Backtobanks

I can only imagine the posters loving a move like this from Hendry. Trading Thome for next to nothing when he's going to be a type A free agent. Brilliant move by Williams. =D> thome is making $13M this year and basically can only DH. if they'd offered him arbitration, the white sox would have been obligated to offer him at least $10.92M, since arbitration rules dictate that a team's offer must be at least 80% of his most recent year's salary, or 70% of his salary from 2 years ago. do you really think the white sox, or thome's new team (dodgers), are going to offer him about $11M a year when he's going to be 39 years old, he's had some injury problems, can't play the field and his production has declined pretty significantly? I still think that if Hendry had done this, the Hendry bashers would have jumped all over it. I can only imagine the length of the thread about trading your middle-of-the-order guy for next to nothing while your team is only 6 games out with a month to play.

I can only imagine the posters loving a move like this from Hendry. Trading Thome for next to nothing when he's going to be a type A free agent. Brilliant move by Williams. =D>

Teams will hesitate to take on his money because they probably think they can convince Hendry to pick up much of the tab. When Hendry gets it in his mind to get somebody, or move somebody, he'll do so at just about any cost. It would be absolutely inexcusable to pay Bradley to play elsewhere, but that's also why I think the Cubs will end up doing it. I agree that it would be inexcusable to pay Bradley to play elsewhere. I think the best solution is to keep Bradley (and all of his baggage) because I think he will produce more next year. All the drama will have to be settled between Lou, Hendry, and Bradley.

I agree that he shouldn't be traded, but everything I've heard and read sounds like the Cubs want to get rid of him. Unfortunately, there's no way to "free up the payroll" because the only options the Cubs will have is to eat most of his contract or take a bad contract in return. I don't see why. A team like the Reds would be absolutely perfect for Bradley, and they certainly need offense and have room in the corners. Jocketty's moves have been downright dreadful since the Mulder trade, so I'm not assuming Hendry would have to contribute any salary. edit: I was unclear. No reason to take on Cordero considering how much the Reds need offense. I hope you're right, but I seriously doubt it. I can't see any team taking on Bradley with all of his baggage and a hefty contract on top of it unless the Cubs eat salary or take a bad contract.

I agree that he shouldn't be traded, but everything I've heard and read sounds like the Cubs want to get rid of him. Unfortunately, there's no way to "free up the payroll" because the only options the Cubs will have is to eat most of his contract or take a bad contract in return.

You wouldn't be paying $12 million for Cordero, you would be paying the difference between Cordero and Bradley. If the "experts" are right, the Cubs will weaken their team (dump Bradley) and most likely add payroll (paying Bradley plus a replacement). The question is should we receive something useful in return. First let me explain that my original post was based on the absolute declarations by the "experts" (writers and broadcasters) that Bradley has to be removed from this team and that Hendry is going to have to eat a huge chunk (80% ?) of his remaining contract. Rather than paying $7 million next year and $10 million in 2011 for Bradley to play somewhere else while we receive nothing (low A-ball player) in return, I suggested taking Cordero. I totally agree that Bradley (at his salary) is more valuable than Cordero (at his salary), even considering Bradley's baggage. Yeah, but it's still paying $12 mil for a closer. My point is that while $12 million for a closer is ridiculous, is it worse than paying $21 million over 2 years to some other team's RF?

You wouldn't be paying $12 million for Cordero, you would be paying the difference between Cordero and Bradley. If the "experts" are right, the Cubs will weaken their team (dump Bradley) and most likely add payroll (paying Bradley plus a replacement). The question is should we receive something useful in return. First let me explain that my original post was based on the absolute declarations by the "experts" (writers and broadcasters) that Bradley has to be removed from this team and that Hendry is going to have to eat a huge chunk (80% ?) of his remaining contract. Rather than paying $7 million next year and $10 million in 2011 for Bradley to play somewhere else while we receive nothing (low A-ball player) in return, I suggested taking Cordero. I totally agree that Bradley (at his salary) is more valuable than Cordero (at his salary), even considering Bradley's baggage.

Reds or Cubs: Cordero for Bradley. Reds save $3 million over 2 years and add offense. Maybe Dusty can deal with Bradley. Cubs get a useful piece while dumping Bradley, but add another expensive contract. Unless Hendry plans to keep Bradley, I would prefer this kind of deal rather than paying 80% - 90% of Bradley's contract to play somewhere else while we receive a low A-ball player.

Nothing is worse than Bradley. He's worse than Jimmy Carter. History's greatest monster. Adolph Hitler says hi.

Hopefully resign, but I won't hold my breath. Unfortunately, there'd be a good chance that whoever replaced him could actually be even worse. I think you're right. A new GM might have everybody longing for the "Jim Hendry days". We're all frustrated, but I'm not sure how many GMs (that are available) would do better. All the talk about how great some of these small-market GMs (i.e. Beane) are might be shot down with a bigger budget and higher expectations.

Well at least he's accepting blame. It would be refreshing if Soto, Bradley, Fontenot, Piniella, Zambrano, Marmol, Gregg, Miles, and anyone I forgot would "man up" too.

Who is the odd man out if all are healthy? Let's see if we ever get to the point where all of them are healthy, then we'll worry about it. You could always go with matchups (Gorz against a lineup loaded with lefties or Wells against righties, flyball pitcher in a big park or sinker pitcher in small park, certain pitcher at home as opposed to on the road, etc.)

Maybe when a team is great on paper, but not on the field, a big part of the blame ought to be on the field and in the dugout instead of the front office.

The Cards going 24-18 is a possibility, but for the Cubs to go 33-13 will take a streak of everything (health, Soto, Soriano, Marmol, etc.) turning around.

I guess what you're trying to say is that we won't get to face pitchers like Morton or Bootchek in the playoffs against a good team. You're right about that but it doesn't mean that you're right about "the playoffs being a crapshoot" is a myth. Look at how many times the wild card team won the WS. Look at how many times the playoff (or WS) MVP is some obscure role player rather than a star. Basically it's a case of a team (or 1-2 players) getting hot at the right time. As bad as Soriano has been, he's the kind of streaky hitter who could carry a team for a week or two. Obviously, the "better" team will be the favorite in the playoffs, but any team can slump (or get red-hot) for a week or two.

All over reacting aside, I agree fully with this statement. Jim Hendry seems to not have a plan, philosophy, mission, or whatever word you want to use in how he runs the Cubs. From the outside it appears that his transactions are just throwing stuff against the wall and hoping that it will stick. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesnt. Since he has a very large checkbook compared to most major league clubs, he has a lot more room for error then other GMs. As I've pointed out before, the Hendry's job sure is easy sitting in front of our computers and having hindsight in our favor. Hendry's plan has been to build one of the strongest teams in the NL over the past few years "on paper" and for the most part he has succeeded. We're all frustrated by the performance of this team on the field, but they were picked to win the NL Central by most "experts" and in many cases picked to go to the WS. Anybody who thinks Rothschild hasn't worked with Marmol on control and approach obviously hasn't been paying attention. You hate to blame injuries, but the Cubs have had their "starting" lineup playing for about 4-5 games this year. Bradley and Harden have reputations of being injury-prone, but have been two of the healthiest Cubs this season. When you have your top hitter out of the lineup for an extended period along with 40%-60% of your rotation, your team probably is going to slump. Hendry's faults involve the spending of money and the length of contracts, but the fact the players haven't lived up to their potential isn't his fault.

I hope the moron is caught and prosecuted, but the coverage is really ridiculous. It's the lead story on the 5:00 news today. It must really be a slow news day.

Quite a few links to Chicago from MLBTR: Zambrano was listed as one type of bad contract (not one of the worst) A different kind of bad contract: Carlos Zambrano (5 years, $91.5 million). The contracts that I list below as the worst are those where (in my opinion) a team has wildly overpaid a player for the production they will get. This could be the case with Zambrano, certainly, but it’s a different deal because Zambrano’s still a good pitcher, and quite often an awesome pitcher. His problems are … er … tougher to define Worst Contracts in Baseball Blog by Joe Posanski 11. B.J. Ryan (out of baseball). Blue Jays still owe Ryan $10 million NEXT YEAR off 5 year, $47 million. To be fair to Ricciardi, I said I was going to consider injuries and Ryan was dominant in 2006 before having Tommy John surgery in 2007. But you know what? You give a 30-year-old relief pitcher (coming off one good season) that much money, and you end up having to release him with about $15 million still on the books … yeah, that’s a disastrous decision. 10. Jeff Suppan (MIlwaukee Brewers). He has two years and $25 million left on a contract — $27 million if you count the buyout. And he is 15-18 with a 5.09 ERA since start of the 2008 season. And he turns 35 in January. I’m just not too sure you’re going to make big strides as a team by signing 32-year-old inning-eaters for a lot of money. 9. Travis Hafner (Cleveland Indians). He has three years at $13 million per left on his four-year deal … and a buyout on top. The reason this is not higher on the list is you can certainly understand why the Indians made the deal. Hafner had led the American League in OPS+ twice. He was coming off a year when he hit .308/.439/.649 — tough to argue with those numbers. BUT … they gave him the contract in the middle of the 2007 season, when he turned 30, when his numbers had already started to take a precipitous fall, when he had not shown an ability to stay healthy (he had never even played 150 games in a season when they gave him the deal). PLUS, he’s a big, slow guy who literally cannot play a single defensive position … he has not put on a glove for a big league game since 2007. Hafner has shown a little spark of offensive life this year, but he has so many injury problems, and he’s 32 years old, and this contract surely will only look worse as time goes on. 8. Kerry Wood (Cleveland Indians). He signed before this season for 2 years at $11 million per and there’s a reasonable chance it will kick in and become a three-year deal. He has been terrible this year but that’s not even the problem … Why would you spend all that money to sign a 31-turning-32-year-old pitcher with a long line of injury problems who has never pitched in the American League and has had one decent year as a closer? Mark Shapiro seems to me a bright guy who has done some good things … but this was a head-scratcher to me. 7. Alex Rios (Chicago White Sox). I originally had this as the second-worst contract in the game … but that was blowing this out of proportion. Several readers make the strong point that it really is not THAT bad, and I’m probably overreacting to the off-season he’s having now. Either way, this is the third deal where Ricciardi has hit the ejector button in the middle of the contract (B.J. Ryan and Frank Thomas coming first). At least this one, someone else picked up the tab — and yes, Kenny Williams will now be the one judged on how this contract turns out. 6. Gary Matthews (Angels). Still has two years and $23 million left on his contract, which is tough because he has become one of the worst hitters in baseball (74 OPS+ and .346 slugging percentage last two years) and the two big defensive stats I like — UZR and Dewan — both suggest he has lost whatever he might have had defensively. This was another example of a player with a long history of being below average (89 career OPS+ for seven teams between 1999 and 2005), then having one good year and making one incredible catch, and then signing for big money at age 32. One funny part of this, though, is that I don’t think the Angels have a lot of buyer’s remorse here. They are a weird team, the Angels. They just chug along, year after year. They pretty wildly overpay for a player now and again. They give players odd roles. They do odd things that make you wonder what the heck is going on over there. But they make the playoffs almost every year, and they seem to deal pretty well with whatever mistakes they make. Matthews plays quite a lot for the Angels, and he has a 69 OPS+, but the Angels continue to score runs like crazy. It’s just weird over there. 5. Alfonso Soriano (Cubs). Wow, the Cubs owe him $18 million per year for the next four. And he’s going to be 34 years old in January. And he has a 90 OPS+ this year and he seems to have lost his speed, which was a big part of his game. Bad stuff. Funny, I kind of thought that in many ways Soriano was underrated when the Cubs signed him … underrated because a lot of people seemed to be talking about all the things he couldn’t do (he didn’t walk, he struck out a ton, he was moody and didn’t want to change positions) and were kind of missing some of the obvious things he could DO such as the fact that he had a 40-40 season (and was one homer away from a SECOND 40-40 season) and was showing improvement even in those troubled areas (he walked a career high 67 times in Washington and moved to left field). Still … eight-year deal. Damn. You better be SURE before you give someone an eight year deal, especially a guy two months away from his 31st birthday. Check that: There’s no way you could be THAT sure about a player about to turn 31. Soriano still has some value as a player, but you’ve got to think that deal will only look worse from here on in. 4. Carlos Silva (Seattle Mariners). Three years left on that four year, $48 million deal … and a buyout to boot. Funny, people will constantly rip the Yankees and Red Sox and teams like that for all the money they spend … but it is teams like the Mariners, Royals, Brewers, Blue Jays and Indians that seem to actually make the worst signings. I have absolutely no idea what the heck the Mariners could have been thinking when they gave Sliva that money. The previous two years, he was 24-29 with a 5.01 ERA. He never could strike out anyone. He was turning 29, which ain’t exactly young. Of course he went 4-15 with a 6.46 ERA last year with the Mariners. Of course he was dreadful this year and then got hurt. Of course. This is the sort of signing that makes me wish, just once, I could be in on one of these meetings just so I could HEAR what these people are saying when they make these moves. 3. Barry Zito (San Francisco Giants). Four more years at about $19 million per and a huge $7 million buyout on the end. Well, what can you say? It’s the most famous bad contract in baseball right now … but the tide could be shifting a bit. Zito, you probably noticed, is pitching better. He’s 8-10 with a 4.40 ERA, which isn’t exactly Koufax — it’s not even Murray Koufax — but he has pitched better of late, and he has the makings of a crafty lefty, and crafty lefties can sometimes age quite well. Plus he has endured through some bad times. Look, when the Giants made this deal it was very clear that they had completely lost their minds. And no matter what happens, this contract will be known as a masterpiece of excess. But — and admittedly this is just a hunch — Zito might still be a reasonably valuable pitcher for the Giants. 2. Jose Guillen (Kansas City Royals). One more year at $12 million. I will admit that I’m grading this one on a curve … the Royals, more than other teams, cannot afford titanic blunders like this one. Everything about this deal baffled from the start. The Royals talked about wanting to get players who get on base — Guillen doesn’t and never has. The Royals talked about wanting players who are leaders — Guillen had played for nine different teams and was suspended for the playoffs by the Angels for inappropriate conduct. The Royals talked about players with good character — Guillen was facing a drug suspension when the Royals signed him (he was given amnesty). But more than anything: Guillen was almost 32 when the Royals signed him to a three-year, $36 million deal … and he’s precisely the sort of player who starts going wildly downhill at that age. And … so he has. Guillen led the team in RBIs in 2008 despite having a pretty bad year. This year, he has been perhaps the worst everyday player in baseball. His power is gone — .371 slugging percentage — he can’t play the outfield any more and his quick bat (the one thing he always had) has slowed measurably. Funny thing is, I have found him to be quite a likable guy, and he has been brutally honest in his own self-assessment. “If I suck then I suck,” he says. “And I suck.” Probably not worth $36 million, but entertaining still. 1. Vernon Wells (Toronto Blue Jays). Cot’s Baseball Contracts — the incredibly awesome site where I got these numbers from — is one of my favorite Internet stops. And on occasion, just for fun, I will go to the site just to look up Vernon Wells’ contract. I don’t know why. It gives me hope, somehow. It tells me that in this world, anything is possible. It tells me that good things happen, funny things, unexpected things. Don’t tell me that I won’t win the lottery … just look at Vernon Wells’ contract. In 2011, Vernon Wells will get paid $23 million. No. Really. He will get paid $23 million. In 2012, he will have to take a paycut and will only get $21 million. Same in 2013. And same again in 2014. This isn’t a baseball contract. This is a testament to the power of mankind to do the impossible. Oh, Vernon Wells also has a full no-trade clause in his contract. Well, sure, why not? Then, what difference would it make? This is the most untradable contract in the history of the world. Vernon Wells turns 31 this year. The Dewan has him a minus-29 centerfielder, which means he’s exactly as bad defensively as you can be while a manager who is still breathing allows you to play centerfield. He has an 85 OPS+. He has a lifetime .329 on-base percentage. He’s slugging .408. He IS third in the American League in making outs. So he has that going for him. And it never made sense. Ever. Wells had a very good year in 2003 (and he was a very good fielder then), a couple of OK years, a good year in 2006 at age 27. But he never got on base much, and he was inconsistent, and … then the Blue Jays gave him this hysterical contract.

Well at least I haven't heard any accusations of Miles using PEDs. =D>

Of course any increased offensive production by Rios because of the Cell will be nullified by decreased pitching production by Peavy. That doesnt really make sense. Peavy will do what he does every 5th day. While I dont see him doing what he did in the NL, he'll still be a significant upgrade over what they have. Rios and Peavy are both part of a rebuilding process which will see guys like Konerko, Dye, Thome, Contreres, and AJ leaving town in the next 2 years. There's no doubt that Peavy and Rios are (and will be) significant upgrades over what the WS have now, but the question remains as to whether each of them will be worth the price paid (in dollars and players). For all of the talk about Ozzie-ball, he has been able to count on the bombs by Konerko, Dye, and Thome for quite a few years now. Where are those big power numbers going to come from after they leave? Trying to trade for or sign a big-time slugger is going to cost money or prospects that they don't have.

Apparently he doesn't have to be great, just better than .229/.300/.369.

Of course any increased offensive production by Rios because of the Cell will be nullified by decreased pitching production by Peavy.

Basically, Rios in CF with power hitters at the corners in the OF and 1B is a decent option. Losing one or more of the older power hitters (Dye, Thome, Konerko) could lead to problems. So much for all of the "Ozzie-ball" talk including Posednick. Solid, decent, and overpriced are the best adjectives for Rios.

You can't argue with Peavy ... he's proven. Rios is definitely a risky move, IMO. I'm surprised the posters on WSI and Soxtalk aren't talking more about the risk. They are almost universally hailing Kenny for this. Everybody is excited about the move. Nobody is going to worry about the risk until the money situation screws them next year or the year after.

Well it also wouldn't hurt or cost anything for you to write Jessica Alba and ask her to go out with you. So why not go for it? It might cost me a lot in alimony since my wife wouldn't approve.