17 Seconds

When deciding if something is a horrible move you have to factor in the teams money situation. If you don't realize that then you are clueless. Yes it's Hendry fault that the Cubs are in the postion they are in. He gets blame for the shape of the payroll and he's done a bad job with the last few years. But allowing Harden to accept arb, and using all of his free money so they couldn't add anybody else would be a bad move, not doing it is a good move. Get it? So say this sucks we couldn't do it because what Hendry did to our payroll. Not that the move itself in our situation is a bad move. I know people get hard ones here for bashing Hendry, but there's no doubt that this board goes WAY overboard with it. sorry, but i find it hard to cut hendry slack on being on a tight budget when he gives stiffs like john grabow 2 years and 7.5 [expletive] million. there's the ultimate copout excuse. hendry has a massive payroll, has gotten the benefit of playing in what is often a crap division, and i'm supposed to be congratulating him on building a team that got to the playoffs 3 out of 7 times? not to mention, the 2007 team only made the playoffs because of the crap division. 85 wins in a division where the rest of the teams were a combined 62 games under .500? WAY TO GO JIM with the resources hendry is given and the division we play in, the expectations should be a lot higher than "we made the playoffs 3 times in 7 years".

i kind of wish he did

2011- get "ball players" for ryno

He would have taken it and made more through that than what he's making at 7.5.......All this says to me is we are truly hamstrung financially this offseason and we prioritized an OFer more than we did a SP......Personally, I'd have kept Harden and made a concession in RF with a Hermida type guy, if we absolutely HAD to get rid of Bradley...... hendry also prioritized league average relief pithcing seriously, the cubs will pay 4.75 million next year to grabow and miles, and we can't afford 7.5 to harden

but that would be a good thing it sucks knowing that hendry's main goal right now is making the team worse, and then making small moves to try and make up for the bad move he had to make. man, i can't believe that "75 games played to make the 3rd year vest" thing didn't protect us.

if you ever want to see how the majority of cubs fans think, just head over to cubs.com it's a sad reality.

you can go ahead and keep telling yourself that, but don't expect the rest of us to hop on the "defend hendry at all costs" bandwagon. not offering harden arbitration was a horrible baseball move, and even if you want to blame it on the money situation, it's still hendry's fault. he's the one that has put this team in this position with his bad contracts. but hey, he swung that aramis trade back in 03 and got derosa and stuff

i hate the internet

man, if we suck next year then i hope we tank hard. i want [expletive] to get ugly but then all they'll do is hire another crap GM and promote sandberg. 2007-2008 was the window

im sick of tis "mystery team" garbage. i think it's just lazy and overaggressive reporting

i [expletive] hate this team so [expletive] much [expletive] [expletive] [expletive]

why are they upset with him?

stupid question, but does UZR factor in an outfielders arm?

I'm not convinced that after a string of decidedly average-mediocre seasons Hawkins has regained his dominance at age 36. I'm not high on Grabow at all, but I don't think the Hawkins signing is any better than his. it isn't, really.

Cubs projected win total in 2010 just went up by 2. And in 2011. 2yr/7.5 million. what's better than overpaying for one pitcher? overpaying for 2 pitchers!

Cubs projected win total in 2010 just went up by 2. hawkins has been pretty badass over the past 85 or so innings.

it's pretty funny that you assume you were right about these guys already i always knew that ian kennedy guy was a buster. i mean, what 23 year old gets lit up in the al east? only a buster

Just that gut feeling. I had the same feeling when everyone was hyping samardijza, i felt he wasn't that good of a prospect and a reliever at best which i still feel. I felt that way about Hughes, Kennedy, Bucholz, etc. I think if you watch baseball, normally you can see someone and just know they'll be something good. Its just my own opinion, not saying its right. Before you applaud yourself too hard, there was never a time when everyone was hyping Samardzija. And your ability to judge a player based on how he carries himself is dubious at best. and samardzija's minor league numbers weren't good anyways

signing pineiro would be classic

who needs numbers when you can just look at how a guy carries himself?

what the [expletive] does this even mean? and it was alone as a paragraph Jeter's ambassadorship is worth about 15 wins. Didn't you know that? And him saying "Good job tonight, guys" adds another 10-12. i understood the sucking off of jeter, i just don't understand why granderson would come in and be the "leader and ambassador" of the team.

guh... what? we've known that all along. they don't really know what they're going to have to work with and what they might need until they work this mess out

this trade isn't going down by the end of the winter meetings

ok, now how many can you name who were making as much as sosa? a players trade value isn't determined on performance alone. in sosa's case, the main factor was his ridiculous salary. Salary is meaningless when the trading team is the one paying it. the orioles still paid plenty