Dempster Traded to Texas for 3B Villanueva & RHP Hendricks

[Guest]

Ownership told Hendry that his job while he was here was to spend a lot of money and try to buy a winning team.

 

And he failed miserably at that job.

 

 

I hate Hendry, but I wouldn't say the transformation from the 06 team to the 07-09 teams was a miserable failure.

[jersey cubs fan]

Ownership told Hendry that his job while he was here was to spend a lot of money and try to buy a winning team.

 

And he failed miserably at that job.

 

 

I hate Hendry, but I wouldn't say the transformation from the 06 team to the 07-09 teams was a miserable failure.

 

Hendry didn't generally manage for 2 years. And they sucked in 2006 largely because of how poorly he did his jobs the 3 years prior.

[sneakypower]

victorino is a corpse and brandon league is brandon league. i'll give you hanley, and I cannot remember the other guy he traded for.

a 31-year-old corpse set to put up a 3-win season, and missed 30 games yet posted 6 WAR last year

[Little Slide Rooter]

Ownership told Hendry that his job while he was here was to spend a lot of money and try to buy a winning team.

 

And he failed miserably at that job.

 

We simply don't know what kind of pressure he was under or what his orders were. 2006 was an awful season, not too long after The Cubs popularity was higher than it has been in years. He succeeded in building a contender the next year, and the best team of our lifetime the following. Remember even after signing Soriano and extending Ramirez, there were rumors that we could still go after Carlos Lee AND Barry Zito. God know what type of mess we'd be in right about now if that happened.Then the team was up for sale, and they wanted to try to pack in some more high profile players.

 

He did build a winning team, but with a core of 30 somethings, it wasn't built to last. Sprinkle in failed prospect after failed prospect, and here we are today. Still, it should have lasted longer. Who knew that Soriano would decline as rapidly as he did after back to back seasons in which he was an MVP candidate. Who knew that Zambrano would become the [expletive] that he did? Who knew that Aramis would miss a goodchunk of the 2009 season? And then there was Milton. A lot of people questioned that signing, but I don't think that anyone expected it to blow up in his face as ubrubtly and as violently as it did. There were a lot of factors that went beyond Hendry's ability as a GM.

[Guest]

Ownership told Hendry that his job while he was here was to spend a lot of money and try to buy a winning team.

 

And he failed miserably at that job.

 

 

I hate Hendry, but I wouldn't say the transformation from the 06 team to the 07-09 teams was a miserable failure.

 

Hendry didn't generally manage for 2 years. And they sucked in 2006 largely because of how poorly he did his jobs the 3 years prior.

 

Agreed but I figured he was referring to the later years in referencing spending a lot of money to buy a winner.

[jersey cubs fan]

Agreed but I figured he was referring to the later years in referencing spending a lot of money to buy a winner.

 

If he was that is ridiculous because he spent a lot more money than his competition over 9 years and did a terrible job of it. Making a team bad and then spending a ton of money to make it better for 2 years (before falling apart again) is both incredibly easy and a stupid thing to applaud a GM for doing.

[CUBZ99]

Ownership told Hendry that his job while he was here was to spend a lot of money and try to buy a winning team.

 

And he failed miserably at that job.

 

The only thing that Hendry failed miserably at was winning a WS. If you judge his success by playoff appearances, he was in the top 1/3 of GMs from the NL during his tenure with the Cubs.

[Backtobanks]

It's amazing to me that some of you can't get past your dislike for Hendry to see anything good that he did. I guess it's pretty much the same group that loves Theo so much that you can't admit he ever made a bad decision in his life. As for me, I've moved past Hendry and I'm hoping Theo & Co. can win a WS before we need to extend their contracts.

[Shilzzz]

while i think many of us, as cubs fans, micromanaged our disgust for hendry either in hindsight of bad contracts or his odd love for middle infielders, middle relievers, and guys like koyie hill, he did an excellent job with some scrap heap finds like ryan dempster, grudz/karros, matt clement, aramis, and a couple of others. while prior and wood's injury problems hamstrung the organization for a couple of years, his major failure was, beyond pressure to sign big name free agents, beyond no trade clauses, awful drafts and farm system organizational structure in regards to building winning approaches, especially with toolsy hitters. i think that drafting guys with tools like corey patterson as a prime example is what a team should do, but the difference between the former and current front office is a unified approach on all levels of how to channel those tools into successful major league players, creating a streamline of goods which enables the flexability of movement where major league needs are concerned via payroll and talent swapping in trades towards positional safety of postseason involvement. think about how badly patterson's approach was pushed and pulled between levels, then hitting coaches, and managers like baylor and baker. Hendry had not only poor skills when it came to being open to technological advancements in scouting (the fact that they didn't even use computers, and often hand written notes), combined with the smallest front office in all of baseball, led to the worst kind of group think, shadowed further by ownership changes which demanded poor spending for the kind of business conjecture least likely to be sustainable in terms of long term winning. I think Hendry tried. Very hard, in fact. And there is valor in that. Also, having met and talked with the guy, though this is not important whatsoever to the context here, he was a very nice person. Almost too nice. But the stark difference in the most important factors in annually winning sports franchises is evident between then and now, and as a Cubs fan, I don't care if it takes three more years of this [expletive] losing, since it's not [expletive] losing if it's inherent in the structure of long term sustained winning. We have a very intelligent organization, conscious of the most acute angles of what it means to win, the patience to see the plan through no matter the up front hardships, and the support of an ownership group who not only relentlessly backs the baseball operations guys, but will be around long enough to where the trust will pay off. it will pay off. there has been too much good in a very short amount of time to what was an organization in shambles to not have faith that it will pay off. #kanyeshrug.

 

tl;dr

[XZero771679666304]

Ownership told Hendry that his job while he was here was to spend a lot of money and try to buy a winning team.

 

And he failed miserably at that job.

 

The only thing that Hendry failed miserably at was winning a WS. If you judge his success by playoff appearances, he was in the top 1/3 of GMs from the NL during his tenure with the Cubs.

 

Too many peaks and valleys. Hendry could spend money, but he was awful at organization building. Top tier GMs build clubs that sustain success (Yankees, Red Sox, Braves, Cardinals), not winning in fits and starts bridged by periods of being awful.

 

Hendry's tenure mas marked by too much living in the moment, too few contingency plans and too little long term planning. And, to be fair, a solid dose of bad luck. At the end of the day, it's hard to regard Hendry as anything other than a mediocre GM.

[neely crenshaw]

I don't dislike Hendry but he did a horrible job. Yes, he had some successes but when you drop the kind of coin they did you are going to get some good players. My only wish is that they had someone better in the job when they decided to spend. We were close but never made a serious playoff run. With the 3rd highest payroll in baseball you have to some players whether your GM is good or not.

[XZero771679666304]

It's amazing to me that some of you can't get past your dislike for Hendry to see anything good that he did. I guess it's pretty much the same group that loves Theo so much that you can't admit he ever made a bad decision in his life. As for me, I've moved past Hendry and I'm hoping Theo & Co. can win a WS before we need to extend their contracts.

 

Hendry did some good and Theo made more than a few mistakes. And I liked Hendry as a person, and it was literally painful to watch his exit. I would have liked nothing more than to have seen him succeed with the Cubs.

 

But Theo Epstein has been demonstrably better at his job than Hendry was. It wasn't just the Red Sox payroll, either. He built a strong farm system that produced key contributors to the Sox being in the playoffs nearly every single year. Hendry was great at the trade, but he was abysmal at talent evaluation and identifying weaknesses. And sadly, one of his shortcomings was that he was too nice.

[Soul]

I thought Hendry had it in '03. I really did. And I was convinced during the '03/'04 offseason that he was going to get it done.

 

Now, I know he wasn't a particularly good GM, but back then I was very excited. I harbor no ill will towards him.

 

No question he's the wrong man for the job now.

[Guest]

I don't really get why we're rehashing these same Hendry arguments.

 

backtobanks, if all your posts continue to be thinly veiled variations of "make sure you hate Theo just as much as you did Hendry!", no one is going to take you seriously. It's honestly closer to trolling than actual discussion at this point, it's one-note and it is tired.

[Backtobanks]

I don't really get why we're rehashing these same Hendry arguments.

 

backtobanks, if all your posts continue to be thinly veiled variations of "make sure you hate Theo just as much as you did Hendry!", no one is going to take you seriously. It's honestly closer to trolling than actual discussion at this point, it's one-note and it is tired.

 

I don't hate Theo, I'm just anxiously awaiting results that we can see at Wrigley. As for mentioning Hendry, go through all of the deadline trade threads and see how many posters brought up Hendry. What's really one-note and tiring is that many posters can't discuss a topic for two pages without bringing up Hendry. He's gone, let's move on and discuss the moves that are being made (or need to be made) by this FO.

[Derwood]

I don't really get why we're rehashing these same Hendry arguments.

 

backtobanks, if all your posts continue to be thinly veiled variations of "make sure you hate Theo just as much as you did Hendry!", no one is going to take you seriously. It's honestly closer to trolling than actual discussion at this point, it's one-note and it is tired.

 

as is gooney's constant "blargle blargle Hendry worst GM ever blargle."

 

Can we just ban anyone who ever talks about Hendry again?

[Guest]

be honest backtobanks, it kills you to see theo make good moves. it's just oozing out of you.

[Guest]

I don't really get why we're rehashing these same Hendry arguments.

 

backtobanks, if all your posts continue to be thinly veiled variations of "make sure you hate Theo just as much as you did Hendry!", no one is going to take you seriously. It's honestly closer to trolling than actual discussion at this point, it's one-note and it is tired.

 

I don't hate Theo, I'm just anxiously awaiting results that we can see at Wrigley. As for mentioning Hendry, go through all of the deadline trade threads and see how many posters brought up Hendry. What's really one-note and tiring is that many posters can't discuss a topic for two pages without bringing up Hendry. He's gone, let's move on and discuss the moves that are being made (or need to be made) by this FO.

 

you are the one who always gets hendry back into the same conversation.

[Magnetic Curses]

I don't really get why we're rehashing these same Hendry arguments.

 

backtobanks, if all your posts continue to be thinly veiled variations of "make sure you hate Theo just as much as you did Hendry!", no one is going to take you seriously. It's honestly closer to trolling than actual discussion at this point, it's one-note and it is tired.

 

I don't hate Theo, I'm just anxiously awaiting results that we can see at Wrigley. As for mentioning Hendry, go through all of the deadline trade threads and see how many posters brought up Hendry. What's really one-note and tiring is that many posters can't discuss a topic for two pages without bringing up Hendry. He's gone, let's move on and discuss the moves that are being made (or need to be made) by this FO.

 

where i come from, there is a word for your ilk:

 

[Guest]

for the people who don't read the minor league forum, villanueva homered in his first two plate appearances for daytona

[sneakypower]

http://sainthelena.us/school/classrooms/specialists/library/catalogs/LibraryTitle/St/Images/1314.jpg

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

Dempster had a rough start to his Rangers debut, but he is getting a good bit of run support.

[CincyCubsFan]

I can't bring myself to root against dempster...

[Bryants Disco Ball]

Dempster had a rough start to his Rangers debut, but he is getting a good bit of run support.

 

Although it's only one start, his choice to go to Texas and not Atlanta is really going to hurt him on the free agent market. I can't see him ending the season strong pitching in that stadium, in that heat and against those lineups.

[davell]

I can't bring myself to root against dempster...

Yeah, I'm right there with you. Oh wait, Randall Delgado K'd 10 in 6 innings a couple nights ago in AAA. So, maybe not. In fact, I was hoping Pujols took him deep multiple times tonight.