stitchface

what, no one wants to go? :twisted:

so when are you going to play cedeno and murton? If they had played last september, you could say its too small a sample size. or they'll wear down over a full season. Unless you get a viable option, you might as well give them a shot and if they fail go shopping at the deadline.

Sometimes the best deals are the ones you don't make. Maddux is a bad contract but maddux does contribute to the team. Its not the albatross of JD Drew or Thome if they can't stay healthy. I said pretty good in any case. Don't get me wrong, I think Hendry is a pretty poor GM. I just don't think we should be in a hurry to spend that extra money if there is nothing worth spending it on.

Hendry has done a pretty good job avoiding bad long term commitments like Sammy's contract that created last year's mess. He doesn't seem to learn with relievers but otherwise, the cubs should have some flexibility over the next few years. No reason to make a bad move now that kills us for the next six years.

if hendry can't get a fair deal, he shouldn't make moves just to make moves. Come July it may be nice to have some open payroll space. Its certainly too early in the offseason to say he won't be making any moves. typically the winter meetings establish trading partners and the deals get worked out later.

I am not too impressed with that yankees rotation - the only reliable starter is a big injury risk. Their offense on the other hand . . .

Just to belabor a bit more, I think part of this is his own choice, and partly the result of having some prospects too good to surrender easily. It may be that Hendry is *not* offering Murton, or Cedeno, or Pie, or Guzman. Perhaps not even Hill. For Tejada or Dunn, sure. But I don't think he's shopping many of those kinds of prospects for Aubrey Huff or earlier for Brad Wilkerson. I think he's seeing most of those guys (perhaps not all...) as A prospects who he won't trade except for a very good major leaguer. If a couple of those guys weren't quite so good, and were more in the B+ class like Nolasco or Brendan Harris or Beltran or Bobby Hill when they were traded, Hendry might have alittle more to work with. But he's kind of asking a lot from his farm. He wants it to fill LF (Murton) and SS (Cedeno), the Maddux rotation spot (Guzman or Hill), he's already spent farm parts to get Pierre, and he still wants the farm to have enough left over to get a good RF and a good middle infielder. All this while having two recent farm graduates integral guys in the pen (Ohman and Wuertz), plus having another youngster (Williams) already in the rotatin. Not a lot of farm systems have that kind of blend of quality and quantity and depth. You make excellent, rational posts. Thanks. Its nice to see someone can compliment craig's posts without trying to belittle the rest of the posters.

Hendry said almost exactly that on the radio last week. He sets his price for FA or trades and doesn't go any higher.

Wrong. I believe he can greatly influence results. And I believe Jim's moves greatly influenced the collapse of the Cubs, just like KW's moves greatly influenced the results of the WS. Influence, sure. But do his decisions account for the overwhelming majority of a team's success or failure? I would say no. Things like managerial moves after he's hired, the quality of coaches after they're hired, individual performance, fluke injuries, quality of opponents, etc. are things largely out of their control. Therefore, I don't think a GM should be judged primarily on records and championships. There are a ton of ways to look at good decisions. I don't have a particular method. It involves immediate analysis of where the team was, what the team needed, what they gave up, and what other moves could have been done and both short-term and long-term production. But the important part for me is that each decision is evaluated without what the team ends up doing as the primary factor. And my opinion that he hasn't made, on average, good decisions is based on a collection of evaluations of all of his individual moves. If you want to disagree, fine. But that's how I think a GM should be credited or held accountable. And I don't think it's absurd that I should form such opinions based on what I value. Jon, Do you really believe there is any way to judge a GM other than his team's record? I could making an argument on sample size, ie one season could be a fluke, but the GM is paid to put together a team to win. Therefore wins are the judgement criteria. I could see normalizing for payroll but long-term, wins are what GMs are paid to create. I honestly don't see any basis for claiming GMs don't influence won-lost record. Definitely this should be measured over a long period of time, but I think Goony has made some great points regarding KW's track record.

So is Arizona going to dump some outfielders now? They seem to be loaded prospect wise at the position.

Haha, that's true. Is that implying that it's easier to ride a winning horse to victory than it is to drive the best car to victory? I've never ridden a horse or driven a really fast car, so I wouldn't know. Or that the horse gets credit for the victory, while the car driver does as well. aren't they all driving chevys?

wouldn't baseball 2005 be in the past? The White Sox win . .. .

We all know that Hendry has some good money to spend. So hopefully we'll be able to land a big fish for RF. If not, Huff seems to be our best option. He's young and will be able to put up .280/20-25 HR/90 RBIs. Get Lugo in a packaged deal and we're all set. I don't understand why we are waiting at this point??? Because Hendry can't just wiggle his nose like Jeannie and make it happen? Im pretty sure thats Samantha from Bewitched not Jeannie.... :lol: Oh yeah. Jeannie did the blink and head bob thing. tee-hee!

You have to remember baseball people think cabrera is good.

and the only other alternative is to fold . . .

there are a lot of things out of the drivers control in NASCAR - like the car breaking down or not running efficiently etc. the only real sport is pure athletic competition like running, swimming, jumping - everything else is fabricated.

ozzie does more things well than dusty. probably than 50 percent of major league managers.

You realize you can't win at blackjack, right? The odds are always against you. I think that's a poor example. Did you see the example? If you hit on 19 and get a 2, does that make you smart? No, it makes you lucky. It's not a perfect example, but it's the idea of going against the best move and still having it work out. BTW, ever read "Bringing Down the House"? You can win at blackjack. Not if you don't count (and believe me I have firsthand knowledge of how you can beat the house). Anyway the point is you are taking a weighed risk - if you know you can't win without getting hit on 19, then why not take the hit? The risks KW took were not big risks because the consequences of failure are not disastrous and the alternatives were bleak. He took the chances he did because they had a chance to win. Would you prefer accepting no chance to win? Yea he got lucky, but he gave himself the opportunity to get lucky. The difference with your blackjack example is that you can still win with a 19 - KW couldn't win without taking the hit.

:evil: :twisted: Yea, we like it too of course. Dad isn't that tall really and she doesn't seem like she is going to be. She is like 20th percentile for height and 0th for weight. She's a little girl like mom. she does have decent size feet though so you never know. And beautiful blue eyes . . . ok now you got me started. I have to admit I have no idea what Jim is thinking. The Pierre move wasn't as bad as the hype around it makes it seem. The concept of having to get a leadoff hitter is more disturbing than the actual acquisition. I may be in Phoenix a lot more next year for work.

The reason I have grave doubts about that is the same reason keeping Neifi! around disturbs me: Dusty. Dusty and Corey may not see eye-to-eye, but Dusty has convinced himself that Corey should be able to hit at the top of the order (because he's fast. or whatever). And once Dusty has convinced himself of something, he sticks with it, consequences and results be damned. If by chance Cedeno and Corey are both still on the team in '06, I'd hope that Cedeno would get the free pass to be hidden someplace in the lineup if he struggles. Murton might actually go through a cold spell himself -- I hope not, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility. Additionally ... Corey's defense post-amazing-catch-in-Cincy suffered somewhat last year, and I don't recall him being very successful on the basepaths despite his speed. If the Cubs trade away Cedeno, I'd be more comfortable with Corey sticking around. I can't see having Cedeno / Murton / Corey in the same lineup, and if I have to choose two out of the three, Corey doesn't make the cut. Yeah, all of that makes sense, but I still think CPAT has a lot of upside and I haven't COMPLETELY lost faith in him. If he does come around he'd be a real asset. If the Cubs didn't plan to contend, they could afford to give him a shot. Getting Pierre ended Corey's Cubs career in my opinion. He wouldn't produce enough to play RF even if he reaches his peak.

Had Hendry focused on Bradley instead of Pierre, he could have obtained him in all likelihood. As a RF option, Bradley was not nearly as interesting anyway.

You realize you can't win at blackjack, right? The odds are always against you. I think that's a poor example.

He only took big risks if he extended long term expensive contracts. Jenks was a good risk. Which moves were bad risks? Trading for Posednik is the only really bad risk I see from KW last year. What was the worst scenario if things don't work out? What alternatives did he have?

I think she realizes hendry is not a leader and is always reacting rather than being proactive and having a plan. Either that or she is teething.

cardfan - what makes you think he will understand the strike zone on another team? At best I see him returning to .305 .450 type numbers - not horrible for a cf but not really a star either. his defense is quite overrated in my opinion as he gets bad jumps and takes bad routes.