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The Cubs have had two main problems: they haven't gotten enough from their farm system, and they've been afraid to spend the big bucks on impact players because they need to fill too many holes since they don't get enough from their farm system. The contracts they've given out haven't really been that bad overall (with 2-3 major exceptions), but the problem has always been that they've had to give out too many of them to the good to great but not elite type of players. Which points the finger at Hendry and the lack of player development. Probably scouting was even worse. The Cubs in the first half of the last decade had terrible draft after terrible draft. That meant very few players were available from the system in the second half of the decade. The Cubs are just starting to see some results from the better drafting/scouting over the second half of the decade, but it will still be several years until the results from the Ricketts increasing spending on the draft/internationally shows up. And yes, the horrible treatment the minor leagues was getting was Hendry's fault. I think it's been corrected at this point, but that was a huge mistake that set the Cubs way back. Would you mind to give us a little primer (not being sarcastic) on how bad drafts are anyone's fault and how the minors were mistreated. I was under the impression the baseball drafts were largely a crapshoot and that player development is how you emphasize the minors (though that is a bit of a crapshoot too). I'm easily not the most qualified person who can answer this question. But I'll give you a couple answers that are a bit simplistic. The draft can be a great deal of luck especially in the later rounds (although buying overslot guys help your chances). But you should be able to hit on a decent percentage of your first 3 rounds-those are the guys who should be well scouted, and while injury and projection can cause players to not turn out it's nothing like the lower rounds are. The Cubs kept their player development director the same but replaced their scouting director in the middle of the decade. From 2002-2005, they had 15 top 3 round picks. 3 made the majors-two relievers (Petrick, Veal)D who had cups of coffee for one year, and Jake Fox. Many of the players did not even make it above A ball. From 2006-2009, they had 11 top 3 round picks. 5 have already made the majors (Colvin, Cashner, Donaldson, Carpenter, Lemahieu), 2 more are almost certainly going to (Jackson, Flaherty), 3 more have a decent chance (Vitters, Thomas, Kirk) and only 1 has busted so far (Shafer). The players are getting much farther in the system then they used to, and since it's basically the same player development people I'm assuming that scouting has a decent amount of importance. I think scouting and drafting well are important. The reason I partially blame it on Hendry is that he was a former scouting director himself. He should have realized that some of these players were not particularly good risks to take.

Nope. He's only been on one All-Star team almost 10 years ago and he wasn't invited to be in the Derby that year (Bonds, Sosa, Berkman, and Sexson participated for the NL that year). With the new Home Run Derby format, this was the first year he would have been eligible to be selected. I've seen some invitations issued by Fielder and Ortiz and I've even seen the rumored American league lineup, but I haven't seen any confirmation on who has accepted those invitations.

The Cubs have had two main problems: they haven't gotten enough from their farm system, and they've been afraid to spend the big bucks on impact players because they need to fill too many holes since they don't get enough from their farm system. The contracts they've given out haven't really been that bad overall (with 2-3 major exceptions), but the problem has always been that they've had to give out too many of them to the good to great but not elite type of players. Which points the finger at Hendry and the lack of player development. Probably scouting was even worse. The Cubs in the first half of the last decade had terrible draft after terrible draft. That meant very few players were available from the system in the second half of the decade. The Cubs are just starting to see some results from the better drafting/scouting over the second half of the decade, but it will still be several years until the results from the Ricketts increasing spending on the draft/internationally shows up. And yes, the horrible treatment the minor leagues was getting was Hendry's fault. I think it's been corrected at this point, but that was a huge mistake that set the Cubs way back.

Yeah. All those trades were examples of little talent received, and even less talent given up. I'd consider Hendry the winner cumulatively of those trades, but it's mostly been shuffling of spare parts. You really think Harden was "little talent" or "spare parts"? Harden's the main exception, but even he only gave the Cubs a year and a half and his 2009 wasn't that great. He's a big reason why Hendry gets a win cumulatively though.

The Cubs have had two main problems: they haven't gotten enough from their farm system, and they've been afraid to spend the big bucks on impact players because they need to fill too many holes since they don't get enough from their farm system. The contracts they've given out haven't really been that bad overall (with 2-3 major exceptions), but the problem has always been that they've had to give out too many of them to the good to great but not elite type of players.

Yeah. All those trades were examples of little talent received, and even less talent given up. I'd consider Hendry the winner cumulatively of those trades, but it's mostly been shuffling of spare parts.

They don't have to be a GM. They just have to be employed in some capacity by another club for it to be almost impossible to hire them in season like this. How many great GM candidates are currently completely unemployed? By late August/September teams will be much more likely to give permission for interviews. And I would agree that Hendry is not great at mid-season trades (although he is pretty solid). But he is probably better than the alternatives inside the Cubs organization.

If they're firing him, then they would be waiting for other teams GM's to become available. Those GM's have contracts too and can't leave their teams during the season. Of course, they also could be waiting because they felt the flaw in the organization was somebody other than Hendry and have decided not to fire him.

A lot of Painting going on! :P Seriously?? I don't think teams cutting players happens as much as people say (because the kids see the writing on the wall too) but this fits the same profile as some of the Indiana cases. Molock was not as good of prospect anymore after the injury. Purdue didn't need him anymore now that they have two other point guards coming. And Purdue needed to open up a scholarship in order to pursue guys like Harris. There was probably a secret hope that Molock would leave, and now he has. How much was his decision and how much was Purdue's decision/pushing is up for debate.

The only starter from the opening day roster that has not yet been on the DL this year. And it's correct. 4/5 starters, 4/8 starting position players, 2/5 bench players (with another one demoted), and 1/3 of the key relievers so far now have hit the DL.

Good move by San Francisco here. Not only is Soto less likely than Castro to get a single, but this also probably forces the Cubs to keep Hill in the game. If Castro had ended the inning, they would have double switched Soto in. Of course, if Soto ends it here that doesn't matter.

It could have been a good move, but wasn't necessarily the right one. If Soto had batted, the Giants could have just pitched around Barney/Castro here and had a pitcher bat to end the game.

How bad are Doug Davis and the Giants offense if Marcos freaking Mateo is shutting them down over 4 innings? I like Mateo ERA under 4 now. Decent K's. I like him too but he needs to miss more bats. Mateo has been excellent in the strikeout department this year. In fact, that's been the only area he's been excellent in. I'm not sure he can make much improvement in that area. Hopefully he can stop leaving his mistake pitches in the middle of the plate like he was earlier in the year.

I'm not sure you can ever sell high on Marshall. I doubt his value around the league will ever approach his actual value. Marmol would be a different story and there are definitely reasonable arguments for trading him and for keeping him.

Hendry wants to keep the guys who can help him in 2012. What's wrong with that?

Uh, best case for Borbon is Michael Bourn. Michael Bourn is barely Juan Pierre in his prime. The day the Cubs put out a lineup with Fukudome, Borbon, Castro, Barney, Koyie Hill, and LeMahieu in it....I quit. I'd love it if Borbon became Michael Bourn. Bourn's one of the few guys in the league who should be a legitimate All-Star almost every year with very little power. But I don't think Borbon could even come close to Bourn so I would not be in favor of acquiring him.

Raley's last 6 starts: 37.1 IP, 34 H, 17 R, 9 ER, 1 HR, 8 BB, 20 K Not saying I'm excited about him, but for a guy I had pretty much completely written off he's got some encouraging signs. Very nice control shown by him lately (both with the walks and the lack of HR). For a guy who's basically in his second pro season and is still not too old for AA, he's still got some potential. He still needs to increase his strikeouts to be anything more than a guy who could be a marginally ok major leaguer though.

I have never really understood why everyone refers to Pierre as a "base stealing threat". He gets caught A LOT and defensively, if he gets on base you should be hoping that he tries to steal. You have a 50/50 shot at wiping away a hit/walk etc. Pierre's almost a career 75% basestealer. For a guy who has stolen 537 bases in his career that's a pretty big basestealing threat. He's had some years where his numbers have been pretty poor, but he's had others where he was excellent on the basepaths.

Your right he doesn't "quit" on a ball 20 feet from a wall, he just slows down to a slow trot on anything hit toward a wall so he doesn't get there to crash into the wall and plays it after it hits the ground or the wall. Sure, why not? You are confused about why an OF would want to try hard to catch a batted ball on the fly? Not at all. Any player is going to avoid crashing into a wall if they can. And BtB description is ridiculous because he's trying to make it sound like Soriano is acting like he's on the verge of slamming into the wall left and right instead of, y'know, playing a ball off the wall like everyone else does. It's just indicative of the irrational hatred the guy gets; if he's not slamming into the wall or diving for balls every other game he's worthless and a coward. Exaggeration aside, Soriano is probably the worst player in the league at going back to the wall on a ball. He does act afraid of the wall, and also has trouble playing angles and jumping at the wall. It's the worst part of his game. Soriano of course also has big parts of his defense that are well above average. His arm is excellent and I tend to think he moves better sideways then most outfielders.

So why not just wait and cut him when he sucks? Because first, you have to waste a year finding out he's terrible. Either he's hurt and you have a bench player all year or he's just terrible in your lineup. Between that and the dead money after cutting him you could very well lose more than 27 million.

The issue with Soriano is that there is more downside risk than upside. The most likely option is that he is worth 10-12 million over the next year or two. But all the other probable options are bad. He could easily get hurt and provide less value than that. His peripherals suggest a possible decline (his home run/FB rate is one of the highest of his career, his BB's are down, his K's are up). If he could be traded with eating 27 million, I think I would take that deal. I wouldn't take much more than that, but I'd rather trust a different 10 million dollar OF right now than trusting Soriano to keep up his production.

Suddenly Pena's up to an .812 OPS on the season.

For those of us not able to see the game, what is he ranting about? My guess is the errors by Cub pitchers. Nah, this time it was the strike zone. Garza had thrown 3 strikes according to their strike zone and yet only 1 of those was called. His biggest rant today was probably earlier in the game when Soto and Pena let a foul ball popup drop between them.

There's the potential risk that the interim GM makes short-sighted moves in an effort to impress his bosses with a meaningless W/L record. It may not make a difference to the Ricketts, but it might and that may be enough for an interim to buy instead of sell at the deadline. Why would the bosses be impressed by a meaningless W/L record? Seems to me that taking a 15-under club and making them deadline buyers would be a great way to ensure you *don't* get the job fulltime. I mean seriously, have at least a little faith that the Ricketts can see what's what here. Yeah, I'd be more worried that Bush wouldn't be able to get as many assets from selling as Hendry would. I don't see Bush even being tempted into buying unless Hendry was fired tomorrow and the Cubs got quite a bit closer in July.

Even if Reed had 300 AB's against right-handers this season it wouldn't be enough to overcome the rest of his career. It's possible he's an incredibly late developer, but the odds are very, very strongly on the side of sample size. He might have done well enough that the Cubs might choose to keep them on their bench again next season, but anything more than that would be way overrating the results he's gotten so far.