We’ve just finished the bad and it wasn’t pretty, but this is just downright ugly. Here is the final chapter in the trilogy I have written about Jim Hendry’s term as General Manager of the Chicago Cubs.
What’s the right place to start in evaluating the job Hendry has done since taking over the reigns of the organization in 2002? How about right field?
February 5, 2005Jim Hendry signed Jeromy Burnitz for $4.5 million to play right field. He lasted one year.
Jacque Jones followed in 2006 and lasted for two seasons; though he was the target of the right field bleacher boo birds after some less than inspired play both at bat and in the field, especially throwing the ball.
Native Chicagoan Cliff Floyd returned for a year in 2007 and shared the duties in right with Matt Murton. It wasn’t a great homecoming and he was shown the door after the season ended.
In 2008, Hendry outmaneuvered everybody to sign Japanese right fielder Kosuke Fukudome for $48 million dollars for four years.
In April and May it looked like a brilliant move by Hendry as Fukudome exceeded all expectations. Unfortunately the season extends until October and Fukudome was a disaster as the season wore on and in the playoffs.
Because of the lack of confidence the organization had in Fukudome, who was still owed close to $40 million in his back-loaded contract, Jim Hendry pursued volatile right fielder Milton Bradley to take over the position.
Raul Ibanez who is tearing up the NL was available as was perennial 40 home run, 100 RBI guy Adam Dunn. Bobby Abreu, another player who knocks in over 100 ribbies every year was another option and signed for only $5 million this year.
I know Dunn is really a DH, but that’s what the injury prone Bradley has been doing the majority of the time for the past few years.
Hendry zeroed in on Bradley and never even contacted the other candidates. He gave him a three year contract for $30 million dollars. That’s $78 million worth of right fielders in just the last two years alone.
Meanwhile on the other side of town, White Sox GM Kenny Williams signed right fielder Jermaine Dye before the 2005 season for three years at a little over $16 million for the term of the contract.
Dye was the MVP of the World Series for the Sox in 2005 and has averaged over thirty-four homers and 95 RBI’s per season since that signing. He’s still playing right for the Sox and is a valuable piece if they decide to try to trade him before the deadline this year.
The one thing every player Hendry signed has in common aside from the fact that they’re bad is that they all bat left-handed. Batting lefty is more important than being a quality player.
This is a perfect example just in Chicagoalone why Hendry is so inept at his job. In addition to the Dye signing, Williams has also made some slick additions at the expense of giving up little or nothing in return.
He received superb lefty bullpen pitcher Matt Thornton for first round bust Joe Borchard, while Hendry received nothing of quality in return for Corey Patterson, who despite his failures was a much better ballplayer than Borchard.
Williams made lemonade out of a bad pick while Hendry just got stuck with lemons.
Williams picked up John Danks for over hyped Sox prospect Brandon McCarthy and stole Gavin Floyd, who won seventeen games last year for washed up pitcher Freddie Garcia. He also committed highway robbery in acquiring 2008 MVP candidate Carlos Quentin for a low level minor leaguer.
He also signed unheralded Cuban free agent Alexei Ramirez before the 2008 season. He has been a terrific addition to the team.
Those four players are the reason the Sox made the playoffs in 2008 and actually won one more game than the Cubs did in the playoffs.
Hendry always does the obvious, while a creative and intelligent GM like Williams comes up with the hidden gem.
Before the 2007 season, trying to make a splash after bringing in Piniella to manage the club, he signed Alfonso Soriano for $136 million dollars. Unfortunately Hendry bidded against himself in giving him so much money.
The problem with that signing is that Soriano is really a designated hitter, and they don’t have that position in the National League. He’s got a strong arm, but is a disaster in the field.
He’s also not a very good hitter. Sure, he gets hot at times for a week or two, but he hurts your team more than helps it with swinging at terrible pitches, having a low on-base percentage, and insisting on batting in the leadoff spot.
He is the direct reason they have played so poorly in the last two playoffs because he kills you at the top of the order, and as long as he’s here, and he will be with that ridiculous back-loaded contract, the Cubs are not going anywhere.
With the ownership issue still in limbo, Hendry tied his hands and didn’t allow for any flexibility to make other moves to help the team. In fact, that signing caused the team to make cost-cutting deals that have hurt this team terribly.
Hendry let Mark DeRosa go this off-season for three prospects that weren’t very highly rated by Baseball America. At the time, it was thought he made that move to get prospects to move to the Padres for the proposed Jake Peavy trade.
That trade never happened. Meanwhile as expected, third baseman Aramis Ramirez went down with an injury and left the Cubs scrambling for someone to cover his position.
DeRosa was a great signing by Hendry. He played practically every position except for catcher.
Nobody expected Ramirez to go down for over two months, but you knew he was going to be out at least for two weeks some time during the season. DeRosa was a great insurance policy at third, along with several other positions.
Hendry left the team with no viable alternative to play third, and that is one of the many reasons the Cubs have been so mediocre so far this year.
Hendry made two terrible moves in the 2007 off-season if you’re not including the Soriano signing.
Before the 2007 season, he drafted Josh Hamilton in the Rule 5 draft and immediately sent him to the Cincinnati Reds in a prearranged deal for cash. Hamilton was the former first pick in the draft and a five tool player who happened to play center field and also bats left-handed.
Had the Cubs kept him, they might never have had to sign Fukudome or Bradley because they would have had that lefty power hitting outfielder that they were looking for. That would have freed up a ton of money to make other moves.
Hamilton was a low cost risk despite his previous baggage. If you don’t keep him on your team for the entire season after picking him, you have to offer him back to his previous team for half of what you paid to sign him.
Hamilton had a good season with the Reds in 2007, who then parlayed him into pitcher Edinson Volquez, who won seventeen games for them in 2008.
Hamilton had a breakout year in 2008 and was an MVP candidate. In addition to power that had him compared to Mickey Mantle, he also played a great center field and had a rocket for an arm.
The Rangers ended up with Hamilton, the Reds ended up with Volquez, and the Cubs ended up with cash. Can you see why I’m as critical of Hendry as a GM with absolutely no foresight?
He also let Juan Pierre leave the team as a free agent after trading three young pitchers for him before the 2006 season. While this technically happened in 2006, the end result occurred with Pierre leaving the team before the 2007 season.
Hendry gave up Ricky Nolasco, Reynal Pinto and Sergio Mitre. Pinto has done a nice job for the Marlins in the bullpen, while Nolasco won 15 games for them last year.
Pierrewas the leadoff hitter that the team was searching for seemingly forever. He had an expiring contract, and while you could argue he wasn’t worth the money the Dodgers spent to sign him, he also wasn’t worth the pitching Hendry gave up to get him if you were only planning on keeping him around for just one year.
At the trade deadline in 2006, Hendry traded Greg Maddux to the Dodgers for shortstop Cesar Izturis. Izturis was relegated to the bench for the Dodgers after they signed Rafael Furcal as a free agent in the off season.
This was the same Furcal that Jim Hendry had targeted as his number one priority that year. Ned Colletti was hired as GM just two weeks earlier and swooped in out of nowhere and stole him from the Cubs, who had been negotiating with him for some time.
Hendry couldn’t close the deal.
Then with the Dodgers in the playoff race and desperate for pitching, Hendry had future Hall of Famer Maddux as a valued commodity to trade. The Dodgers farm system was loaded with young talent like Jeff Kemp, Andre Ethier, and James Loney.
When you’re in a position of power, you can demand one of those players in return if the Dodgers really are serious about making the playoffs. Didn’t players like Jeff Bagwell and John Smoltz come to their teams in similar trades’ years ago for middling veterans? The players that went in those trades had nowhere near the resume that Maddux had.
Yet Hendry settled for the player they no longer needed in Izturis after Colletti already one upped him by getting Furcal. Izturis was gone the next season for nothing in return.
Furcal even came back to haunt the Cubs by injuring Derrek Lee in a play at first early in the 2006 season. If Hendry could have gotten his man, Lee would never have been injured. He also might have supplied better power numbers the last couple of years. He seemed to have lost his power stroke since that injury.
Another Hendry acquisition LaTroy Hawkins sabotaged the team in the 2004 playoff race when he imploded after taking over the closing role because of injuries. He blew several saves as the season was winding down and the Cubs tanked it in the last week of the season.
Hendry again did not do his due diligence and see what type of personality Hawkins had and how he would adapt to the role. He blew up shortly after being named the closer when talking to the media and telling them that this was the last time he was speaking to them.
And last but not least is the Cubs farm system and its lack of quality prospects. There is little hope for the future and that’s been a trademark of the Hendry regime, as well as generally the history of the team other than for a short period under Dallas Green.
The Cubs are generally short-handed compared to other teams in terms of numbers when it comes to scouting. That’s been an area that they have tried to conserve money in and it has showed.
Development has also been an issue, as many highly touted prospects failed to develop into major league talent.
The only player of note in the system is third baseman Josh Vitters who is currently playing in lower level A ball.
He was the prize piece that Jim Hendry put in the proposed trade for Jake Peavy that never materialized.
I mentioned before that where the Cubs were lacking was with hitting, yet Hendry continued to pursue Peavy for most of the winter. To include Vitters in the trade was indefensible on Hendry’s part and highlights why he doesn’t belong in this job.
To make matters even worse, Sox GM Kenny Williams actually pulled off a trade for Peavy before he nixed it that didn’t include as highly rated a prospect as Vitters. He also seemed to pull the trade out of mid-air. Nobody had ever even talked about it before.
Again, Williams gets the job done while the hapless Hendry whiffs again. I know the trade didn’t go through, but he at least came to an agreement on players; something that Hendry couldn’t accomplish.
The Cubs are also loaded with untradeable back-loaded contracts like Soriano, Fukudome, etc. In addition, most of those long term contracts include no trade clauses, so he couldn’t get rid of them even if the contracts weren’t so poorly structured.
Hendry has the Cubs in a very precarious position. They have a very short window of opportunity to win with the current team, and with a bleak outlook for the future.
Hendry has tried to outspend his mistakes and has failed in that endeavor.
While the Cubs are again in contention in a weak division, this is not realistically a team that can win the World Series.
The future owner of the Cubs is going to have to have deep pockets to correct the mistakes the Hendry regime has made.
Cub fans will not allow the team to rebuild, and with no talent on the horizon to help out, spending more money is going to be the only way to get them out of this mess.
A mix of both homegrown talent, along with trades and free agent signings when necessary are the ideal way to build a consistent winner.
Overpaying for players with limited skills, not developing the farm system, and trying to correct your mistakes year after year is not the solution.
Jim Hendry is the problem for the Cubs; he’s not the solution. Hopefully the new owner will recognize that and put someone in place that understands what it takes to build an organization that has a chance to win year in and year out.
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