Rob

Just out of curiosity, what is it about Fredi that makes him so appealing to you? Him coming out of the Braves organization (and from coaching under Bobby Cox) had me somewhat interested when we hired Lou, but are you more familiar with him? He's half Bobby Cox - half sabermetrics. He's the guy I originally wanted to hire when we opted to go with Lou instead.

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I guess I also forgot about the time Aramis tried to kill himself by landing on his shoulder awkwardly.

If so, it's likely a significant mistake on the part of our front office. And I see no reason not to continually remind everybody of that. Our #1 best option right now is to keep Milton Bradley. There's no way around it. Using production as a standard, Milton Bradley is the best of all the ugly options. From a public relations perspective, keeping Bradley is the worst option. I can't imagine a new owner, that just invested nearly a billion dollars, wants a nutcase who "goes off" about the city, the fans, the front office, his teammates, umpires, etc. on a daily basis. I think we all agree that it was a mistake for Hendry to sign Bradley in the first place, but the only option appears to be making the best out of a bad situation by trading him. From a public relations perspective, any new owner is going to want a winning ballclub. Guess what the best way to get that is. I'm getting sick and tired of people arguing that there is a good business reason to get rid of Bradley. Given our payroll constraints, there really isn't one that stands up against the all-trumping "he helps us win." Oh, and I absolutely don't agree that it was a mistake to sign Bradley. Am I disappointed with the way it's turned out? Sure. But we can only judge the decision based on the information available at the time. And at that time, of the available options, he was the best bet going forward... You could make an argument for Abreu if you somehow knew he was only gonna get $5 mil, but absolutely nobody knew that. I guess we'll have to disagree about the public relations situation. Since the season was unsuccessful, something has to change (besides firing Joshua). Since Bradley is public enemy #1, he's the obvious choice to go. I still maintain a healthy year by Soriano, Ramirez, Soto, etc. will go a long way to solving the Cubs' woes, but coming back with the same lineup isn't going to excite the fans. I don't think Hendry realized the negative impact that Bradley would have on everyone concerned. Also, I guess there's no way to statistically prove it, but I do think all of the anger and negativity by Bradley will balance out a lot of whatever production he adds on the field. I don't think Hendry realized the positive impact that Bradley would have on everyone concerned. I do think all of the anger and negativity by Bradley added a lot of value in addition to whatever production he added on the field. 's advocate> Both your opinion and the one above have exactly the same amount of validity. Exactly. The. Same. There is nothing, absolutely jack diddly to even suggest that happy ballplayers produce better than pissed off ones.

If he leaves the system, this is a HUGE misstep.

If so, it's likely a significant mistake on the part of our front office. And I see no reason not to continually remind everybody of that. Our #1 best option right now is to keep Milton Bradley. There's no way around it. Using production as a standard, Milton Bradley is the best of all the ugly options. From a public relations perspective, keeping Bradley is the worst option. I can't imagine a new owner, that just invested nearly a billion dollars, wants a nutcase who "goes off" about the city, the fans, the front office, his teammates, umpires, etc. on a daily basis. I think we all agree that it was a mistake for Hendry to sign Bradley in the first place, but the only option appears to be making the best out of a bad situation by trading him. From a public relations perspective, any new owner is going to want a winning ballclub. Guess what the best way to get that is. I'm getting sick and tired of people arguing that there is a good business reason to get rid of Bradley. Given our payroll constraints, there really isn't one that stands up against the all-trumping "he helps us win." Oh, and I absolutely don't agree that it was a mistake to sign Bradley. Am I disappointed with the way it's turned out? Sure. But we can only judge the decision based on the information available at the time. And at that time, of the available options, he was the best bet going forward... You could make an argument for Abreu if you somehow knew he was only gonna get $5 mil, but absolutely nobody knew that.

If so, it's likely a significant mistake on the part of our front office. And I see no reason not to continually remind everybody of that. Our #1 best option right now is to keep Milton Bradley. There's no way around it.

Really? Towers? Best on the market? No. But we aren't guaranteed to be allowed to talk to White, Antonetti, Ng, DePo, and other random people still employed. The catch is simply that Towers is definitely available, and I'd rather have him than Hendry.

Rumor has Tim Wilken up for the GM job in Toronto.

With Towers getting the boot from San Diego, now we can go ahead and fire Hendry. There's a suitable replacement guaranteed to be available.

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.