KingCubsFan

That is......., I don't know. Laughable I guess. Did you forget trainer-gate? All the issues with timetables for returns and whatnot? The Cubs are awful with health. Those all involved Prior though. The trainer's decision to leave him out there after Giles was horrible, and he was rightfully fired after that. I can't think of another player where the Cubs mishandled his injury though.

You call that throwing him under the bus?

All of this is incorrect. All of it. Hendry even came out once in 2004 or 2005 and ripped Prior for coming out of a game when "nothing was wrong with him". They waited until 2007 (!) to have his shoulder properly examined and operated on. No, sorry, you're imagining a sentiment that didn't exist. I'm aware you wouldn't be convinced otherwise, especially since Prior is headed out, and I'm not sure what the point would be in debating arbitrary perceptions of a third-party's feelings - however, in all my dealings and with people I've talked to, I've never thought "the front office is sure treating Prior like garbage!" This is just the way some fans interpret the business. In all your dealings? Please share your dealings with the front office of the Cubs in relation Prior. All you have to do is dig up a Paul Sullivan article crica. 2005-2006 regarding Prior. Where would Sullivan and half the radio morons get the "Prior is soft" stuff from if not from Hendry and crew, saying "we can't find anything 'physically' wrong with Mark"? Oh please. Sullivan is bias just like any other sportswriter. He talks bad about someone who doesn't feel like talking to him after a game or doesn't jump at the chance at an interview. It's the same thing with Aramis. And look at how Sam Smith treats Tyrus Thomas because Thomas doesn't like talking to the media. What's Hendry supposed to say when the doctors don't find anything wrong with Prior? Any perception of a player painted by a beat writer is nothing more than a manifestation of the information given to him shaped by his own personal feelings towards the player. Claiming Sullivan just spits out what Hendry tells him, and adopting Hendry's own biases, is ridiculous. If the Cubs had a history of treating players badly and forcing them to play through injury, I could see how it could be assumed that Prior was treated badly. But treating players well and looking after injuries is about the one thing this management team seems to be good at, with the exception of Prior. So I find it hard to believe this was strictly the Cub's fault.

I won't boo him at all. The Cubs treated him like garbage. How? Any insinuations that he was soft either came from secondary sources or was hinted at by people like Dusty because Prior refused to tell anyone what was wrong with him. The Cubs gave him every chance and shielded him from a lot of media scrutiny.

So I guess that brings the number of people who hated playing for the Cubs up to two: Ismael Valdes and Prior. I'd love to see him reunited with Dusty.

that's called the Socratic method. it's one of the most effective ways of teaching someone. it's smart. 1. That's not the Socratic method. 2. Are you a law professor? Because I think they're the only ones who still believe the Socratic method is effective. I still don't know how you can be so definitive on Erik Bedard having a career year. He's a 28 year-old who was always thought to have a very high ceiling, and who has been pretty dominant now for over 1.5 years, so unless you're taking injuries into account I'm not sure it's a foregone conclusion he's going to regress to whatever you think he'll regress to.

Please explain this

90 wins as the bare minimum every year for 5 years? That's a ridiculously high standard. The only teams to pull that off in recent memory were the Braves (with one of the greatest GM/manager combos in history) and the Yankees (with twice the payroll as the Cubs). Not saying Hendry's done a great job, but considering the injuries we've had to deal with from our best players basically every year, I don't think anyone could have pulled 90 wins every year in the past 5 years. How about 90 wins once? Is there a huge difference between 88, 89, and 90 wins as long as you win the division? Would Hendry be considered more of a success if we won one more game in 2004 and 2 more in 2003?

90 wins as the bare minimum every year for 5 years? That's a ridiculously high standard. The only teams to pull that off in recent memory were the Braves (with one of the greatest GM/manager combos in history) and the Yankees (with twice the payroll as the Cubs). Not saying Hendry's done a great job, but considering the injuries we've had to deal with from our best players basically every year, I don't think anyone could have pulled 90 wins every year in the past 5 years. Quit with the injury excuse nonsense. Hendry shouldn't have built a team that could only win if young pitchers stayed healthy to begin with, and he shouldn't have let a manager like Dusty Baker manage them if that's what he wanted. Who said anything about bare minimum? 90 wins should be expected year in and year out. 85 wins should be considered a disappointment. 95-100 should be attainable on occasion. There's no excuse for sub .500. I'm not saying fire a guy the first time his team goes under 90 wins. But I'm not interested in C students running the ship. Excellence should be the only accepted performance level, and Hendry hasn't even come close. Yeah, blame Hendry for building around 3 young aces. Stupid him. You can't objectively look at Hendry's tenure and not take injuries into consideration. Sure, he deserves blame for bringing Dusty Baker into the organization, but he also lost Nomar and Lee to basically season-ending injuries two years in a row. I don't think Hendry's done a particularly good job, but he's not the complete failure this board likes to tout him as.

90 wins as the bare minimum every year for 5 years? That's a ridiculously high standard. The only teams to pull that off in recent memory were the Braves (with one of the greatest GM/manager combos in history) and the Yankees (with twice the payroll as the Cubs). Not saying Hendry's done a great job, but considering the injuries we've had to deal with from our best players basically every year, I don't think anyone could have pulled 90 wins every year in the past 5 years.

Maybe I'm just not attracted to him in the same way others are, but I think that's quite steep. Agreed. I'd do any two of them, but not all three. Why? That's three players with ceilings as average players at their position for one of the best 2B in the game signed at a reasonable amount for the next 2 years. Two of those players have no future with the organization. What's not to like?

I'd take Bonderman off their hands

At the time, Lugo was much better than Maddux. Not even a question. Hendrickson was better than Maddux that year. Dessens was more of a way to get rid of Perez. Argue who was better all you wish. I don't care about that. Trading Maddux for Izturis was absolutely stupid. Your opinion, and I don't totally disagree. I was just responding to your comment that Maddux was the best talent received by the Dodgers.

At the time, Lugo was much better than Maddux. Not even a question. Hendrickson was better than Maddux that year. Dessens was more of a way to get rid of Perez.

How did the Pierre trade end up being the "signature" bad trade? While that one was most certainly horrible, I like the Greg Maddux for Cesar Izturis one better. Not only did the Cubs just give away Maddux to a team in the hunt for the playoffs, but when they realized just how bad Izturis was the following year, they traded him AND cash for a PTBNL. And another one that some may like but I absolutely despise is the trade where the Cubs just gave away an outfielder (Jacque Jones) for crap, and paid cash to make that deal as well. What we end up with that deal is Jacque Jones and Will Ohman for a minor league reliever. Should I bring up the Steve Tracshel trade, or have I just pissed off the entire board for reminding them again that the Cubs actually made this deal? The Sammy Sosa trade still pretty much sucks, also. No, the Pierre trade was far and away the worst. I'm still not sure why everyone considers the Maddux trade so bad. I'm guessing it's due to the board generally overvalueing our own players. He was a 39 year-old rent-a-player who had been pitching horribly for two months. Izturis, at the time, was coming back from injury but was generally regarded as a superb defender and passable starter. So he had some value. Not saying it was a great trade (I didn't agree with it), but it wasn't the worst thing he's ever done. And the Jacque Jones trade wasn't nearly as bad as Pierre either. Jones had done nothing but spike throws into the ground, refuse to take walks, and take time away from our young players since he got here. Everyone disliked him, until he had a good OPS for about 2 months and someone posted a defensive metric on here saying he was good at defense. Now Hendry committed a cardinal sin by trading him. At this point, he'd either be a below average right fielder for the Cubs or Felix Pie's personal career killer. Hendry struggles with building a team, because he's constantly switching his offensive philosophy from year to year and he refuses to give young players a chance to fill marginal roles at half the cost of proven veterans. But he's generally been pretty good at making trades.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3138088 Hughes, Melky and one average prospect for a top 3 pitcher? I don't think so. Is the Sox offer better? I don't think so. Am I the only one who thinks Philip Hughes is still one of the (if not the best) top pitching prospects in the game? I don't see how the Yankees are favoring Chamberlain over him, unless there's serious concerns about his health.

Pridie isn't good. He's the CF equivalent of Ryan Theriot

*Waits for the inevitable "Johan Santana isn't really much better than Rich Hill" post*

Which one of their pitchers has Garza's upside? currently? Kaszmir. Definelty Price down the road. I was talking about players that could step into Garza's spot, not players currently in the rotation. But, yeah, David Price has the same upside

Which one of their pitchers has Garza's upside?

how is that considering the only player of value the rays got was Garza, who will only pitch every 5 days, vs. Young who will play in 162 games. Because they might be a better team now

Well according to the report of the deals offered this time, ours was the best. So, no. Exactly. I'm really not understanding all of this "he gave us a discount stuff". From all the reports I've seen we offered the best deal. I'm glad he resigned with us but I'm failing to see the big hometown discount. He did come back without too much hand-wringing, so I'll give him full props for that. I'd credit the cubs with that, not him. Afterall, they are the ones that offered him a 1 year deal for potentially more money than the 2 year deals he had on the table. Any indication on what the incentives were for the other deals?

Yeah, and I'd take ARod at 5/50 million. Can you give Hendry any credit?

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=3121887 Could Pie do it?

Then maybe he should spend his time convincing Fukudome to not stay in Japan with the Giants