Shilzzz

i laughed. best part was imagining a shy, sweaty hendry appearing like a huntchback from a dark corner of a dimly lit room

Hey man great story. You should tell it at parties.

It is about winning the World Series, and if you don't believe that, then I'm not sure why you'd be a baseball fan.

1 New York Yankees $2.0M, 2 WS app, 1 Championship, 7 playoff app 2 Boston Red Sox $1.3M, 2 WS app, 2 Championship, 6 playoff app 3 New York Mets $1.5M, 0 WS app, last app 2000 (L), last WS Champ 1986, 1 playoff app 4 Los Angeles Angels $1.1M, 1 WS app, 1 Championship, 6 playoff app 5 Los Angeles Dodgers$1.2M, 0 WS app, last app 1988 (W), 4 playoff app 6 Chicago Cubs $1.2M, 0 WS app, last app 1945, (L), last WS Champ 1908, 3 playoff app 7 Seattle Mariners $1.2M, 0 WS app, last app N/A, entered MLB 1977, 0 playoff app 8 Atlanta Braves $1.1M, 0 WS app, last app 1999, 4 playoff app 9 Philadelphia Phillies $1.0M, 2 WS app, 1 Championship, 3 playoff app 10 St. Louis Cardinals $1.0M, 2 WS app, 1 Championship, 4 playoff app Keyword is efficiency. Thing is, this isn't about 'being in line with other big payroll teams,' it's about winning the world series. As far as that goes, over the last 7 years we are in the bottom half with 4 other teams who have not appeared. Rhetoric about the playoffs being a crap shoot and that the most important thing is to appear leaves the Cubs tied for 7th with Philadephia with 3, ahead of the dismal Mets, who have a truly awful front office that doesn't understand team building (though they still made a WS appearance this decade), and a Mariners team who is turning a corner after letting Blavaski go. So, really, the only teams of these ten that I'd consider the Cubs to be ahead of, during this stretch, would be the Mariners and Mets. To take this a step further, I would have to believe that the Cubs currently are only ahead of the Mets, and really aren't better than by much, if at all, as Seattle has really started to take a great approach towards market inefficiencies under their new GM, fielding arguably the greatest defending team of all time (certainly the best defense since Fangraphs began keeping UZR ratings at least), to which point there is a good read here. Like any statistic, dollars per win paints a very narrow view of the whole. 2008 and 2003 were very well constructed teams, and i'd even say that 2004 should have been a great squad. But even then Hendry made himself look foolish by bullheadedly keeping Baker as manager when it had become clear that Dusty was at least partly responsible for murdering our young arms, was a poor game manager, and let the clubhouse go wild. Furthermore, Hendry has never had any visible foresight, or long term goal. He leaps ideologically year to year, either apathetic towards or ignorant of future costs. No reasonable person here is going to say that Hendry is the worst general manager in all of baseball. But most reasonable people would agree that he wastes resources to whimsically, seemingly assuming that the bottom of the well is always deeper. God forbid he was on a small market team, because then you'd see his executive flaws magnified even more. If the key is to win the WS, then people like Epstein were idiots this year because they didn't win the WS. I'm not defending Hendry, but it is interesting that posters throw around statistics like it's the gospel until the statistics disprove their point and then we need to re-analyze the statistics to show that those statistics are inaccurate. Ok, well you said nothing of value. In no way did I imply that 'Epstein was an idiot this year' because they didn't win the WS. Pointing out that the Red Sox have won two WS under his watch should have suggested that. What I said is that Hendry is an inefficient GM. Also, I mentioned that any singular statistic creates a 'narrow view' of one particular aspect, so, again, you are not disagreeing with me. Statistics are the closest thing we have to any 'gospel', though, because it's the only hard evidence we can use to quantify performance. So when I took evidence further than dollar/win to analyze Hendry's performance since 2002, I figured it would give a greater picture of what his value as GM of the Cubs is. As I said, he is not the worst GM in baseball. However, I believe his reputation as a good GM benefits from heading a large market team that has been very well marketed over the last decade. He has had his moments, sure, but my opinion is that he lucked up on at least a couple of those moves, which he should be credited for, just not to the degree some grant him.

1 New York Yankees $2.0M, 2 WS app, 1 Championship, 7 playoff app 2 Boston Red Sox $1.3M, 2 WS app, 2 Championship, 6 playoff app 3 New York Mets $1.5M, 0 WS app, last app 2000 (L), last WS Champ 1986, 1 playoff app 4 Los Angeles Angels $1.1M, 1 WS app, 1 Championship, 6 playoff app 5 Los Angeles Dodgers$1.2M, 0 WS app, last app 1988 (W), 4 playoff app 6 Chicago Cubs $1.2M, 0 WS app, last app 1945, (L), last WS Champ 1908, 3 playoff app 7 Seattle Mariners $1.2M, 0 WS app, last app N/A, entered MLB 1977, 0 playoff app 8 Atlanta Braves $1.1M, 0 WS app, last app 1999, 4 playoff app 9 Philadelphia Phillies $1.0M, 2 WS app, 1 Championship, 3 playoff app 10 St. Louis Cardinals $1.0M, 2 WS app, 1 Championship, 4 playoff app Keyword is efficiency. Thing is, this isn't about 'being in line with other big payroll teams,' it's about winning the world series. As far as that goes, over the last 7 years we are in the bottom half with 4 other teams who have not appeared. Rhetoric about the playoffs being a crap shoot and that the most important thing is to appear leaves the Cubs tied for 7th with Philadephia with 3, ahead of the dismal Mets, who have a truly awful front office that doesn't understand team building (though they still made a WS appearance this decade), and a Mariners team who is turning a corner after letting Blavaski go. So, really, the only teams of these ten that I'd consider the Cubs to be ahead of, during this stretch, would be the Mariners and Mets. To take this a step further, I would have to believe that the Cubs currently are only ahead of the Mets, and really aren't better than by much, if at all, as Seattle has really started to take a great approach towards market inefficiencies under their new GM, fielding arguably the greatest defending team of all time (certainly the best defense since Fangraphs began keeping UZR ratings at least), to which point there is a good read here. Like any statistic, dollars per win paints a very narrow view of the whole. 2008 and 2003 were very well constructed teams, and i'd even say that 2004 should have been a great squad. But even then Hendry made himself look foolish by bullheadedly keeping Baker as manager when it had become clear that Dusty was at least partly responsible for murdering our young arms, was a poor game manager, and let the clubhouse go wild. Furthermore, Hendry has never had any visible foresight, or long term goal. He leaps ideologically year to year, either apathetic towards or ignorant of future costs. No reasonable person here is going to say that Hendry is the worst general manager in all of baseball. But most reasonable people would agree that he wastes resources to whimsically, seemingly assuming that the bottom of the well is always deeper. God forbid he was on a small market team, because then you'd see his executive flaws magnified even more.

Your excuse making is mindboggling. It's as if you really enjoy mediocre baseball teams. Since Hendry took the job, the Cubs have averaged 83.8 wins. Philly has averaged 88.4, Atlanta, who went through some payroll trimming turmoil has averaged 86.8. By the way, Florida has averaged 82.8. The Cubs have been 1 win per year better than the Marlins, but 4.6 wins per year worse than Philly. The White Sox are 85.4, same as the Dodgers. The White Sox have been relatively better than the Cubs at a greater rate than the Marlins have been relatively worse than the Cubs. The Tigers had the historically bad 2003 team and were nowhere near a top payroll team until a couple years ago. There's no argument for support of Hendry. He's done a poor job constructing mediocre baseabll teams with very high budgets. He's been given more than enough time, more than enough resources and more than enough excuses. He's used the injury excuse on multiple occasions even though he consistently builds teams without regard for players with extensive injury histories. He's used the ownership change excuse even though his payroll went up during that time while others teams dealt with ownership turmoil as well as cost cutting. He's had 2 high profile high paid managers, several high cost free agents, and a decided advantage over the most important competition, the divisional opponents, but has not done nearly enough to justify supporting his performance. If it wasn't for one friend signing him an to an extension the day before he walked out the door, and another guy handing him further extension to "maintain stability" while the team was being sold and he was free to do as he pleased, he would have been booted long ago. solid post, jersey.

It's not that it's a surprise, so much as it's just one of those disappointments that you know is going to be disappointing before it happens but you didn't realize how disappointing it'd actually be.

Hendry's extension

Well, now that we got Silva, I think we can feel more comfortable letting Zambrano go. I mean, Cano and Cabrera fill needs of this team, so, go for it. Starting rotation will be fine. Lilly Dempster Silva Wells Gorz I mean, that's as good as what anyone else is throwing out there. :good: This is why we can't have nice things.

Tejada at second?

hahaha. you're joking, right? they wouldn't even trade zito for soriano straight up.

BBTF via Trib

was trying to find a screen shot of the scene in fight club where they are standing around the table repeating "his name is robert paulson" but replace robert paulson with david duncan. oh well

Pineiro won't be back. Penny should be decent in St. Louis. Wasn't Lohse hurt?

I think your rant is pretty inaccurate. There's no doubt that this Bradley fiasco was a mistake from day 1, but the Cubs will be contending for the NL Central next year and for the forseeable future. Actually, injuries pretty much killed their chances of competing this year. With Soto, Soriano, ARam, Zambrano, and Dempster injured for long periods and Harden and Marmol having bad years, you can't expect too much. Within the next 2 years you've got Castro, Vitters, Cashner, Gaub, etc. coming to the ML level along with the biggest payroll in the NL Central. If you compare out starting lineup, rotation, and bullpen with the other NL Central teams, you will see that the Cubs are still the best team on paper. We're all frustrated, but we don't need all of the doom-and-gloom. I'm sorry, but we may be looking at different rotations. The lineup has much potential, and there is no doubt in my mind that soto will bounce back nicely, and soriano really can't do much worse. But no one, at this point, should expect a full season out of Ramirez. There is a black hole at second, and while Baker is a nice option, he won't sustain the BABIP he had in Chicago. The bullpen, as it stands, is nothing more than decent. If you want the central, that's fine, but my standard is the World Series, which, with the rotation as it stands has no chance, unless there is a deadline move unforeseen right now. St Louis upgraded their rotation, imo, and, yeah, the Brewers' starters are garbage by and large, but their offense is very, very good. Houston and Pittsburgh are nothing special, but I don't expect the team as it is currently configured, with perhaps Byrd or Pods added in, doing anything special. And my original post is really not that far off. Where has Hendry hit with his top draft picks so far, outside of a short stint of Prior? Vitters by all accounts is losing steam, and while I like Brett Jackson and guys like Cashner, they are too far off to know exactly what impact they will have on the big league team. He does all of the things I've said: he has man crushes on guys from LSU and ND, overvalues mediocre relievers and middle infielders, and has basically taken the salary and pinned the clubs' future against the wall. You better hope to hell that Castro is what guys are saying, and that Brett Jackson, Jay Jackson, and others come through; because if not, this club is ripe to be below average for some time.

Reed Johnson/Ryan Church would work, but i heard Church is kind of a jerk, so that might interfere with getting our big offseason acquisition of Silva off track. Sorry. It's just frustrating knowing that after the most disappointing season since 2004 (lol), the way this team is going to be built for a championship run is revolving around Posednik/Byrd and Carlos Silva. How do we not call for mutiny?

Just saying... this whole damn argument is [expletive]. What it boils down to, and i hate to swear, but, is that hendry has fucked up this entire team over the last two years, taking the cubs from the best team in the national league to what's going to be a 3rd or 4th place team in a matter of two years, out of pointless tinkering. the issue does not start at bradley, the issue starts with the fact that OBVIOUSLY hendry gets these little [expletive] ticks and he gets stuck on some inane idea and can't work his way out of that niche, and i'm (not really) sorry, but any business man with half a brain understands that painting yourself into a corner ideologically is going to end in disaster. you want to be ignorant, go be [expletive] ignorant on your own time, chump. for all the few good trades you pulled off, and that you got lucky that lilly has become a real good pitcher after a career up until then that had been decidedly mediocre and lucky that derosa sustained a career year is about the only times you have done something worth a [expletive] that was on your own accord, and not the result of some other team needing to drop salary. you are bad at your job, point blank. i don't give a [expletive] what anyone has to say at this point. who cares that he drafted mark prior and had a decent pitching staff for a couple years? prior was an easy pick there, and if the twins has taken prior i wouldn't be surprised if hendry doesn't pass on mauer. what good is having a decent farm system if a) your high draft picks NEVER hit, b) you trade away anything valuable (ceda, ie) for worthless pieces (gregg), and c) when you decide to overslot you pick guys who have injury and control problems that you believe you can magically fix, or you overvalue guys from colleges close to associates of yours and end up paying big bucks to guys who don't deserve it (shark). you have lucked your way into a sustained front office job, jimbo. lee, aramis, 2003, nomar... you aren't a genius, and the longer you have the job the longer your [expletive] ass shows just how much of a [expletive] you actually are. OBVIOUSLY. /rant :oops:

Cubs step down, pursue Byrd.

What about Hendry's production?

welp, let's see here... saved about 6m on this. so, if hendry were to give grabow a reasonable contract of, let's say, 2m, then all of a sudden 7.5m is freed up. guess who we could have signed with 7.5m? so sick of this crap

well at least the new general manager will have a high draft pick after the '10 season. sigh

Why would the Red Sox do this? They are supposed to have paid Lackey so that they can move Buchholz in a deal like this.

Franklin Gutierrez is sooooo good.

Carrasco is an interesting arm who never is going to reach his potential and lacks control, Marson is a slightly below league average starting catcher or a good backup with above average defense, Knapp and Donald are interesting, but that's not horrible to land Halladay, and they still have their top guys in their system.

If Lowell doesn't get traded it's because of injuries, so...