dew1679666265

If you are creating a list of candidates in season then it is pretty much a waste of time to keep Hendry through to the end. Certainly you want to begin the process before you can him, but that should already be done. You can't really narrow it to 1-3 guys while he's still in the role. If you want to keep him until August, it doesn't matter. It's not like he is some fantastic fire seller or anything. But if you do keep him with the intent of getting rid of him then you have to watch his movement like a hawk and potentially nix any trade he does come up with. The reasoning for keeping him around while you're narrowing your list is because he's less likely to mortgage the future than a guy with an interim tag. You still have to watch him, sure, but an established GM like Hendry is going to feel more job security than a guy with an interim tag on his title. He's going to be aware that he's very much on the hot seat, but may be less prone to desperation moves than an interim guy. And you can cut down a list to 1-3 guys in-season if you have a good idea of who's out there and what you want. You have to be pretty familiar with candidates that may come available when the season ends and through a search firm and back channels you can find out more specific details about guys you like. Given their short tenure as owners, however, I don't know that the Ricketts would be that familiar with possible candidates and, thus, would need a more long-term search that extends well into the offseason. If that happens, it significantly reduces our chances of landing Pujols and signing Albert is more important than replacing our GM.

With Colvin around and handy, though, it'd be much easier to be less patient with a known streaky hitter like Soriano or Kosuke. Colvin's better offensively than probably any option we'd want to bring up as a 4th OF, and it's a much better idea to give him a start or two over Soriano or Kosuke after 2-3 poor games than it would be to give Fernando Perez those starts. There are really few positives to sending him down, as well. He'd get regular at-bats, but at his age and with his limited ceiling I don't know that we'll see much more development out of him. Regular AAA at-bats would keep him less rusty, but we'd also lose his bat in the spot starts in LF, RF and first that he'd get by being here. I don't think it'd be that big a deal if we sent him down, but he's in the role now that he'll probably inhabit most of his career so we might as well let him fill that role. If he were a higher ceiling guy who I saw as a potential starting corner OF in the future, I'd be all for sending him down to get more ABs. But his ceiling is probably as a 4th OF and he's currently a 4th OF.

I'd think if you finished the season with a GM who has the "interim" tag, yes. If you fire Hendry then name someone the permanent replacement right now it wouldn't affect us. It's actually the other way around. If Ricketts were to fire Hendry now and name Randy Bush the interim GM, he could conduct a full search in the offseason and have most all of the candidates available to him. The bad part is, however, we have Randy Bush making any and all decisions on either a firesale or acquiring players at the deadline and there's a very real chance that if we're 12-15 games out of first at the deadline we may still see Bush (or another interim) buying at the deadline, dealing some important minor leaguers, in a desperate attempt to earn himself the full-time job. Ricketts could demand that Bush sell in that situation, but an owner doesn't really want to cripple his GM (even just an interim) in that way most of the time. If Ricketts were to fire Hendry now and quickly name a replacement, the pool of candidates would be very low. Most people aren't going to want to go through an interview process in the middle of the season while games are going on, meaning most of the candidates we'll have are internal guys (Bush, Littlefield) and unemployed former GMs (Ned Coletti). The absolute worst thing we could do is fire Hendry in-season and name a permanent replacement in-season. If the Ricketts decide to make a change (which is fine with me), then the best option would be to keep Hendry all season, narrow the list of candidates down during the season to 1-3 guys and then go through the interview process immediately after the season ends. That way most of your information is gathered in-season, you knock out the interview process quickly and then name a GM shortly after that. It reduces the front office chaos and gives the new GM and staff more time to prepare for free agency/trade strategies. With that strategy, however, you have to have a pretty good idea of the type of GM you want, who exactly is out there that fits that mold and who would be most interested in taking a new job. Whether the Ricketts are that familiar with things at this point I don't know and that's why I'm not gung-ho behind the idea of making a change.

There's a big difference between not favoring a move at all because the next guy might be worse (a position no one I've seen has taken) and arguing that there should be a clear plan and specific targets in mind before making a move (a position I, CCP, Tim, TT, Rob and others have made). And I doubt anyone on this board is comfortable with occassional 88 win seasons. I don't know where you're seeing that either.

Who's argued that in this thread? Several people. Can you name one or two of them and give posts that state that position? Because I haven't seen them. tim and cubcoltpacer appear to doing so in painfully obvious fashion I've read every post each has made in this thread and I haven't seen that articulated at all. I've seen them both argue that you should have a clear plan and a clear successor in mind before you make a move. That's completely different than "status quo ad infinitum." Can you steer me in the direction of these posts?

If the Cards re-up Pujols, we have no shot at him, obviously. But the chances of that happening at this point are pretty slim. It certainly could, and that's not good for us, but if Pujols hits the FA market, we have as good a shot as anybody to get him. And the chances of him hitting free agency are pretty good now.

Who's argued that in this thread? Several people. Can you name one or two of them and give posts that state that position? Because I haven't seen them.

Brian Roberts was not bad then, though - and DeRosa was able to play multiple positions. How would it have disrespectful to DeRosa to acquire Roberts? Rich Hill wasn't bad then either. If you're going to look at that portion in hindsight, you should look at the entirety of the deal in hindsight. At the time of the trade, Hill appeared to be a very good young pitcher who was going to provide very good production cheaply.

Who's argued that in this thread?

I don't know of any other team out there that has the money we have to spend, the need at first base we do and the big market we have to support a mega contract. The Dodgers and Mets don't have the finances to make a move if they want to and the Yankees and Red Sox have no hole for Pujols. The Red Sox just gave a monster deal to Adrian Gonzalez. DH might be an option, but would Pujols prefer to play first or DH? The Cubs are in a better financial situation than the Red Sox and will likely be able to offer more money, along with the opportunity to play first. The Yankees have Teixeira at first, leaving DH as the only option to place Pujols. If he prefers playing first, the Cubs are again the better option. The Angels could make a run at him. They'll probably be the biggest competition, along with the Blue Jays - if the Jays are willing to spend $25+ mil on one player. The Cubs will have at least $60 million to spend in the offseason, meaning they can give Pujols a 10/300 deal and still have $30 million left to plug holes such as third base. With as many young players we have on the verge of being ML-ready, that should be plenty to work with.

The Cubs would have still needed a right fielder even if they had kept DeRosa. Trading DeRo saved a bit of money to go after one of the big FA RFs (Bradley, Dunn, Ibanez), but there was a hole in right either way. I wasn't a fan of the DeRo trade at the time because of the motivation of it (to get more lefthanded), but it clearly worked out. The problem was not trading DeRosa, it was signing Bradley and Aaron Miles.

The Cubs will have plenty of money freed up to spend, a hole at first base and a good, young core of players on the verge of making the majors (along with a good, young core of players already in the majors). Plus you have the curse, Wrigley and all the other history and tradition that makes the Cubs a free agency favorite. The Cubs will have as good a shot as anybody - if not better - to lock up Pujols if he hits free agency.

We won't know for sure until more money is freed up, but it does line up well with the philosophy Ricketts espoused when he bought the club.

Change for the sake of change is a bad idea, generally. If the Ricketts have a particular candidate or two in mind who they feel are clear improvements over Hendry and feel those candidates are attainable, then letting him go is the right decision. However, if the idea is to fire him and then go on a blind GM search that may take half the offseason, the chances of finding a better GM than Hendry are pretty low given the very small number of good GMs out there. From my perspective, I don't know what the Ricketts consider a "good candidate" for the job. If they consider Ned Colletti and Dave Littlefield to be "good candidates" then I'd rather we keep Hendry. Before I wholeheartedly agree with making a change at GM, I want to know more about the type of GM the Ricketts will target.

Maybe. He has a $14 million player option for 2012. If he ends up having another good season, he may refuse the option to look for a 3/30 or 3/39 type deal.

That's a good point. I'd wonder if a GM search would hurt our ability to go get Pujols and you're really limiting your options if you commit to making a hire during the season. If the choice is having Hendry for 1-2 more years and Pujols for 10 or having a new GM for 5 years and no Pujols, I'd take the former.

That's the subjectivity of involved when making statements that Hendry is a "bottom 10" GM or that he's an average GM. There's no way to truly quantify that, as there are so many factors involved in it. I wasn't arguing there that Hendry was better because his teams won more, I simply thought people would be interested in the comparison. My thoughts on a GM change are that, as a fan, I don't yet know enough about the Ricketts' philosophy to tell whether they'd make a better hire at the GM spot than Hendry is. Because of that, I'm ok with keeping Hendry if the alternative is Ned Colletti, Ed Wade or someone similar. However, I'm not opposed to making a change if a good hire is made in return. There simply aren't that many truly good GMs out there and the likelihood of non-baseball people like the Ricketts finding one are pretty slim. That's why I like UK's idea of bringing in a consultant type person, or even putting a baseball guy in Kenney's position, to lead the search for a new GM. I'd feel much more confident about a good hire being made if someone like Stan Kasten or Sandy Alderson were leading the search rather than the Ricketts and Crane Kenney.

We could do what the Yankees do as well if our payroll was $100+ million more like theirs is. They've had their share of bad contracts, but they're much easier to hide on a $250+ million budget. On Fukudome's deal, yes we could have made some other moves if we didn't have that $13 mil on the books, but that also takes away a productive player from the lineup - one we'd need to replace somehow. As CCP noted earlier, we've not had much farm help the past few years (because of poor farm management in the mid-2000s) so we've had to pay for nearly every player on the roster. Sometimes you have to overpay to get a productive player, and that's what the Cubs did with Fukudome. However, you need farm help to offset that overpayment and the Cubs haven't had that. Now, however, there's a lot of guys in the minors who likely have good MLB careers in their future and should be up relatively soon (BJax, JJax, Vitters, McNutt, Castillo, etc). If Hendry and co make a concerted effort to fit them onto the roster then overpaying players like Kosuke a little won't be a big deal. Hendry has done well to avoid the crippling albatrosses, though, and that's the point I was addressing.

Yeah, contractually that's Hendry's biggest problem. With the exception of the Soriano deal, he's been pretty good about who he's signed to big money deals. The problem is, in the past, he's overpaid significantly for bullpen arms and bench players. That's been corrected the past couple of years and we'll see if that correction is by decision or by necessity as more money frees up.

I saw "vesting player option" on Cot's and thought that meant it could be picked up either automatically by vesting or he could pick it up himself if it doesn't vest. If he can't pick it up on his own, then the likelihood that his contract becomes an albatross is basically none.

Yeah, Soriano and Z are the only possibilities I could come up with. Soriano no doubt will be an albatross before his contract is up, but Z has still been fairly productive and there's only two seasons left on his deal after this year. The likelihood that he completely falls off a cliff in those two years is low and unless he spends the next two years mostly on the DL, I can't imagine it becoming an albatross.

The Bradley contract was bad, but at no point was it ever an albatross. We got about 3 WAR out of the contract over the three years it's been on the books. Not worth it, sure, but nowhere near an albatross.

Besides the Soriano contract (which we all accept was awful), what are these contracts? I love the guy as a player, but Fukudome is overpaid by a lot. Not really. He's overpaid, but has been fairly productive overall. However, there's no possibility that an overpaid but productive player whose contract ends after this season could be considered an albatross going forward.

He's still there, starting his 13th year (1999 was his first season). With O'Dowd in charge, the Rockies have averaged 77 wins per year. In comparison, Hendry's Cubs have won 82 games per year on average.

Besides the Soriano contract (which we all accept was awful), what are these contracts?