frostwyrm

I agree it's got a good chance to be an albatross towards the end, and Hendry should have broke the bank for Beltran and not Soriano, but it is impossible to know if he had the green light to do so back then. Plus, with the way Soriano is built and the shape he keeps himself in, he might not be so terrible at 37 and 38. Unfortunately, you can't pick and choose who is going to be the best free agent in a given off season. I believe Hendry when he says that if the Cubs didn't pay Soriano that much money, someone else would have. We see it happen every year. Why should this season be any different? So given that, the choice isn't between Soriano at 8/136 or Soriano at 6/90. The choice is Soriano at 8/136 or not Soriano and who knows who else. Maybe Drew, maybe not. There was no clear overture from his camp that he was willing to play for the Cubs. If not Drew in CF or RF, then who? The drop-off was pretty steep after J.D. So it seems to me that you aren't looking at these contracts from a realistic point of view. Of course Soriano is overpaid and in comparison to other FA contracts signed last year or the year before, it looks ridiculous. But in reality, every market is different and impossible to anticipate. And who knows what a bargain will be next year or 2-3 years down the road. Plus, if you had to choose between Soriano or who knows what else, which in reality may have been the choice Hendry faced, which would you choose? Easy choice for me: use 2007 to rebuild, look to make a run in 2008. Not for one second would I have considered going 8/136 for Alfonso Soriano. This entire spending spree would been postponed for a year. Z would already have been traded for ARod. No way do I give any pitcher a Zito type deal, which is what Z will be getting soon. Neither of Lilly/Marquis would be here, especially not Marquis. IMO Marquis is purely a panic move to save Hendry's job. Aram gave us a hometown discount, so I guess I would have kept him. Pie and EPat would have all of 2007 to show us what they've got, and all the young starting pitchers would be given a chance to step up and claim a rotation slot for 2008. Obviously Pierre should have been traded for a prospect who could have helped the big team in 2008. Edit: changed dates.

Z - outstanding ARam - pretty darned good Lee - pretty good Soriano - pretty good DeRosa - meh (pretty minor dollars in the grand scheme) Lilly - meh to blech (but tradeable if he stays healthy) Marquis - double blech The top 4 guys are a pretty solid core, though. Yeah, Soriano's going to be overpaid. The others are worth their money, though. Well, you do think more highly of this bunch than I do. I don't suppose you think they're worth the whole $90M? That's enough money to pay a whole team. My guess is that Lilly & Marquis have been traded away by 2009. That brings the price down to $70 for Zambrano, Ramirez, Lee, Soriano & DeRosa. That doesn't sound nearly as bad to me. Marquis is due $9.88M in 2009. It will be very tough to find a taker for that. Lilly? Could be tradeable, but probably not without eating some salary. I coud be wrong about that. I don't have much confidence in Aram's work ethic or his ability to age gracefully. I foresee sagging fitness, resulting in a parade of nagging lower-body injuries cutting into his playing time. Lee will regress from his 2005 numbers and his wrist injury might have longterm effects. Z is great but I wouldn't pay any pitcher what he will get. Soriano's is the contract that will turn out to be the real stinkbomb of the bunch. I HATE that contract.

Z - outstanding ARam - pretty darned good Lee - pretty good Soriano - pretty good DeRosa - meh (pretty minor dollars in the grand scheme) Lilly - meh to blech (but tradeable if he stays healthy) Marquis - double blech The top 4 guys are a pretty solid core, though. Yeah, Soriano's going to be overpaid. The others are worth their money, though. Well, you do think more highly of this bunch than I do. I don't suppose you think they're worth the whole $90M? That's enough money to pay a whole team.

Nomar was a known injury risk and the Cubs should've stopped counting on Kerry Wood a whole lot sooner than they did. I admit Prior's situation was unfortunate and unforeseeable, but bear in mind Prior never ate up much payroll. Hendry had enough cash to overcome Prior's loss simply by making the team better in other areas, particularly on offense. If you look forward a couple years Hendry really runs out of excuses. After Z's new deal we'll have about $90M committed in 2009 to 7 players who collectively are a very shaky group. That is utterly indefensible.

http://2000magazine.com/websightsthree/yankeesmagazine/NEWPAGES2/thumbs/th_ron%20coomer.jpg

Izzy, as in "Izzy going to the DL again?"

Marquis will be the whipping boy for the next 2 years, but after that Soriano will be the whipping for the next 6 years. He very likely will become the Cubs' Alltime Franchise Whipping Boy and maintain that distinction for the next 50 years.

There are two big problems with your graph. One is that you are calling 2002 a "Hendry year" and its totally not. He was signed as GM in July of that year and had little time to alter the make up of the team for the 2nd half of the season. It is really unfair to hold Hendry responsible for any of the team's results in '02. That roster was fully set before he took control. The first chance he really had to put his stamp on the team was the '02-'03 off season, and we all know what happened the following year. But I don't hold him solely responsible for getting the Cubs in the playoffs that year. A lot of things went right that he couldn't possibly have been directly responsible for. Which brings us to the second problem with your graph. It uses the win/loss record as the sole judge of a GM. So many other factors go into whether a team wins or not than just the make up of the 40-man roster. A GM could put together the greatest roster ever and if enough season-ending injuries happen to enough great players, that team will also finish with 66 wins. Extenuating circumstances must be factored in. Last season was a disaster, not so much because of the decisions Hendry made, (the Pierre trade wasn't good) but because of the onslaught of major injuries to the team's best players and some really poor performances by others who had previously performed much better. It's wrong to blame him for everything that happened in '06. Just like it would be wrong to fully credit him for getting the Cubs into the playoffs in '03. The Cubs got on a roll, got some good luck, had guys stay healthy all year. Hendry helped bring about the result in '03, but I think he actually did more in '04 with the additions of Lee and Garciaparra along with a full season from Ramirez. Those moves allowed the Cubs to stay in contention even with Sosa declining sharply in the middle of their line-up. To be fair and accurate, Hendry's win/loss record looks more like this: 4 years prior to Hendry: 67 wins in '99 65 wins in '00 88 wins in '01 67 wins in '02 4 years with Hendry: 88 wins in '03 89 wins in '04 79 wins in '05 66 wins in '06 And to better understand those win totals, one must also include the extenuating factors each year, both the good (like career years) and the bad (like major injuries to major players). Extenuating factors? Hendry has had a boatload more cash to work with than his predecessors, which has given him a far greater safety margin for bad luck, so IMO he doesn't deserve any sympathy. Fact is, if the Cubs had stood pat on their $95M payroll, or even increased it to "only" $100M, the Cubs wouldn't have a prayer of contending in 2007. It's a pretty pathetic GM who can't field a contender with a $100M heavily backloaded payroll.

=D> =D> =D> I guess since Muskat has not asked you to remove derogatory posts about her we can continue calling her Muskat. Maybe we can mix it up a little, like God Muskat damn. . btw - I have reason to believe that Carrie's been here in the past. OTOH, I'm pretty sure it's not worth God's time to see what people are saying about Him here. And I'd hope that He's got a pretty thick skin about such things. I've never understood why He would be put out by mere mortals using his name in vain, anyway. It seems so petty. If you were all powerful, would you care?!? Uh oh. Don't make me behead you.

If there any Piniella experts here I'd like to hear their predictions on how the Murt/Floyd situation plays out. Lou is largely an unknown factor to me but I'm guessing Floyd isn't getting $3M to start once or twice a week.

HIs 2004 was an abberrational year. He's not good at baseball. No team with any sort of minor league system should ever sign a player like Erstad to sit on the bench. He's a waste of money and a roster spot for any team. That said, thanks are in order to Kenny Williams for taking a player I was afraid Hendry would target. i would have to say that anyone that makes it to the majors is "good at baseball". he has a career .756 ops and played very good defense before he was injured. williams signings & trades have done pretty well in the recent past (including podsenik whom you most likely put in the same catagory as erstad) and perhaps he knows a little more about baseball than we do. You're not going to win any arguments around here if you try to portray career numbers as being indicative of the future performance of a player who is obviously way past his prime. Also, you'll have trouble convincing anyone that a GM of a winning team is incapable of making a plainly dumb move. Case in point: the Tigers made the World Series and were still dumb enough to acquire Neifi Perez and his $2.5 million salary.

I think that trade with the Reds pushed Bowden a little ahead of Hendry. Hendry hasn't made a really good move in a long time and he's made plenty of bad ones. He's made some upgrades to his team for 2007 but he's paid top dollar for them. Any idiot can do that.

I had already read the contents of that link and it struck me as nothing more than damage control. Leyland obviously realized or had been told that he had been too brutally honest in the radio interview.

Erstad sucks. It amazes me that eight MLB teams were reportedly interested in him. Any non-terrible farm system ought to be able to replace his contributions.

That's my question. I agree that Pagan is not good, but I'd still rather see him play over washed up geezers like Erstad and Finley. It's not impossible that Pagan develops into a serviceable 4th OF. The other two have no future and they don't help us much in the short term either.

Neifi was reduced to being Ramon Santiago's backup. That's only slightly less embarrassing than getting released.

At least partially because he signed a two-year deal with ESPN. I'm sure ESPN would release him from the contract if he had an offer to manage and he wanted to accept it.

Moving Pie to a corner OF slot would certainly hurt his trade value. Now if the Cubs are sure they want to hang onto him longterm then it wouldn't matter so much.

I not sure a Jones platoon is practical anymore. You can't just ignore the fact that he's unhappy as a Cub and wants a trade. If he's already unhappy as an everyday player he might be completely disgruntled and miserable if platooned. You don't want people like that on a team.

Healthwise Z's weight concerns me. Even at a young age he has trouble staying lean and he's admitted his back hurts when he's fat. As he ages it will become increasingly difficult to keep the fat off. He's going to have to develop increased discipline sometime in the next few years to control his weight.

Indeed I am. "Teenager with a credit card" to me means spending without realizing future consequences. The future consequence is that in 2009 if we give Z Zito money and remain at 110M budget, we will have $20M for 18 spots on the 25 man roster. However, you have to count Murton and Pie at about 4M, and Hill and one of our prospects should round out the rotation for about another $2M. So you can realistically call it $14M for a catcher, shortstop, bench and bullpen. Not a great position to be in, but the sky is not falling. It's a terrible position be in, even if you assume that everybody currently signed retains their health and recent productivity, which I don't. Pie looks pretty sketchy to me at this point, and will Jason Marquis even be in baseball in 2009? That'd be fine...insurance $. No, my suspicion is that Marquis will be out of baseball due to suckitude, which means he still gets paid.

Indeed I am. "Teenager with a credit card" to me means spending without realizing future consequences. The future consequence is that in 2009 if we give Z Zito money and remain at 110M budget, we will have $20M for 18 spots on the 25 man roster. However, you have to count Murton and Pie at about 4M, and Hill and one of our prospects should round out the rotation for about another $2M. So you can realistically call it $14M for a catcher, shortstop, bench and bullpen. Not a great position to be in, but the sky is not falling. It's a terrible position be in, even if you assume that everybody currently signed retains their health and recent productivity, which I don't. Pie looks pretty sketchy to me at this point, and will Jason Marquis even be in baseball in 2009?

If Hendry likes his job he won't let Z walk, and I'm sure Z and his agent know it. Z could have been traded, but that would only have made sense before Hendry irrevocably committed the Cubs the winning now. I actually think Z could ask for significantly more than Zito and get it. Hendry has backed himself into a corner. He really should have negotiated sooner.

Indeed I am.

It's funny, but Zito's deal is heavily backoaded, with the first big payment due in 2009. It looks just like a Hendry contract. It also looks like 90% of long-term contracts. Heavily backloaded deals are not exclusively a Hendry thing. Yeah, I'm aware of that, but Hendry has developed a trademark mania for dumping every big paycheck on 2009. It's like he thinks the world will end on December 31st, 2008. Lilly's the only contract that has a huge jump when we get to '09, going from 7M to 12M. Soriano goes from 13 to 16 mil, Ramirez 14 to 15.65, and Marquis from 6.375M to 9.875M. It's far from a disaster considering that we have 13.3 million coming off that year just in relievers(Dempster, Howry, Eyre), plus Jones's 5 million and possibly more than 10 million more from deadweight like Blanco, Izturis, and (maybe) Prior. http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/4707/picture2lb6.png $72M already committed for 2009, Z's deal will push it to $90M. That ought to buy a whole team -- a good one too.