Lots of unusually debilitating injuries to major stars for a few of those seasons make looking only at the team's won-loss record an obviously overly simplistic way of judging the job Jim Hendry's done. That said, over simplify away... Excuses excuses excuses. Record vs resources. It's simple because that's all that matters. Excuse away, and you'll just keep getting the same results. So what kind of job would you say Dave Dombrowski has done with the Detroit Tigers? I would take Dombrowski as GM of the Cubs any day of the week and twice on Sunday, but if we judged him the same way you are judging Hendry, our analysis would tell us to stay far, far away. Never mind that Dombrowski took an organization that was losing terribly and turned them into a team that went to the World Series last year and is currently leading their division this year. His won-loss record during his tenure at Detroit is 403-527. That's 124 games under .500!!!! OMG!!!! Simple and ridiculous. Detroit was a train wreck and they're now a very good team that's well-positioned for the future. Hendry took over a team that had won 88 games the previous year. Since then he hired Dusty Baker, who was an outright disaster and who was at least partly responsible for major injuries to two very good young pitchers. He's built a team that is 3 games above .500 in a terrible division, in a weak National League. He's also got several very large contracts which may hinder the options available to the team in the future. Dombrowski inherited a team that had lost 106 games, had bad players and little promise for the future. He's turned them into a very good team with some of the best young talent in the game - a team that should be playoff contenders for years to come. They're 13 games over .500 in a pretty good division, in what's considered by just about everybody to be the superior league. The very large contracts that the Tigers have are Mags - that one expires in 2009 if the Tigers choose not to exercise his options, Sheffield (expires in '09), Carlos Guillen (expires in 2011, but $12M a year for his production is probably a bargain) and Bonderman (4 years, $38M - who wouldn't take that?) So Dombrowski has taken a worse product and turned it into a better team with a better outlook for the future. Simple and ridiculous.