Brutal, brutal season - worst I can remember

[davell]

But, they are NOT going to fire Hendry right now. If they were, they wouldn't be letting him conduct the managerial search.

 

So then hiring a baseball man as president isn't going to change that.

 

Why? If you hire a President of Baseball Ops, he would have the authority to make that sort of move, in all likelihood. The bottom line for me is this: I'm not happy with the current situation of the Cubs and I want some changes. Since it doesn't appear Ricketts will be firing Hendry anytime soon, this is an option for us that can bring us something different. Would he necessarily fire Hendry? Maybe not. Would he conceivably make changes that Hendry wouldn't make? Probably so. Would they necessarily be good for the Cubs? Who knows? But, I'm willing to take the chance on something new and I really don't see how anyone could say anything differently, unless you're content on having an average baseball team with a very high payroll. So to anyone who disagrees with this statement, answer this question for me: Assuming Hendry is around through the end of his contract(2 more years) do you want to wait it out and see what state we're in once he's done at that point?

[jersey cubs fan]

But, they are NOT going to fire Hendry right now. If they were, they wouldn't be letting him conduct the managerial search.

 

So then hiring a baseball man as president isn't going to change that.

 

Why? If you hire a President of Baseball Ops, he would have the authority to make that sort of move, in all likelihood. The bottom line for me is this: I'm not happy with the current situation of the Cubs and I want some changes. Since it doesn't appear Ricketts will be firing Hendry anytime soon, this is an option for us that can bring us something different. Would he necessarily fire Hendry? Maybe not. Would he conceivably make changes that Hendry wouldn't make? Probably so. Would they necessarily be good for the Cubs? Who knows? But, I'm willing to take the chance on something new and I really don't see how anyone could say anything differently, unless you're content on having an average baseball team with a very high payroll. So to anyone who disagrees with this statement, answer this question for me: Assuming Hendry is around through the end of his contract(2 more years) do you want to wait it out and see what state we're in once he's done at that point?

 

That's not what I want but if I have to make that assumption than that's what we are left with. A president isn't going to change Jim Hendry.

[davell]

But, they are NOT going to fire Hendry right now. If they were, they wouldn't be letting him conduct the managerial search.

 

So then hiring a baseball man as president isn't going to change that.

 

Why? If you hire a President of Baseball Ops, he would have the authority to make that sort of move, in all likelihood. The bottom line for me is this: I'm not happy with the current situation of the Cubs and I want some changes. Since it doesn't appear Ricketts will be firing Hendry anytime soon, this is an option for us that can bring us something different. Would he necessarily fire Hendry? Maybe not. Would he conceivably make changes that Hendry wouldn't make? Probably so. Would they necessarily be good for the Cubs? Who knows? But, I'm willing to take the chance on something new and I really don't see how anyone could say anything differently, unless you're content on having an average baseball team with a very high payroll. So to anyone who disagrees with this statement, answer this question for me: Assuming Hendry is around through the end of his contract(2 more years) do you want to wait it out and see what state we're in once he's done at that point?

 

That's not what I want but if I have to make that assumption than that's what we are left with. A president isn't going to change Jim Hendry.

 

See, that's where our disagreement lies. Because I think a president A) could fire him B) could change some of his habits by not giving in to them(ie tunnel vision each offseason into one basic idea) and/or perhaps tweak things that can help longterm(alotting monies spent differently) Is this what we would get from a president? No idea, but I'm willing to take a shot, since Hendry doesn't appear to be going anywhere currently and I'm not thrilled at the posibilites of what kind of damage he could do, if he falls into "save job" mode in about a year.

[Sammy Sofa]

They don't need a new president to fire him. They could fire him now.

[jersey cubs fan]

See, that's where our disagreement lies. Because I think a president A) could fire him B) could change some of his habits by not giving in to them(ie tunnel vision each offseason into one basic idea) and/or perhaps tweak things that can help longterm(alotting monies spent differently) Is this what we would get from a president? No idea, but I'm willing to take a shot, since Hendry doesn't appear to be going anywhere currently and I'm not thrilled at the posibilites of what kind of damage he could do, if he falls into "save job" mode in about a year.

 

That just doesn't make any sense.

[davell]

See, that's where our disagreement lies. Because I think a president A) could fire him B) could change some of his habits by not giving in to them(ie tunnel vision each offseason into one basic idea) and/or perhaps tweak things that can help longterm(alotting monies spent differently) Is this what we would get from a president? No idea, but I'm willing to take a shot, since Hendry doesn't appear to be going anywhere currently and I'm not thrilled at the posibilites of what kind of damage he could do, if he falls into "save job" mode in about a year.

 

That just doesn't make any sense.

 

I'm sorry, but I think what I wrote is extremely easy to comprehend. A new set of eyes looking over the organization could possibly fire Hendry.(something Ricketts hasn't and isn't going to do anytime soon) A new set of eyes could possibly keep Hendry from having offseason themes, as he's prone to do. And a new set of eyes could just tweak some minor things that could help us longterm. Like not allowing backloaded contracts or other things like that. Will it happen if we hire someone? No idea, but these are the things that I would personally want to be looked at and I'm sure I'm not alone, in that matter. But, in this scenario, where it's either Hendry until his contract runs out or hiring someone who can at least look out over what Hendry's doing, I guess you must be relatively happy with what Hendry brings to the table or at least satisfied in the fact that he can't do any more harm to the organization than he already has. It's sad that he needs a babysitter, but he does. Because he isn't get fired by Ricketts seeing as how he's leading the search for a new manager. I just don't see it happening.

[UMFan83]

Hendry is the Cubs' Rasputin. He will outlive everyone on the team except Rothschild.

[SouthSideRyan]

IF RICKETTS DIDN'T WANT HENDRY FIRED WHY WOULD HE GRANT A TEAM PRESIDENT THE RIGHTS TO FIRE HIM

[daske17]

IF RICKETTS DIDN'T WANT HENDRY FIRED WHY WOULD HE GRANT A TEAM PRESIDENT THE RIGHTS TO FIRE HIM

 

I think it may be because there's no one in the organization with authority telling Ricketts, "Hey, this guy's an idiot."

 

Just my opinion.

[jersey cubs fan]

IF RICKETTS DIDN'T WANT HENDRY FIRED WHY WOULD HE GRANT A TEAM PRESIDENT THE RIGHTS TO FIRE HIM

 

I think it may be because there's no one in the organization with authority telling Ricketts, "Hey, this guy's an idiot."

 

Just my opinion.

 

No "baseball man" in line for the president's role is going to come in and tell Ricketts that Hendry is an idiot. Jim Hendry is a card carrying member of the baseball man fraternity.

[davell]

IF RICKETTS DIDN'T WANT HENDRY FIRED WHY WOULD HE GRANT A TEAM PRESIDENT THE RIGHTS TO FIRE HIM

 

 

Awesome. You're typing angry???????There was more than just the idea of the president having the ability to fire him as far as reasons I listed as to why having someone over top of Hendry was a good idea. Read them and if you disagree, feel free to yell at me again......

[SouthSideRyan]

If Ricketts wanted Hendry's role reduced, he'd fire him. Hiring a president to guide the direction of the baseball operations is demoting Hendry to assistant GM. Your best (probably still unrealistic)hope is for Hendry to be promoted to team president.

[daske17]

IF RICKETTS DIDN'T WANT HENDRY FIRED WHY WOULD HE GRANT A TEAM PRESIDENT THE RIGHTS TO FIRE HIM

 

I think it may be because there's no one in the organization with authority telling Ricketts, "Hey, this guy's an idiot."

 

Just my opinion.

 

No "baseball man" in line for the president's role is going to come in and tell Ricketts that Hendry is an idiot. Jim Hendry is a card carrying member of the baseball man fraternity.

 

Fine, but my point stands that someone in an authority figure needs to point out that Hendry is detrimental to the future of the team. No one currently exists in that capacity.

[Banedon]

Hey guys. I'm awful at my job at Mcdonalds. But I'm chummy with the owner, and I say nice things, and he doesn't realize I'm bad at my job, so he's kept me up until now, and actively resisted any suggestion by others that I should be fired. But now, he's talking about hiring a new assistant manager, and I'm afraid that he'll fire me, because if the assistant manager wants to fire me, then the owner is powerless to stop it right?

[jersey cubs fan]

Fine, but my point stands that someone in an authority figure needs to point out that Hendry is detrimental to the future of the team. No one currently exists in that capacity.

 

Ricketts has to just look at team performance. You don't need an authority figure between him and Hendry to point that out. He doesn't care. He's either keeping Jim because he's one of those idiot fans who say, "three playoffs series on the Cubs he must be the best" or because he's taking a prolonged approach to consolidating the finances post-purchase and is just going to wait it out. They have a million baseball men in this organization. One more isn't going to tip the scales against Hendry. Ricketts just needs to wake up and pull the trigger himself. Now that the playoffs have begun, any lingering hopes that it would happen this year are gone.

[Soul]

Yeah, if Ricketts needs someone to tell him his GM is an idiot, then we're in deep trouble.

[Guest]

As has already been eluded to, no one is going to get rid of Hendry unless Ricketts gives his blessing. Hendry is part of the fraternity of baseball men now. He's well liked in his circle, is VERY generous in his dealings with others and for whatever reason, seems to have the respect of many of his current employees and colleagues. That's all that Ricketts really knows about Jim Hendry and that he is respected is probably all Ricketts really needs to trust him to an adequate job of running the team. At least until Ricketts starts feeling more pressure to make some significant changes. The likelihood is that Hendry will serve out his contract and he will then be off on his merry way.

 

Unfortunately, this seems to be more important than the actual results. I'm guessing that he's just as good at wiggling his way out of trouble with ownership (results) as he has been with getting bumps in the budget time and time again.

 

It's as if he can get ownership to buy into his theories of why the team didn't perform well the previous season, and that he's now got it all figured out, when in reality, he's just making things worse by changing the entire team philosophy from one bad one to another.

 

I'm somewhat relieved that they have been able to improve on some aspects of the game that are more important than Hendry has ever understood, like OBP, but his inability to think beyond the mind of a veteran manager/former player in the dugout is why his time has come to an end. All Jim Hendry is doing is spinning his wheels with no real game plan to speak of.

 

Next year will be no better than this year. He's going to focus all of his energy on a left handed hitting 1b and he'll probably grab a couple of veteran specialty relief pitchers and think that the Cubs will be the team to beat in the NL Central.

 

Sure, his hands are tied with bad contracts, but they are HIS bad contracts and he bears the sole responsibility for not being able to dramatically overhaul this team. If it was Ricketts' money that bought all of these bad contracts, it's possible Ricketts could or would have fired him by now. I can understand Ricketts' patience at this point, although I don't like it.

 

I'd have gotten rid of Hendry years ago. This team acts like he's tenured and can't be fired. A GM is expected to provide results and Hendry hasn't done that. When adding the resources Hendry has been given to work with during that time, Hendry has to fall into a category of failure that I would think makes him a very lonely man. It's an absolute embarrassment that a guy can have such a mediocre record over such a long period of time with what he was given to work with.

 

When Hendry took over the club, they had the #1 farm system in baseball, bad contracts coming off the books and an increasing budget nearly every year he had the team. We have seen the budget go from 75m to 145m during that span, an increase seen by so few teams over that span that there may not be any other. What does he have to show for it?

 

Some losing seasons and a few fired managers and batting coaches. Heck, I didn't even bother watching this season. I knew it was going to suck before it ever started. If that's where we really are with this team, it's time for new upper management. If Ricketts didn't recognize that from his front row season tickets the last several years or as owner this year, then next year isn't going to be any better.

[NewUserName]

is it possible that Hendry has been able to sell the idea to Ricketts that he was opposed to some of the moves the Cubs have made that were more for PR or short term success but hurt the teams flexibility in the long run? for example the signing of Soriano and the resigning of Zambrano. This is not me trying to defend Hendry(who I think needs to be fired) as much as it may be an excuse of why Ricketts has not fired him.

[jersey cubs fan]

is it possible that Hendry has been able to sell the idea to Ricketts that he was opposed to some of the moves the Cubs have made that were more for PR or short term success but hurt the teams flexibility in the long run? for example the signing of Soriano and the resigning of Zambrano. This is not me trying to defend Hendry(who I think needs to be fired) as much as it may be an excuse of why Ricketts has not fired him.

 

Sure it's possible. But moves like signing Soriano were very instrumental in turning a sub .500 Hendry team into a decent ballclub. Without that reckless spending Hendry's resume looks even more pathetic than it already looks.

[SpongeWorthy]

As has already been eluded to, no one is going to get rid of Hendry unless Ricketts gives his blessing. Hendry is part of the fraternity of baseball men now. He's well liked in his circle, is VERY generous in his dealings with others and for whatever reason, seems to have the respect of many of his current employees and colleagues. That's all that Ricketts really knows about Jim Hendry and that he is respected is probably all Ricketts really needs to trust him to an adequate job of running the team. At least until Ricketts starts feeling more pressure to make some significant changes. The likelihood is that Hendry will serve out his contract and he will then be off on his merry way.

 

So basically you're saying that Ricketts is dumb enough to be duped by Hendry's friendly demeanor and the good word of his competitors and underlings? Isn't this guy supposed to be some investment mogul?

[jersey cubs fan]

As has already been eluded to, no one is going to get rid of Hendry unless Ricketts gives his blessing. Hendry is part of the fraternity of baseball men now. He's well liked in his circle, is VERY generous in his dealings with others and for whatever reason, seems to have the respect of many of his current employees and colleagues. That's all that Ricketts really knows about Jim Hendry and that he is respected is probably all Ricketts really needs to trust him to an adequate job of running the team. At least until Ricketts starts feeling more pressure to make some significant changes. The likelihood is that Hendry will serve out his contract and he will then be off on his merry way.

 

So basically you're saying that Ricketts is dumb enough to be duped by Hendry's friendly demeanor and the good word of his competitors and underlings? Isn't this guy supposed to be some investment mogul?

 

Sports fans in the investment world are just as sports dumb as sports fans in other industries.

[Guest]

As has already been eluded to, no one is going to get rid of Hendry unless Ricketts gives his blessing. Hendry is part of the fraternity of baseball men now. He's well liked in his circle, is VERY generous in his dealings with others and for whatever reason, seems to have the respect of many of his current employees and colleagues. That's all that Ricketts really knows about Jim Hendry and that he is respected is probably all Ricketts really needs to trust him to an adequate job of running the team. At least until Ricketts starts feeling more pressure to make some significant changes. The likelihood is that Hendry will serve out his contract and he will then be off on his merry way.

 

So basically you're saying that Ricketts is dumb enough to be duped by Hendry's friendly demeanor and the good word of his competitors and underlings? Isn't this guy supposed to be some investment mogul?

He's not a mogul, his father is. He's a trust fund baby. Perhaps not Billy Madison, but he's no John Quincy Adams either.

[jersey cubs fan]

As has already been eluded to, no one is going to get rid of Hendry unless Ricketts gives his blessing. Hendry is part of the fraternity of baseball men now. He's well liked in his circle, is VERY generous in his dealings with others and for whatever reason, seems to have the respect of many of his current employees and colleagues. That's all that Ricketts really knows about Jim Hendry and that he is respected is probably all Ricketts really needs to trust him to an adequate job of running the team. At least until Ricketts starts feeling more pressure to make some significant changes. The likelihood is that Hendry will serve out his contract and he will then be off on his merry way.

 

So basically you're saying that Ricketts is dumb enough to be duped by Hendry's friendly demeanor and the good word of his competitors and underlings? Isn't this guy supposed to be some investment mogul?

He's not a mogul, his father is. He's a trust fund baby. Perhaps not Billy Madison, but he's no John Quincy Adams either.

 

I do believe he took a moderately successful business and turned it into a gigantic one. There was also the family business and a second one he started.

[Guest]

It's not about being duped. It's about walking into a situation where you know very little about the industry.

 

Ricketts is a Cub fan and had front row seats for several years. This does not give you automatic knowledge of the inner workings of a baseball team. It does not magically give you knowledge on who the best baseball minds in the industry are.

 

Worse yet, the president of operations is a PR guy and isn't really qualified to hire a great baseball mind. Quite possibly, the highest ranking and brightest baseball mind in the eyes of Ricketts is Jim Hendry, who is under contract and guaranteed his salary.

 

Ricketts probably knows he inherited a mess. If he's a true fan, he knows. However, it's not really his mess (he just inherited it) and it would probably be somewhat irresponsible to throw all caution to the wind and shake things up without at least learning a bit more about your new trade. There probably isn't a single person in the entire organization that has negative things to say about Hendry. There probably aren't any other owners who would portray Hendry as a bad GM. Therefore, the reality is that while Ricketts learns how to be the owner of a baseball franchise, he has respected baseball people who will probably do their best to try to put a successful team on the field. Unfortunately, Hendry is not very good at that, although that's amazingly somewhat of a secret still.

 

He's not being duped and he isn't walking on eggshells. He's just biding his time until contracts dissipate and he can mold the team the way he wants and find baseball minds that can help him accomplish that. At least that's all we can really hope.

 

ETA: And it is quite possible that a little birdie within the organization has informed Ricketts that if he cans Hendry that several other higher up personnel will be leaving as well, which is a tough pill to swallow as a brand new owner looking to fill lots of openings. He has a crapload of other things on his plate without adding more.

[jersey cubs fan]

He's not being duped and he isn't walking on eggshells. He's just biding his time until contracts dissipate and he can mold the team the way he wants and find baseball minds that can help him accomplish that. At least that's all we can really hope.

 

ETA: And it is quite possible that a little birdie within the organization has informed Ricketts that if he cans Hendry that several other higher up personnel will be leaving as well, which is a tough pill to swallow as a brand new owner looking to fill lots of openings. He has a crapload of other things on his plate without adding more.

 

He may be biding his time but there's no good reason to do so and your last point doesn't hold up. Who are they afraid of losing? This team isn't dripping with great leadership and the most wanted men in the game.

 

Keeping him in 2010 was biding time. Keeping him now means he wants Jim in charge. That's an indictment.