Amazing_Grace

Yeah, right now the roster is basically 22 man because Lou won't use Jones, Izturis, or Eyre in anything like an important situation. When you have 3 players that your manager basically won't play, it limits the options. Hendry can't trade and won't release Jones (and with the way that Marlins trade looked, we may as well DFA him). Same with Eyre and Izturis. At least our manager means it when he says he has a "win-now" mentality. Our manager is making our GM look like the total imbecile that he is this season, and I'm quite enjoying it, winning with Jones, Izturis, and Eyre riding the pine.

Wait, what team do you cheer for again? :-s

It sure beats spending 100M to field a team 30 games under. Touche

yeah, with pie struggling and ss being a question mark, the cubs are likely in trouble offensively. Indeed, our production right now at SS relies on a 27 year old rookie playing a position he's never played, and continuing to play well over his head. Our RF production relies on a platoon of a AAAA player in Pagan and the oft-injured Cliff Floyd. The catcher and CF situations were concessions to defense. Pie may get better in CF, but the offense from the catcher position isn't likely to improve. If the offense remains as good as it has been the past couple weeks, I'll be shocked. It will likely mean that Fontenot either held down SS and Floyd stayed healthy or that Theriot found his stroke again and DeRosa put up an .800-.825 OPS in RF, and Fontenot continued to hit well at 2b.

Which is worse, striking out looking or swinging? It's a trick question because there's no difference. Having a patient approach will benefit Pie more over the long term. I'm willing to tolerate some bad strikeouts looking.

A lot of our improved OBP has come from guys like Pagan, Fontenot, and Floyd, guys who may or may not be able to sustain their current levels. I have to wonder if the improved OBP will continue. If it does, it won't be because of Hendry, but rather because of Lou's choices in who plays and who doesn't.

I suppose I ought to clarify what I mean by, "good". For a trade to be good in terms of the GM's skill, I would say it has to 1.) Improve the team either over the short or long term. and 2.) Maximize the value received for said player by trading at the proper time or a time when his value is decent or high relative to other points where he could be traded in the past or future (future expectations being based on statistical evidence). and 3.) Be initiated by the GM or GMs specifically to improve the team, not foisted upon him by other circumstances, in which case we might discuss a trade as being good under the circumstances, or making the best of a bad situation, or getting lucky. and 4.) Be based upon solid statistical (or scouting in the case of prospects) evidence available at the time that the player or players in question would benefit the team over the short or long-term. In my view, the Hundley trade fails both 2, 3, and 4. The Hawkins trade fails 4 and 3. Note, that this does not make them "bad", but merely "not good". The Nomar trade was probably a good trade. I'll concede that point. By similar token, a bad trade is one where either 1.) The players acquired cannot be reasonably expected to make the team better at any point in the future based on statistical (or scouting in the case of prospects) evidence available at the time, and the players traded are likelier to improve the team than those acquired. or 2.) The player traded was traded at such a time that his value, as would be indicated by his statistics, is at a very low point, and lower than can be expected if he were traded in the future or at some point in the past when his value could reasonably have been determined to be at a high point. or 3.) The player or players traded were of considerably greater combined short or long term value, than the players acquired. Now, the definition of a bad trade is larger, and that is as it should be. No matter what your profession is, it's generally much easier to do a lousy job than a good one. The Pierre trade meets 1 and 3. The Maddux trade meets them all. The Barrett trade meets criteria 2 for the reason Transmogrified Tiger states, and probably 1 as well. It's hard to say how much Piniella influenced Hendry's decision and he couldn't be persuaded to wait until the deadline, that would mean the decision was coerced, and it can't be a bad trade. My other example, the Patterson trade, meets 2 as well. What could we have gotten for Patterson when he was a top prospect? What could we have gotten even a year or a year and one half before? The article deals with the 'timing' aspect of trades. If you think that timing when a player is traded is not important, out of the GM's control, or that the nature of baseball is so unpredictable that determinations of high point and low points on the value spectrum are not determinable, then that is perhaps the reason you might dismiss an article like this. I take the position that determining the high point and low point in value is possible, and that some are better at this than others, and this is an important part of what constitutes a "good" GM. Many here could easily and properly say last offseason that Jones's value would be very unlikely to rise. Many here were calling for a trade of Patterson much earlier in his career. People on a message board really shouldn't be better than a GM at determining player value, yet some posters here have been right more often than Jim has.

We also have to hope those stats continue to hold and we don't have major injuries. I'm impressed by the 6th in OBP. That's a huge improvement over last year. We really need Theriot and/or Pie to rebound and Fontenot to continue to hit, because it doesn't appear the Cubs will be getting a lot of help via trades this season.

Yeah, if he can put up a good SLG to make up for what's likely to be a low OBP, he might be decent. It's not bad to have a guy like that on the team (not more than one though). If his numbers stay like that, he'll have to become a hitter like Dunston or Randall Simon that swing at everything yet are still hard to K because they learned how to hit bad balls, foul off pitches, and make contact. If he K's a lot with that low of an IsoD, he probably won't make it in the majors.

If they moved Dempster to starter, it would be one of the stupider things I've seen happen during my Cubs fandom and my opinion of Piniella would drop considerably. I don't think it will happen though. If Lou wants to go with Marmol as the closer, then Jim would be well advised to trade Dempster at the deadline. There's always someone looking for a decent closer and we probably wouldn't have to pick up much, if any, salary next season.

Alex Gonzalez and 3 bits of string for Nomar and Murton Hundley for Grudz and Karros LaTroy for Aardsma and Jerome Williams. With all of Jim Hendry's faults, and there are many, I have no clue why somebody would try and pinpoint his trading as being the problem. it's the one thing he's actually done well. The Hundley trade was dumb luck at its finest. When that trade was made, everyone was irritated because it got an old player to block our best prospect at the time (Choi), and they were right to be. Nobody knew Choi would stink, including Hendry who was as high on him as everyone else by all accounts. The Nomar trade was probably a good trade, but based on the information from that time, it looked like we gave up a lot to get a lot, so we certainly didn't fleece anyone. It wasn't 3 bits of string. We gave up what were, at the time, two of our better prospects in Harris and Justin Jones, as well as a decent prospect in Beltran. Beltran never amounted to much and Harris didn't have any success in the majors (until this season in Tampa where he's hitting for an over .850 OPS playing SS). I have no idea what happened to Jones. There's also the fact that what we gave up still might not have been enough to get Nomar (or match some other team's offer) if he hadn't been a disgruntled player with a NTC demanding a trade to somewhere he approved of. How much credit a GM gets in a case like this is debateable. Aardsma and Williams sucked, and he traded Aardsma for someone equally sucky and arguably worse. This example is not as helpful to your argument as the other two. Actually I was wrong about the Pittsburgh trade. I thought Lofton and Simon were in one deal and Ramirez the other, making 2 good trades, but Lofton and Ramirez were in the same trade, so that's only one good one. If we include the Nomar deal, that's still just 3 good trades. Here are some BAD trades. Pierre for Mitre, Nolasco, and Pinto... awful and indefensible then, now, or any period between. Maddux for Izturis... same Patterson for two less than great prospects... considering what he would have gotten in trade earlier in his career, this looks rather bad. The Barrett trade... again, the problem is timing, why not wait for his value to increase (the stats suggest his hitting will rebound). So, if you look at his great trades and his stinkers, maybe they cancel out and make him .500 in the trades department. That's not good for a baseball team or a GM. It doesn't make up for his lack in other areas.

The Braves are the best example I can think of. They seem to always know what players are due to rebound and when it's time to part ways with a guy. The Cardinals seem to do a fairly good job most of the time. Then there's the Yankees, who have the money to keep paying players even while they're playing for other teams or sitting at home so they never have to sell low. The Marlins have 2 World Series titles in their short franchise history, and each time they blew the team up afterwards. That's selling very high.

But, if he hadn't given them a stupid contract to begin with, he wouldn't wind up in this position over and over again. Hendry, and Lynch before him, overpay for mediocre players and then have to unload them for peanuts because nobody wants to pay their contracts. He, and Ed Lynch before him, allow rookies to sit on the bench or be yo yoed back and forth from Iowa to the majors until whatever trade value they had as prospects is gone over fear that they will become superstars for someone else. Let's not act as if it wasn't Hendry's fault that he's in the position he's in. Nearly everyone here said the Jones contract was bad when Jones signed it. That's not hindsight. Between Sosa, Patterson, Barrett, and Jones, Jones is the only one you can logically argue Hendry gave a bad contract to. Hendry didn't sign Sosa, Patterson was an arbitration guy, and Barrett's deal turned out to be a real bargain. Regardless, who Hendry has signed, and for how much, is a different discussion altogether from the one we're having here. And by all accounts, Hendry was trying like crazy to move Jones in the offseason, but had no takers then, either. If you made a list of GMs that this statement could apply to, you'd have a pretty lengthy list. Whatever, my point was that Hendry overvalues and undervalues the wrong players and ends up making bad deals pretty consistently because of that. He's basically had four deals sort of work out for him, Lee, Barrett, and the two Pirates deals in 03. That's it. Other than that, name some player Hendry has acquired through trade or FA that turned out to be a great value. The salary dump type moves like Sosa, Hundley, were forced on him by the media, though in the case of Sosa, he could have traded Sosa earlier in 04 rather than wait until the offseason. It's hard to say with Barrett, but I think we would have gotten better value for him if we'd held off a couple weeks and let his hitting improve as the stats say it should. If Hendry could convince Lou to give Jones a few more weeks, why would it be so hard with Barrett?

Who is this "Wood" person you guys are speaking of? Remember? He's that guy that was good in 1998 and 2003 and helped the Cubs reach the playoffs. I always wondered what happened to him. Oh, him. Is he still on the team? I thought he had taken a job as a crab fisherman or ice road trucker or something like that.

This is not true. His IsoD has never been below .050 in any full season and his career IsoD is 0.079. He's perceived as being impatient because he strikes out a lot, but he also walks a lot. Despite his .199 BA, he has an OBP of .300 this season. He's perceived as being impatient because he strikes out a lot but there are other measures of patience.

Who is this "Wood" person you guys are speaking of?

But, if he hadn't given them a stupid contract to begin with, he wouldn't wind up in this position over and over again. Hendry, and Lynch before him, overpay for mediocre players and then have to unload them for peanuts because nobody wants to pay their contracts. He, and Ed Lynch before him, allow rookies to sit on the bench or be yo yoed back and forth from Iowa to the majors until whatever trade value they had as prospects is gone over fear that they will become superstars for someone else. Let's not act as if it wasn't Hendry's fault that he's in the position he's in. Nearly everyone here said the Jones contract was bad when Jones signed it. That's not hindsight. Nearly everyone said he should be traded last offseason when he was coming off a career year and his value was as high as it was ever going to be. That's not hindsight. Hendry has occasionally sold high, with prospects that didn't pan out like Hill and Harris, but on the whole, his pattern has been one of trading players too late.

Correlation does not equal causation I know, but I like to think postively whenever I can. Yeah, you'll grow out of that.

Scathingly accurate. Buy high, sell low. That's how you end up having to spend 100M just to field a team that's good enough to hover around the .500 mark.

I'm not sure who the loser in that trade is. Both of them for signing those guys to their current contracts in the first place.

That was a unique situation. The Dodgers had some guys they wanted gone because they were declining and overpaid. The Cubs had a guy that was overpaid and never that good to begin with. They just happened to need the position we had and vice versa. We took on more salary in one season to save money the next season. That deal worked because we took on all of Karros/Grudz contracts for 03. Had we waited til midseason, it makes no sense for the Dodgers to make that deal anymore because you're now talking about only half a season of the Karros/Grudz contracts. That's why I don't think you have an analagous situation here (unless of course you want to be on the Dodger end, which I certainly don't). Trading mediocre players with bad contracts for other mediocre players with equally bad contracts is not really the best way to approach the situation of needing to get rid of a player (it's actually among the worst). The Cubs got really lucky that time, but I'm not betting on lightning to strike twice in the same place. Jones will be dealt. It's almost a foregone conclusion at this point now that we are pretty sure Zell isn't nixing deals because we pay too much of his contract, and that Hendry almost bit on a deal that paid all but 600K of Jones's contract. He's obviously pretty desperate (most likely because of pressure from Piniella and Jones, himself). Probably, the team that agrees to take the largest portion of Jones's contract ends up with him, regardless of prospects involved.

We got him from Baltimore for Sosa. So, 3 years later, we finally get something positive out of the Sosa trade. no, the Cubs got instant payoff when Burnitz outperformed Sosa for a few dollars less than the Cubs would have had to pay Sosa and by getting him to opt out of the rest of his contract so they weren't hung with 18M in dead weight for 2006. This is true. Make a player unhappy enough and they'll do anything to get out of a city, up to and including giving money away. I'm not saying it was a bad decision to trade him. Any trade that got someone to assume his contract, as Balitmore did, would have been a fine trade. I meant payoff in the traditional baseball sense, where the players you acquire end up contributing something.

When you think of Don Baylor, I want you to remember these two words Augie... Ojeda.... The Cubs have been pretty consistently bad over the whole of MacPhail's tenure though, so there's obviously been more going wrong than just having bad managers. Baylor had as much of a traditional approach as Dusty did, and they both had a strange affinity for bad ballplayers and washed-up vets. Baylor may have contributed to Patterson's failures. Dusty probably wasn't good for Cedeno. Neither one really valued stats or understood that the most valuable skill in baseball is 'not making outs'. They were both awful managers. I'll give you that Baylor was never given the kind of talent that Baker was, but he was still a bad manager. That's what most of baseball seems to think anyway, as he hasn't been a manager since leaving the Cubs. Not disagreeing with you, but didn't he have to step away due to cancer? I think so, but I can't recall when that was? It wasn't when he was with the Cubs and he was in baseball as a coach through mid-2005 according to Wikipedia. I don't know if he left because of cancer or not. Either way, he was in baseball 3 years after leaving the Cubs without ever getting offered, or even considered as far as I know, for another managing job, so my original point about that stands. If he's being considered for the O's job, he must be over his cancer.

That isn't surprising. It never made any sense for a guy who is buying the Tribune and not the Cubs to veto a trade that wouldn't have affected the sale price of the team in any significant way and would have saved the Tribune money. Now, if Hendry was taking on ARod's contract, that could lower the sale price because higher payroll means lower profits and Zell might not like that, or on the other hand he might encourage it, gambling that a playoff run would drive up the sale price. Either way, he has no reason to get involved in something as minor as who we dump Jones on and how much contract we have to eat to do it.

We got him from Baltimore for Sosa. So, 3 years later, we finally get something positive out of the Sosa trade.