Caryatid

Agreed! I remember a time when Hendry was a Genius and Williams was trading away his farm system for worthless players. All my Sox fan couldn't stand the guy before 2005. I don't remember Hendry as Genius. I think he meant the general perception of him as a genius. After the Hunley for Karros and Grudz deal, the Hill and Beltran for Ramirez and Lofton, the Choi for Lee deal, the signing of Hawkins, Walker, and Maddux, and the Nomar trade (the Barrett trade was one of the best during that time, but doesn't factor in to this because no one knew how to judge at the time)-Hendry was widely considered to be one of the up and coming best GM's in baseball-of course, now that perception has done a 180. Thanks and that is what I meant. I never heard claims of him as an up and coming best GM. His critics were numerous from day one, even though I chose to ignore them and only focus on the bright side. I think people thought he was capable of being a good GM, but there was never a general perception that he was a genius or close to the elite. Totally disagree. In Chicago, from 2003-2005, this guy could do no wrong in the minds of most fans here. Kenny Williams was constantly being compared to him as the loser of the two in Chicago-bars, sports radio, columnists, everybody was on the Hendry bandwagon. Even those who couldn't stand Baker liked Hendry. It has only been in the last year that the shine has come off Hendry-and its come off quick.

As a side note, I hope this isn't offseason number three where the biggest offseason news made by the Cubs is who they've gotten rid of rather than who they've acquired. I'm tired of seeing joy from the general fandom about getting rid of someone because there's zero acquisititions to actually be happy about.

I kinda disagree with you. If you fire Baker mid-season who would you get to replace him? Most mid-season replacements are "Temporary" managers anyway. The right move was for him to finish this diaster and start fresh next year. Does it really matter who would have replaced him? Speier, Pole, a manager from the minors, Bruce Kimm, whoever. It wouldn't have affected the team's record over the last few months. Who replaces Baker is pretty irrelevant. Regardless, I was speaking more from a PR standpoint, because baseball stopped mattering for this team in June.

The WORST thing Hendry could have done (from a PR standpoint) was let this guy play out the string for the remainder of the year. I'm amazed that he didn't realize that this would happen. Baker can't stand to manage young players, but he's going to make it about that over the next two months; he's going to make it about Hendry 'sticking it to him.' Baker's already starting to shape his message for when/if he doesn't get a contract for '07-"It wasn't my fault, that place is messed up, look what I did in San Francisco, etc." No matter what, Baker is already starting to remove the blame from himself and on to Hendry-that's the kinda guy Baker is. I guarantee that Hendry will come out of this situation looking like the bad guy in the national media.

How about that Dog Whisperer guy instead? Well, he "rehabilitates dogs and trains people." Maybe he'll work.

There's also been some discussion about how Prior has become quite the raving not nice guy over the last season or so. I'm wondering if all this is getting to him...a guy who seemingly has effortless success over his entire life might be having a little trouble dealing with the fact that he was merely respectable last year and not good this year. He might be better off seeing a sports psychologist rather than a orthopedic surgeon.

i'm not basing it on a single play, though that play certainly had an effect. he plays waaay too deep in LF and just looks like he gets terrible jumps. Yeah, its certainly possible-I don't quite see it from what I've watched, but defense is so subjective, I could certainly be wrong.

Its kinda hard to make a blanket statement about how awful a player is based on a single play. I don't see him take horrible angles as some others seem to, but that's all a point-of-view thing. I would say he's an average OF, but nothing special.

He's seeing 3.39 pitches per plate appearance, so he's the least patient Cub besides Neifi Perez. Just sayin. Well, that's what I'm saying. I was expecting a very impatient hitter because of his low P/PA. However, he tends to either hit a lot of strikes early in the count-but if he gets past a couple pitches, he tends to work the count very well. For a person with a low P/PA, he seems to have a pretty good command of the strike zone, and uses that as he gets deeper in the count. So he's a very patient hitter, except in the at bats that he's not patient. Even though I think you are being sarcastic, I will answer. He seems to have the old pinch hitter strategy-hit the first fastball you get, and if you don't hit that, then work the count, be patient, and wait for another good pitch. Izturis seems to have this philosophy all the time. I would argue that every hitter on the Cubs has this philosophy. The problem is that most of them (Izturis included) don't really know what a "good pitch" is.

Ditto. OK, it's 50-50 that he's NOT coming back. It'll come down to whatever Hendry's gut tells him to do. But, no matter what, everyone needs to know that this is JIM HENDRY'S decision-he wants that to be very clear. This is his decision. And his decision only. Its his decision. Just so we're clear.

He's seeing 3.39 pitches per plate appearance, so he's the least patient Cub besides Neifi Perez. Just sayin. Well, that's what I'm saying. I was expecting a very impatient hitter because of his low P/PA. However, he tends to either hit a lot of strikes early in the count-but if he gets past a couple pitches, he tends to work the count very well. For a person with a low P/PA, he seems to have a pretty good command of the strike zone, and uses that as he gets deeper in the count. So he's a very patient hitter, except in the at bats that he's not patient.

October, if not sooner. Wow-that's even more insulting to Cubs fans.

Its simple: The Cubs finish with a respectable .500 or slightly better record for the second half. Hendry waits until November/December, when the stink of the first half of this season has worn off. He offers Baker a slight raise over his salary this season, and Baker, knowing he can't get anywhere near that number from any other team in baseball, accepts in early December. They then call a press conference in which Hendry highlights the "tremendous second half" Dusty had in which he "was able to get the most out of the young players on this team" and "cope with some serious losses." Prior and Wood are mentioned again, and the key word during the press conference. is "progress during the second half." No one from the Trib or Sun Times dares to ask him about how his choice of veterans over young players early in the year contributed (at least partly) to their poor play, instead choosing to ask Baker if he can "find a way to motivate Aramis Ramirez" next year. He then caps off the offseason by picking up overpaid #5 starters who "eat up innings" and will take the place of one of the young pitchers and an overpaid veteran with no concept of the strike zone to bring some "experience" to left field. This team goes into 2007 with a payroll down a couple million from this year (due to extensions for Zambrano and a new, vastly overpaid Juan Pierre), and we repeat this horrible season all over next year. To quote Wedding Crashers, "I'm psyched."

The Cubs will win just enough for Hendry to justify bringing Baker back. Whopee.

Cubs fans do NOT do the wave. There should be no reason to elaborate. End of discussion.

I heard the end of a conversation on the radio the other day in which one of the hosts was talking about how Pierre has said that he wasn't coming back to the Cubs unless Baker was the manager. I hadn't heard that. Couldn't someone get Perez, Rusch, Jones and Izturs to make the same demand?

There were many instances where Baker left them in games when the Cubs had a comfortable lead, to throw well in excess of 100+ pitches. I agree there are times when you ride your aces, especially in tight games and coming down the stretch in a pennant race. But when you are up by more than 3 runs heading into the 7th inning, you don't leave your ace in there and wear them out for their next starts. Don't forget our pen gave up a ton of leads in 2003 also. Look guys we could go round and round with this but to fully blame Baker of all of Wood's problems I just don't agree on. No need to argue futher... Borowski, Farsworth, Remlinger, and Guthrie all had ERAs under 3.65. They didn't blow very many games-Alfonseca is the only one who was problematic.

Is there a link to the full article? I'm becoming a big fan of Mr. St. John.

I don't know about that? Wood problems were way before Baker and has Z really been overworked this year? And most of Prior injuries have been accidents...i.e. Linedrive off his elbow, collision with Giles....Or non-arm problems Achillies heel, Oblique Muscle...Etc... Baker was still part of the decision making process that had Wood pitching from the bullpen at the end of last year instead of having his surgery then. And Z has thrown a lot of pitches this year. I don't have the numbers, but I don't think he's thrown under 100 pitches most of the year, and he's near the top of pitcher abuse points. And in 2003, Prior threw a ton. His injury actually helped him get a break, if I remember right. And did it really matter if Wood got surgery a month earlier? He still never really made it back for 2006. And Z is going to throw a lot of pitches. He's a power pitcher that walks and K's alot of batters. It's unavoidable unless he learns a bit more control. Its one thing to throw "a lot of pitches." Its entirely another to lead the league in pitches thrown almost every year.

Wow-if there weren't any better anectdotal evidence to the ineptitude of the Cubs re: OBP-this team could have the worst offense in baseball for two years running AND have the batting title winner for both years. But OBP doesn't matter, right Jim?

He's second to Livan Hernandez in Pitcher Abuse Points. Again. He spent the early season out with shoulder trouble. And its hard to say any chronic injury is not necessarily connected to overwork-just because its not his arm doesn't mean it wasn't caused by pitching too much.

He seems like the perfect situation to run a waiver trade through. If someone claims him, let them have him. If not, you can trade him if someone gets desperate. I can't imagine they aren't considering this.

You have to make a 1 year $2 million dollar incentive based deal (or 2 for $4 mil) with this guy. If he fails, you're no worse off than you were this year in the pen (which will still be a strength). If he succeeds, you have arguably the best bullpen in baseball and will ask less of the starters, who, presumably will have at least two second year players in the rotation. Essentially, you're asking your starter to go 5 innings and hand it over to the combination of Wood, Dempster, Eyre, Howry, and Wuertz. Just the possibility of that is worthwhile.

Fixed your post. fixed again. I guess this is my point: how many different ways can we point this stuff out before it gets as redundant as Baker's stupidity? as many times as Baker is stupid...infinity I guess Well, then...I guess I'm just not going to take part in it anymore-all these things are a given, and to harp on the same thing over and over and over again is pretty much a waste of time. I think I've read the letters OBP about 8 million times over the last couple of days. I sometimes wonder who the truly stupid ones are: Baker/Hendry for being so consistently and obviously blind to certain baseball aspects, or us for being so blind to the fact that we can't change that. Both of us feel the need to fight the same fight day in and day out. I, for one, am over it and willing to accept this regime for who it is (a fundamentally flawed philosophy) and just hope for the best for my team.

Fixed your post. fixed again. I guess this is my point: how many different ways can we point this stuff out before it gets as redundant as Baker's stupidity?