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The frustration people speak with when explaining why Hendry isn't an idiot for the Hamilton issue.

Both of those statements are silly to criticize Hendry for. However, what most of the people on here jump at is not the insinuation that the Cubs traded Hamilton, but that they had the option to keep him after handing in the Reds' pick. From the time we handed in the card and on, we didn't have the choice to keep Hamilton because we had already agreed to trade whoever the Reds selected. However, the insinuation by those who criticize the trade is largely that the Cubs possessed Hamilton, had the opportunity after the draft to keep him and yet decided to trade him to the Reds. That's not true and when you debunk that mentality, it's important to note the sequence of events.

Those aren't similar situations. People argue that the Cubs drafted Hamilton and there was no reason not to keep him once we drafted him. In reality, Hamilton was the Reds' selection who the Cubs simply handed the card (or whatever method they use) in for and the Reds handed them 75K. The main point isn't that the Cubs never drafted him, it's that when they handed in the card with his name on it, they were making the Reds' selection and not their own. There was no option from that point on to keep Hamilton because of the previously agreed upon deal. It actually is important if the opposing argument is that the Cubs had Hamilton in hand and then decided they didn't want him. That's not true. They had an opportunity to select him had they chosen to do so before agreeing to the deal with the Reds, but once the deal was consummated there was no real opportunity to back out on the deal - and no reason to whatsoever.

I see your point on a couple of those, but I was right on the last one. I would imagine since the deal was in place beforehand that the two transactions were instantaneous - the Reds' selection was handed in by the Cubs and Hamilton immediately was sent to the Reds. The time to back out was before ever making the pick. And there really was no reason to take Hamilton from the Cubs' perspective. He had been out of baseball for three years, had only 55 PAs (.687 OPS) the year he returned and was 25 years old in A ball. There was no reason to believe that player could stick on the Cubs' 25 man roster for an entire season even if you thought there might be a very slim chance he'd actually recapture his former potential.

It would make sense, then, to be careful with him to preserve his health and usefulness. Instead, under Dusty, Wood was 2nd in the majors in pitcher abuse points in 2003, 11th in 2004 (in only 22 games), and then he was only able to start 14 games the next two seasons combined. Kerry was fragile to begin with when Dusty took over and he did nothing to keep him healthy. The "mailing it in" thing is very subjective and I don't think there's much behind it. To back that up, the primary argument was that he was relaxed in the dugout and after the games. That's not a convincing enough argument for me to believe he was mailing it in. That said, he didn't do a particularly good managerial job in 2010, though I don't recall a lot of issues with him in 2009. Between 2007 and 2008, he was quite good. And the performance in the playoffs is hard to pin on him. Is it his fault the players who won 85 and 97 games in two seasons struggled for 6 total games? Is there anything he could have done differently that would have won us either of those series? Is their poor play his fault and, if so, how can you prove that? Those questions have to be answered before I pin the blame on Lou for the team underperforming for 6 games after being very successful for 324.

The semantic argument is there, however, because if you word it that Josh Hamilton was drafted by the Cubs, then people get all up in arms that we didn't keep him. The fact is, we never had the opportunity to keep Hamilton because we didn't draft him, the Reds did in a previously agreed upon deal. However you want to word the semantics it doesn't change that the Cubs didn't possess Hamilton and there was no real reason to draft him in the first place.

Except they weren't producing good drafts. You don't think Wilken's produced good drafts? Really? Where did these good prospects we have in our system come from?

How they handled him in a general sense was fine. However, he hit in the 2nd spot in the order way more than he should have - as Barney probably has to this point this year. In 2007, Theriot had a .326 OBP and had more than 400 PAs in the top two spots in the order with less than 100 everywhere else. Again in 2009 with a .343 OBP, he had around 600 PAs in the top two spots. The Cubs using him when he was cheap and shipping him out when he got expensive was fine, just like keeping Barney around as a useful player while he's cheap is fine. However, it was the pattern of usage while he was here that was the problem.

I don't get the Barney hate. Sure I love to see more OBP, maybe some pop but he's making the league minimum, plays good defense and hits .300 I would love to get more production out of 2B but with so many other glaring issues and aging/high priced turds with this club I'm not going to hate this kid. I don't hate Barney. However, I also want the best production we can get out of second base and we have a number of kids in the minors (Flaherty, LeMaheieu primarily) who have the potential to outperform Barney and possibly by quite a bit. I'm in favor of giving them that opportunity. I also agree with SSR and Truffle that utility guys can have great value on a team and Barney can be very good in that role, even though he's a mediocre starter.

Hiring Dusty was a bad move not because of the W-L record, but as others have mentioned, it was bad because Dusty significantly overused Prior, Wood and Z and probably had a huge effect on Prior and Wood having significant injury issues throughout their careers. Lou, on the other hand, never really abused his starting pitchers, he promoted a very solid approach at the plate and brought in coaches (Perry, Joshua) who believed in that philosophy, and generally stayed out of the way during games. He was actually a very good manager his first two seasons and his teams posted 85 wins and 97 wins in those years. Dusty won 88 and 89 his first two years and then tailed off, plus he had the negative effects after he left that Lou did not.

Reynolds would actually really intrigue me. Not a great option by any means, but he has the ability to slug a pretty decent amount, which might offset some of those many Ks. Other than the obvious choices of Wright and Youkilis (who I agree will both be off the market by then), I think Reynolds is the best choice.

Oops, misread his post.

I'd keep Wells simply because he's still cheap and would have no value in a trade at this point. Give him the offseason to recuperate and hope he comes back better next year. I'd also only trade Z and Soriano if I got good offers. Soriano is highly overpaid, but his production would still be difficult to replace. Z has been really good the past two seasons and, unless he really comes on strong the rest of the season, likely wouldn't garner his worth in trade. I agree with your keep list, though as I said before if I got bowled over by an offer I'd be open to dealing Ramirez. I also wouldn't hand Barney a starting job. Make it an open competition between him, Baker, Flaherty, and LeMahieu and go from there.

If we end up trading Aramis, I think the pretty clear best option for third next year would be a Flaherty/Baker platoon. That's a pretty horrid FA class. Chavez might be worth a really cheap, one year flier for the slim chance he might return to his glory days.

Nobody has to wonder that. It's been the built in excuse for everybody in the system. The Cubs did not lack for resources allocated to the system. Nobody was handcuffed. If they can only do their job when they have the biggest budget, that is not a good thing. It may not be purely monetary restrictions, though. This draft was very heavy on high school players, while previous drafts have been heavily college guys. Was Wilken under directions to focus on taking collegiate athletes in previous years? If so, that falls on Hendry/ownership rather than Wilken, who is simply following orders. Also, I've seen stuff people have posted that show spending money in the draft correlates pretty directly with picking successful players. It's not like Wilken's been having terrible drafts without a lot of money to spend either. If he's had monetary restrictions and has produced decent to good drafts, then it would logically follow that with more money to spend he could produce some very good to great drafts.

Castro would probably fit the bill. Of course, his development is almost the very definition of "special circumstances." I don't really see how Castro is a good example of this. Generally 20-21 year old players are in either A or AA struggling with their defense and learning the very things Castro is having to at the major league level. I've also previously outlined many great defensive SS who came up at Castro's age (and later) who have struggled mightily with errors. As you said, Castro is the very definition of special circumstances.

I agree completely. I said in another thread that if I could mold my own ideal (realistic) manager, he'd be really similar to Lou his first two seasons.

My problem with the trade wasn't giving up Archer or Lee individually - it was giving up both. I wasn't sold on Garza becoming an ace, I loved the upside of Archer and thought Lee had more trade value than an iffy ace. However, there's no way that trade should go down as one of Hendry's worst (still has a great chance to be one of his best) and the early returns are proving me very wrong (Garza's been great and Archer's been awful).

I'll take what Bruce Miles says over anybody.

I'm one of those who believe we can compete next year, but I'm not opposed to an Aramis deal. The key is we'd have to get a really impressive haul for him if we're going to trade him. I've said before that I'd go to the Yankees and begin by asking for Jesus Montero and build a deal around him. If they're not interested, and no team is willing to part with a top prospect or two for Aramis, then we keep him. Aramis has been one of the best players on the team this year, but he is getting a little older and has struggled with injuries of late. I still think he can be a very productive third baseman next year, but I also think we can get average to above average production out of something like a Flaherty/Baker platoon at third as well. If Aramis were to bring back a really impressive haul, that drop in production would be a lot more acceptable next year - especially if we got back Montero, who could immediately slot into third and hopefully work on his defense some this year.

If teams were interested in players like Pena, Kosuke, and Grabow who almost certainly won't be back next year, it'd be a really bad idea for Ricketts to not allow Hendry to negotiate a trade. Even if he negotiates a bad trade, it's still better than letting those guys walk for nothing at season's end while still having to pay them the rest of the season. My thought on the lack of activity is that it's simply still nearly two weeks until the trading deadline and we're not dangling out the big fish that teams might really want - Marmol, Dempster, Marshall, Soto - and Aramis and Z may not waiver their 10/5 rights. Guys like Pena, Kosuke, Grabow, Byrd, and others are not in high demand and, thus, teams will wait it out until right around the deadline to pull the trigger hoping that the price drops if Hendry gets desperate to move the contracts. It's basically a game of chicken at this point and both sides are seeing who gives in first.

Hendry didn't trade Gorz for nothing. He traded him for three interesting prospects, two of which are still young for their levels. One is a former 1st round pick. This was actually a pretty good deal for a career mediocre pitcher. This confuses me. One of Hendry's worst moves was not hiring a bad manager? A whole lot of teams must have made bad moves as well then, because Ryno wasn't a hot commodity this past offseason. Z has been a very good starter for the most part throughout his Cub career. He struggled some in 2008, but followed that up with very strong 2009 and 2010 seasons. He's struggled this year, but before this year he's given us 2 out of 3 very good seasons. That wasn't a bad contract. The only way the Nomar trade was bad was if you consider it so in hindsight. Even then, the best player from that trade might have been Matt Murton, who was pretty average to below average in his career and Hendry acquired him. The guys the Cubs gave up were Francis Beltran, Alex Gonzalez, Justin Jones and Brendan Harris. If this is one of Hendry's worst trades, or even close to it, he's pretty much never made a bad move. I'm not sure how a guy who's given us a .359 OBP or better in four years and has been a good defender his first two seasons could possibly be a bad signing. He's overpaid, sure, and it wasn't a great signing, but there's no way this was one of Hendry's worst moves. If Garza implodes, sure. If Garza becomes the ace the Cubs don't have in the system and need, not a chance. Hendry isn't in charge of the drafts, Tim Wilken is. And each of Wilken's drafts could easily be considered anywhere from mediocre to very good. He probably had one mediocre draft (the Shark draft) and everything else has been much better. Wilken is a big reason the Cubs have a lot of solid young players nearly ready to hit the majors and an even stronger low minors.

He did seem pretty ticked off, but I think he'd take the job if offered. It's not like teams are clamoring for his services at the moment - considering he couldn't get a managerial job last year - and he really wants to be a manager. If somebody else came to offer him along with the Cubs, I could see him taking the other offer. But if it's Cubs major league or anybody's minor league (as it was last year), I'd imagine he'd take the Cubs job.

The drafts were terrible in the mid-2000s, but have improved dramatically recently. Our system has improved a huge amount since Wilken took over and the primary reason is that the drafts have gotten much better. Most of the reports I've heard are that Hendry wanted Soriano at around 6 years, Soriano wanted 8 and Hendry wasn't going to go that far. Ownership at the time, however, wanted to make a major splash and insisted Hendry add on the extra couple of years. As for Fukudome, I think the contract's worked out pretty well. He's been overpaid, but not much more than most FA options are going to be. He's not provided the power many thought he'd bring, but he's been anywhere from solid to spectacular in getting on base and has generally been pretty good defensively. I was against the Bradley contract at the time it was signed (preferred Dunn), but moreso because I thought he'd be productive but hurt a lot. I doubt anyone expected him to be as unproductive as he was as a Cub and since.

I could see them going with Gillick with the idea that his assistant would be someone young who could be "mentored" by him and take over when he retires. I could see Gillick being the one in charge of overhauling thought and whatnot, retiring after 2-3 years and then his successor taking over to lead the Cubs long term. That's true, though I don't think that would be their first choice. It depends on how much they value experience for the actual overhaul process. They may want a guy who's done it before to lead that part.