like a lot of people who know what they're talking about like him.

[Wilson A2000]

Dan Bernstein said that Hendry could be trying to tell Ricketts that some of his poor signings were not really his decisions, but were the Tribune Company's. He had little say, so his job should be saved. Is Hendry really saying that? Would he try to pull that one past Tom? Obviously Kenney would have to hear about that and refute it.

[J.R.]

John McDonough, at the behest of his Tribune masters, was a major force behind the spending prior to the '07 campaign. I'll give Hendry that.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I don't doubt for a second that McDonough or those who thought like him were behind the Soriano contract.

[Sammy Sofa]

Not to justify Hendry's time here, but some of the "bad deals" he's dished out here aren't necessarily the result of him being uniquely bad. Fukudome was a highly touted player that multiple teams were in hot pursuit of, and he reportedly actually took a bit less money than some of the other deals offered to play for the Cubs. Zambrano at the time of his last deal was definitely in demand and could have easily gotten the deal he got or even more if he had been a FA and arguably took a hometown discount to stay with the club.

 

Look, I'd love to see Hnedry fired, but I guess this comes back to how I think he's ultimately not an exceptionally bad GM. I think he's actually a very average GM, and odds are he'd be replaced by someone whose teams would pan out with similar results when all is said and done. This is in no way an endorsement of keeping Hendry, but I would be very surprised if the Cubs ended up with a genuinely good GM as opposed to the usual reactionary retreads that tend to occupy that spot on most teams.

Edited July 22, 2010 by Sammy Sofa

[Wilson A2000]

Hendry is an average GM. The problem is that he just had a lot of money at his disposal. Most other GMs would have made the same moves. And if you have a ton of money to throw around and your moves look like crap in the end, the poor result is mangified.

 

As the others have said, the Cubs deserve a better than average GM. And average GMs rarely win championships.

[jersey cubs fan]

Hendry is an average GM. The problem is that he just had a lot of money at his disposal. Most other GMs would have made the same moves. And if you have a ton of money to throw around and your moves look like crap in the end, the poor result is mangified.

 

As the others have said, the Cubs deserve a better than average GM. And average GMs rarely win championships.

 

I think most people would say Kenny Williams is at best an average GM, however, the White Sox have trounced the Cubs during their respective tenures in charge, to the tune of being nearly an 86 win team every year to the Cubs 83 win average. The Cubs have spent a lot more than the vast majority but have been nothing but an average GM. I do not think it's possible for an average GM to take a top 4-8 payroll and make it just an average team. Hendry is decidedly below average. It does not matter if he's made moves that others would have made. His team has not come close to winning the number of games they should have been able to win given the resource advantage.

[SouthSideRyan]

I think Kenny Williams is an above average GM. Very underrated.

[Guest]

I think Kenny Williams is an above average GM. Very underrated.

 

He loses points for having an idiot managing his teams. But, even the idiot can assemble line ups that win more games than the Cubs. So, what does that say about our management group?

[Sammy Sofa]

I do not think it's possible for an average GM to take a top 4-8 payroll and make it just an average team.

 

That seems to be a pretty extreme conclusion to come do. Why do you think that more money is going to always allow an average GM to overcome their mistakes and misconceptions as opposed to just amplifying or increasing them?

[Guest]

I think Kenny Williams is an above average GM. Very underrated.

 

He's like a half-step worse than Hendry.

[SouthSideRyan]

I think Kenny Williams is an above average GM. Very underrated.

 

He loses points for having an idiot managing his teams. But, even the idiot can assemble line ups that win more games than the Cubs. So, what does that say about our management group?

 

I think Ozzie Guillen is an above average GM. Very Underrated by Cubs fans

[jersey cubs fan]

I do not think it's possible for an average GM to take a top 4-8 payroll and make it just an average team.

 

That seems to be a pretty extreme conclusion to come do. Why do you think that more money is going to always allow an average GM to overcome their mistakes and misconceptions as opposed to just amplifying or increasing them?

 

If more money makes you worse, you aren't average. You're incompetent.

[jersey cubs fan]

I think Kenny Williams is an above average GM. Very underrated.

 

He's like a half-step worse than Hendry.

 

If he's worse than Jim Hendry why do his teams consistently win more than the Cubs?