Rob

Okay, now we fire Hendry. Towers would be an amazing replacement.

Hawpe is no worse defensively then the lot the Cubs have trotted out there recently. Sosa (the latter years), Hollandsworth, Grieve, Burnitz, Bradley, etc, etc, etc. The only remotely close to good defensively RF the Cubs have had is now playing CF. Hawpe is pretty clearly worse than all of those guys except maybe Grieve who played roughly 4 innings in RF for us. Perhaps, but consider where he has had to play defensively? In his career he has had to play in some of the games biggest OFers. Not saying it's an excuse, but perhaps playing at a smaller OF can help hide his defensive inability. It's possible it could do him some good. But UZR is already park adjusted. Hawpe is simply far too terrible a defender to justify looking at. In all likelihood, we would be considerably better off having Fuld play every day... if Hawpe isn't a viable alternative to Fuld, I'd have a hard time believing we should move Bradley to make room for him. Let's move on, shall we?

I know you must have seen one of the million posts clarifying that that was never really the proposed deal. The Cubs wanted Tejada and Bedard for Prior. The Orioles wanted Prior and Pie for Tejada.

Hawpe is no worse defensively then the lot the Cubs have trotted out there recently. Sosa (the latter years), Hollandsworth, Grieve, Burnitz, Bradley, etc, etc, etc. The only remotely close to good defensively RF the Cubs have had is now playing CF. Hawpe's UZR/150 the last 3 years: -27.2, -46.6(!!!), -20.0 Bradley's UZR/150 this year: -4.1 I'd show Bradley's numbers in previous seasons (which all rank as slightly above average), but there's a sample size issue. Regardless, Bradley floats right around average defensively... whereas Hawpe has put up some of the most disgusting outfield seasons in recent history. Factoring in their defense this year, Bradley's production was worth $5.4 million. Hawpe was worth $5.6 million, having juuuust pulled ahead in recent days. Let's break this down. Bradley has been injured, vastly underperformed expectations, and was suspended for the last month of the season. And yet his value is nearly indistinguishable from a man who played in 143 games and hit for an OPS of .898. What possible reason is there to give up valuable trade chips for a player who will give us the exact same production we got in a down year from a guy we already have under contract for two years?

Unless we won, in which case he absolutely would have taken credit. Does the loss reflect poorly on him? Absolutely... though how poorly is up for debate. Personally, I see it as a drop in the bucket compared to how badly he's made himself look failing to get his health care through.

Why on god's green earth would we want Brad Hawpe? Milton Bradley was more valuable this season... and he's got a very good chance to recover much of his power stroke next season and widen the gap even further.

Here's the important thing. Of Ryno, Bob, and Alan... we know for a fact that Ryno and Bob still want to do very stupid things, and do them very often. Alan may be as bad as them, but he'd be hard pressed to be much worse... and maybe, just maybe, he'll be better.

Where did I say publicly announce candidates? I'm saying that before you fire Hendry, you call up a few teams and ask if they'd be willing to let us interview their guys should we decide to make a change. Put a feeler out to some out of work GMs. This isn't "being cautious to the point of paralysis"... it's doing your homework.

Who cares? It's not cheating.

I don't think this should be overlooked. Hendry was in a similar situation with Hundley when he took the job and he turned it into two good contributors - Karros and Grudzielanek. He's also worked positive trades for guys like Jacque Jones, Neifi Perez and others who many fans didn't think had much value at all. Hendry has proven to be very good at making trades (with a few exceptions, of course). Jacque Jones was a free agent signing. And how was Neifi Perez a positive? Chris Robinson was our AAA all-star this year.

So what supposed benefit do we get from firing Hendry without figuring out whether we can do better or not? Bottom line, firing Jim Hendry doesn't automatically make our team better. I could give a [expletive] whether or not he deserves to be fired. I'm concerned with the team going forward, and would like to see somebody better lined up to take the job before I risk backing myself into a corner by firing Hendry without a viable replacement. It's not being scared. It's being able to look past my own nose.

Nobody's said that. I haven't said it in this thread, but I have said something that could be misconstrued for that if one were really, really dumb. Namely, that firing Hendry for the sake of firing him doesn't do us any good if don't hire a better GM. I wouldn't really see the point of firing Hendry if the best replacement we can muster is Jim Bowden, for instance.

How would Soriano playing better defense justify getting a worse player in RF? Always always always get the best player you can at each position. (And just for the record, before this season and the knee injury, Soriano had been quite a good defender for us in left. Well above average)

Downgrading at two positions and getting more expensive? Where do I sign? Brad Hawpe is a downgrade over MB? Hawpe is great. He's actually hit more HR away from Coors this season, and his home/road splits for his career are virtually identical. He'd be a great addition to the Cubs, and far greater than Milton Bradley. We downgrade at 1B on a purely production #'s standpoint. Helton's power is zapped, but he is still a guy who will get on base at a .400+ OBP. He'd be a good #2 guy in the lineup. But we'd lose a big bat in Lee, and Helton costs way too much, even if he does get on base at a good clip. I don't think you understand just how atrocious Hawpe's defense really is. Bradley's value was significantly higher this year even despite the fact it was a huge down year for him and Hawpe put up a near .900 OPS in 140 games.

Rowand is sitting right around his 40th percentile projection according to PECOTA. He's not under performing expectations by much at all.

Well it wouldn't count against him if you're an AL GM, but a DH doesn't help much if you're a NL GM. The fact that he's only once been a fulltime DH shouldn't really count against him. He was healthy in the field this year. Except that his VERY BEST offensive season, that netted him the bloated contract he's currently in, was primarily as a DH. The guy's a part-time player. You pay MB 2/3 of what you pay Rowand, because on average he plays about 2/3 of the games. You guys continue to compare rate stats like its apples and apples. If I travel 55 mph for 10 hours, and you travel 70 mph for 7 hours, I'm still gonna go farther even though I'm traveling slower... And yet nobody brings up the damage he's caused in the clubhouse and media with his BS. You keep acting like if Bradley isn't playing, we don't have somebody else out there.

Why because you disagree with my opinion? As others have pointed out, putting in a sub for Bradley for 200+ AB certainly lowers the production from RF whereas Rowand's 500 AB covers most of the season. My original point was that Rowand was a better choice of bad contracts (Burrell, Perez, etc.) rather than paying Bradley's contract to play elsewhere. As a hitter: Cameron>Bradley>Rowand As a position player:Cameron>Rowand>>>>>Bradley No, because you expect people to take you seriously when posting stuff like... And for the record, Bradley is closer in defensive value to Rowand than Rowand is to Cameron. Except that they play different positions. Pretty sure he was taking position into account. I absolutely was.

Why because you disagree with my opinion? As others have pointed out, putting in a sub for Bradley for 200+ AB certainly lowers the production from RF whereas Rowand's 500 AB covers most of the season. My original point was that Rowand was a better choice of bad contracts (Burrell, Perez, etc.) rather than paying Bradley's contract to play elsewhere. As a hitter: Cameron>Bradley>Rowand As a position player:Cameron>Rowand>>>>>Bradley No, because you expect people to take you seriously when posting stuff like... And for the record, Bradley is closer in defensive value to Rowand than Rowand is to Cameron.

Bradley (2009) .257/.378/.397/.775 Rowand (2009) .264/.320/.428/.748 Bradley (career) .277/.371/.450/.821 Rowand (career) .281/.340/.450/.790 Did I cherry pick the wrong stats? Do you see any significant difference except OBP? Factor in (as pointed out by hossdriver) Bradley plays worse defense, is a clubhouse cancer, and misses a ton of games each year and I don't see how "they're not close". As I pointed out before, I'm sure there are more obscure stats somewhere to prove your point. It's not about using obscure stats. Career numbers for 10-year veterans is a flawed method, though, because both Bradley and Rowand are different now than they were 10 years ago, yet partial season numbers when the players were 22-24 are counted equally to when the players hit their prime. This is the worst year Bradley has had in a while, whereas Rowand has had a number of .700-something OPS years. This is Bradley's first season in the past six years where he's had an OPS below .800. Rowand has now had four. Bradley's best offensive seasons have also been significantly better than Rowand's. Bradley has a much better recent track record of success and that bodes better going forward. I doubt Bradley will get close to his past two years worth of numbers (.900+ OPS), but he's more likely than Rowand of putting up an .800+ OPS. Rowand plays better defense, but Bradley has the advantage of being paid of being under contract for one less season. You are correct that career numbers are a flawed method of comparing players especially when one player has spent the 10 years as an OF (Rowand) and the other has spent the 10 years as a part-time DH/part-time OF/part-time DL member/full-time jerk. The one year (before 2009) that Bradley played in the field over 100 games was 2004 when he hit .267/.362/.424/.786. So I guess I'll concede that Bradley is a better hitter than Rowand as long as you want a DH who will get 300-350 AB per year instead of an OF who will get 500 AB per year. Unfortunately, the Cubs have no use for a DH posing as an OF. You do realize how silly you're making yourself look, right?

Hey, I stick to the exact same methodologies. If somebody were to use them to prove I was wrong about something, I'd concede it.

Oh, and I would legitimately start Sam Fuld over Aaron Rowand even if the Giants were willing to pick up half of Rowand's 12 mil per year.

Back to the Lowe conversation for a moment, there's a good deal to be concerned about. His groundball rate is way down. His walk rate is up. His strikeout rate is down. Now I don't have the pitch fx data handy, but his contact rate on swings on pitches out of the zone is way up. It could be random fluctuation, but at his age I'd be more inclined to believe he's losing a bit off his pitches All that said, he's gonna be worth pretty damn close to $15 mil this year. Depending on the money changing hands, he may be worth looking at.

The Cubs went 16-10 in the starts with Koyie Hill behind the dish when Geovany Soto went down in July. Koyie hit .194/.262/.258 and did nothing to help the team... (interesting side note - soriano hit .337/.412/.558 during that span and actually did carry the team) Moral of the story, there are too many people on the team to make any "record with in or out of the lineup" comparisons almost completely useless.

Shawn Chacon attacked Ed Wade (the GM) in Houston, and if memory serves he still got paid.

I'm at my parent's house at the moment and don't have access to the vast majority of my books, but I seem to recall a study that implied consistency was actually a bad thing... that being "streaky" would result in more runs than a team that scored a preset number of runs per game. I want to say it was in "The Book" by Tom Tango, but I could be way off base.