Backtobanks

Yeah, I remember the Theo regime showing interest in him as well. Like I said, not really a criticism, just thinking again how nice it would've been if we'd have been able to work something out for him. The Darvish thing still annoys me, simply because everything pointed to $20 million not being enough (lots of rumors that 1-2 teams were willing to go as high as Daisuke money or higher) and everything also pointed to Darvish being a considerably better bet than Daisuke (or maybe any other Japanese pitcher that had previously come over here) to be really good. Still though, it was a blind bid, making it really hard to criticize not winning. I hated that we passed on Cespedes at the time and I hate it more now. That and, to a much lesser degree, passing on Wei-Yin Chen are the most frustrating non-moves so far. There was a lot of conjecture about what the Darvish bid would be, but in the end it turned out that you had Texas where they were and the Cubs leading everyone else bunched at a lower range (including the Jays, who were very interested and considered to be the favorites by many). This at least tells us that it almost certainly wasn't a "token" bid, and that Theo/Jed made what they believed to be a very competitive bid. That is unless you believe Texas was the only team that wanted him, which I sure don't. If the consensus was the the bidding was going to be in the 15-20MM range (which it seems the consensus among non-Texas execs was) it seems a stretch to have expected the Cubs to go to 50MM+. The Cespedes miss was much less forgivable. If you're the Chicago Cubs, you don't get outbid by the Oakland A's in an open process. Part of me wonders if they were given a chance to counter (given how aggressive they were in paying for the other Cubans.), but it seems unlikely Cespedes and his agent would neglect to ask the Cubs if they wanted to match or beat the A's offer. It was a bad miss. Everything I read before the Darvish winning bid was announced expected it to be around $48 million.

Your plan looks like it might have a contender by 2027.

73 wins this year - did I miss something? The point you are making is what I've been saying all along - the timeline bothers me, especially if any of our "sure thing" 18-20 yr olds don't pan out. It's not easy going from 190+ losses over 2 years to pushing for the playoffs the next followed by a dominant run in 2015. Theo needs to start filling holes this offseason with players that can contribute in the future (Upton, Chisenhall, etc.).

Castro, Rizzo, Castillo, and Shark might be future contributors. Jackson, Stewart, Valbuena, and most of the bullpen kids certainly don't look like they offer much.

We haven't had low expectations since 03. The 04 team won 89 games and was booed on the regular. Why do you have expectations that b2b will deal with reality/facts? You are far too optimistic. I'm not the one having trouble dealing with reality. Everybody outside of Chicago identifies the Cubs as a low expectation team with a party atmosphere going on in the bleachers daily. The fans show up every year despite losing or mediocre seasons. Players make lots of extra money for personal appearances. Players who manage to play decently over a few years become lifetime celebrities over the years and become a permanent part of Cubs' folklore. That's why the players hate to leave the Cubs.

The overwhelming majority of players for the Cubs over the decades love to play here. Nobody wants to leave - low expectations, great fans, big market opportunities to make extra money, etc.

Why would anyone give anything of significant value for Jackson at this point? Jackson might interest another team as part of a package deal.

From MLBTR: The Rockies will entertain trade possibilities for multiple position players, including Dexter Fowler and Michael Cuddyer, opposing executives and scouts tell Troy E. Renck of The Denver Post. How about a deal centered around Garza for Fowler + Matzek. That would open up the possibility of trading Brett Jackson in a package for another pitcher.

And then trade Garza, Shields, and Sanchez at the deadline to get more prospects and start all over again. :lol:

"Putting the best product on the field." :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I don't know defensively, but someone finally convinced him to go to a lighter bat this year.

Williams has some compromising photos of Reinsdorf hidden someplace.

That may kill our chances for the playoffs. :lol:

Except he's at least going to be used as a starter. Unfortunately our rotation is 60% is "revolving door of middle relievers ".

Just don't let Marmol listen in on the negotiations. :yahoo:

30 years? I guess you're counting his college days. Oh, so it's his managing 1 year of rookie ball and 1 year of low-A ball that you keep referring to when celebrating his illustrious coaching career. No he coached college ball, but I assumed Davell was talking about their accomplishments in the ML.

30 years? I guess you're counting his college days.

Apparently smarter than the owner that hired him. The owner fell for a guy that talked about sports (like posters) as opposed to someone who actually had experience in coaching, scouting, managing, and player development.

Yeah the reality is that we're posting on message boards and he's had a long-time career on many levels of baseball, but in you go ahead and keep believing that you're smarter than he is and he's just been lucky all of his life. So you think that Jim Hendry is definitely smarter than everyone else in the world because he's had that career? Or at least smarter than everyone posting on message boards and not working in baseball? He made some awful decisions, and a lot went wrong for him, but the fact is that there are 30 MLB GM jobs, and a ton of guys that would love to take them, and I'm not just talking about message board posters and radio callers here. Anyone who managed to hold down one of the the most sought after jobs in sports for as long as Hendry did suggests that he was clearly doing a lot of things right, though we might not know just what. AMEN to that.

Yeah the reality is that we're posting on message boards and he's had a long-time career on many levels of baseball, but in you go ahead and keep believing that you're smarter than he is and he's just been lucky all of his life. At least I understand that this message board is for entertainment purposes. It's a shame that you really believe that the fact that you post every 30 seconds somehow makes you smarter than the rest of the world.

Yeah it's great that all of us smart people can post on message boards while the not-so-smart can be special assistant to the GM of the most successful franchise in the history of team sports. Ah, the ever so solid "if they have the job, they must be better at it than the rest of the entire world" argument... made even stronger by the boys club hiring that goes on in professional sports. Well Hendry has had a job in baseball as a coach, scout, general manager, and special assistant to a general manager all of his adult life which puts him a few steps ahead of posters on a message board.

I never said that Theo wasn't a good hire. As for my bitching, I read post after post about Hendry from others before I respond. I don't have a problem about spending big now, but as I mentioned before Cespedes was there for the taking and Darvish was a possibility instead of sitting on the money. I accepted the complete dismantling for 2012, but I think completely tanking 2013 makes a turnaround difficult for 2014. In the end, none of us have any other choice but to hope that Theo's plan works. I'm just not as confident or patient as some of you probably because I've waited longer than most of you.

Yeah it's great that all of us smart people can post on message boards while the not-so-smart can be special assistant to the GM of the most successful franchise in the history of team sports.

I agree that Theo's track record has earned him complete control. Hendry did not have the same ability as Theo because he didn't inherit a consistent 89 win team. Theo's track record has no experience at taking a bad team and making them contenders. Theo's track record has no experience at selling off all assets and starting from scratch. As I've posted before, Theo will improve the system over the long haul, but I think the timeline is going to be much longer than anticipated. Two years of 90-105 losses isn't going to magically turn around without signing multiple FAs to fill all of the holes. As for jumping back into FA, yes starting with Cespedes and Darvish who are both young enough to plan for the future.

Wait. That's not fair. Perhaps the owners of the Cubs pushed Jimbo into signing the same contracts that Theo did. And what path did Theo put into place? He already had his core before he took over. It IS fair, because I won't even deny that Hendry may have had pressure to do those contracts. But he blamed Theo, therefore blaming Jimbo is fair game too. Theo's path was always build thru the system and add when it made sense to do so. Same thing he's starting out here doing. I listed reasons as to why Hendry was NOT a good GM and never did mention FA contracts. It's impossible for some of you to admit that Theo has any faults. Theo's record is that he took a team that averaged 89 wins per season for 5 years and turned it into a team that averaged 93 wins per season for the next 9 years. That is very impressive and he did it by drafting and developing young players and spending a ton of money on contracts. He now has complete autonomy to do and spend whatever he wants - something Hendry never had. I think he will improve the system and develop some young players, but if the Cubs win the WS it will be with a payroll that would make Hendry blush. The CBA and starting with 100 losses for a year or two will eventually make him get back into buying a winner. Are you saying Hendry never had complete autonomy on his decisions? It's hilarious you say others can't admit Theo has faults when you've decided Hendry can't be blamed for problems during his tenure. If you have read my posts you will see that I admitted that Hendry had faults and it was time to move on. Now that Theo has purged the organization of anything having to do with Hendry, I wonder how long it will take some posters to move on. Hendry never had complete autonomy like Theo has now. I'm still waiting for the Koolaide drinkers to admit that Theo has any faults or has ever made a mistake.