A lot of Cub pain can be assuaged given the outcome from these four games:

McClung vs. Dempster
Suppan vs. Zambrano
Looper vs. Harden
Burns vs. Lilly

Milwaukee looks to be packing knives to a gunfight...................

cubs have plenty of time to turn it around, but boy do they need to start hitting. Still, it's not like St. Louis and the Brew Crew are juggernauts that will win 95+.

Cubs fans have to be disappointed though that for $140 million so far all they've got is a good pitching bad hitting mediocre team.

Milwaukee looks to be packing knives to a gunfight...................

Fortunately for the Brewers, the Cub offense is of the melted butter (as in, "hot knife through...") variety.

It's July.

The Cubs can only lean on the weak division for so long - eventually, they need to get their asses over .500 and look like they're going to stay that way.

If they can't get it going in the next 10 days, then I see some mighty slim seasons on the way... Lots of unmoveable contracts belonging to players on the wrong side of 30 (Soriano, Bradley, Fukudome). Not much on the farm beyond Vitters -- and an aging lineup beyond Soto. Add to that, Hendry certainly wouldn't survive a rebuilding job - so I can't see him turning into a seller.

The Cubs are and should be all-in this season. They'll be fine. Soriano will start hitting, Bradley will start hitting, Ramirez will be back. Nobody's running away with this thing.

Fair or not, Chicago Cubs’ failures are Jim Hendry’s fault

That is an exceedingly dumb title. If it's not fair to blame Hendry, then the Cubs' failures *aren't* his fault. Either take out "Fair or not", or modify the title in some other way as to make it not read like a contradiction of itself.

The Cubs have a huge number of guys who aren't playing the way they've shown they can. Soriano, Soto & Fontenot are orders of magnitude worse than usual. You can't really even pin Bradley's poor showing on Hendry, because while that signing was dumb, it was only dumb in terms of the years and money; Hendry shouldn't be called to task for Bradley not hitting well while he's *in* the lineup. He surely shouldn't be called to task for Ramirez being hurt all year.

Not to mention that Fukudome, last year's bust, is resurrecting some of his value this year.

How is this year's team Hendry's fault, again?

The positives for Milwaukee is that Hart and Hardy are starting to hit, Fielder and Braun love to hit in Wrigley and it's to be hoped Casey McGehee is looking to prove Chicago wrong.

In 1988 the Cubs brought up Mark Grace from Iowa. In the 21 years since then, the number of position players that the Cubs have brought up who contributed to the team for 5 years can be counted on Jim Abbott's right hand. Hendry has been a part of Cubs player development as a GM and in other roles for a good portion of that 21 years. You may not be able to blame any of the specific failures of this team's offense on Hendry, but you can certainly blame him for an organizational failure that has lead to the need to overpay to fill out a line-up.

Furthermore, Hendry has not shown in all his years at GM that he can make a productive trade without a massive financial advantage. He has used his high payroll as a crutch for too long.

you can certainly blame him for an organizational failure that has lead to the need to overpay to fill out a line-up.

It's still early, but Hoffpaiur and Fox both look like they have legitimate major-league bats.

and it's to be hoped Casey McGehee is looking to prove Chicago wrong.

I guess Harvs, but I hope McGehee's desire to play MLB for a few years would be incentive enough for the guy!

Primakov:

As the GM of a team with a $140 million dollar payroll, having hand picked the roster and coaching staff -- I'd have to argue the ax falls on him alone. There is no "well look at these guys' seasons before they got here this team is good on paper" award.

Fair or not, results are all that matter. Hendry, despite consinstantly having a payroll in the top 10% of the league, has not delivered either a championship or a legit title contender year in and year out. If the Cubs were doing well this year I'd have to say overall he's done a decent job given the teams he's assembled in the past -- but this seems to be the final straw for Hendry. He's failed to deliver a championship, or even a league title, and now he's (so far) failed to deliver a playoff contender.

shooty:

You know how a player's mind works. They all think they can play if only the "big club" would give them a chance.

It's still early, but Hoffpaiur and Fox both look like they have legitimate major-league bats.

Hoffpauir is a 29-year-old rookie bench player. I like his bat, too, but his history does not predict a productive career as a big league starter.

Fox is interesting. He sure can hit, but he'll be 27 this month and doesn't really have a position. I think he could be a productive right-handed DH, but I doubt Hendry, without the resources to take on another big contract, has the savvy to get anything valuable from an AL team.

It's still early, but Hoffpaiur and Fox both look like they have legitimate major-league bats.

Yeah, but they're both old by prospect standards, and are probably as good now as they'll ever be. That's not a knock on them; a good organization comes up with and uses guys like this (cheap, adequate temporary fill-ins), but not to the exclusion of real long-term solutions.

Fox might be one of the best bats the Cubs have developed in recent years, but that says more about the Cubs' player development than it does about him.

The key for Milwaukee is keeping Fukudome in check. In his short time he has battered the Brewers

Not to mention that Fukudome, last year's bust, is resurrecting some of his value this year.

Not since about the first week of May, he's not... Fukudome is actually (depressingly) following the same form as last year. Hot out of the gate, followed by a prolonged slump where his only offensive value is the fact that he'll still take a walk.

As for Hendry's performance prior to his 'official' elevation to GM - it's unfair to say that the Cubs were a wasteland of minor league talent beyond Grace... I'll skip rehashing Patterson for the 10th time, and yes - most of the bats went bust. Without digging into exactly who was running the draft/foreign FAs when they were acquired - the Cubs record developing bats has been pretty poor. Hill went nowhere. Ditto Choi (again, skipping the 10th digression on him). Ditto Montanez. And Kelton... etc.

For all his deficiencies - Theriot has turned out to be a nifty pick, though.

On the mound, however, I would say that the Cubs record stands with anyone over the past decade. Prior aside -- Zambrano has certainly developed and reached expectations. Dontrelle Willis used to be pretty damn good. Ricky Nolasco has righted himself after a stellar 2008. Juan Cruz has been a very useful reliever. Todd Wellmeyer is a Cubs product that I believe was drafted under hendry's watch. Marshall, Gallagher, Guzman, Ascanio, BPJ, Marmol, Rich Hill, Wuertz, Ohman, Mitre, Farnsworth...

Whatever deficiencies they'd had developing bats - I think they've more than made up for it in identifying and developing pitching talent. In fact, they've almost been the bizarro TINSTAAP -- their highly touted pitching prospects have generally been much more successful than their touted bats. I would argue that, if we were to compare pitcher ID and development over the years marking Hendry's time with the Cubs -- the Cubs deserve to be in the discussion.

Hendry's problem has been 1)he was far, far too willing to trade pitching... the Pierre trade still stands as a disaster; 2)He's too willing to spend money... Soriano may have been the best available player on the market when he was signed, but that bloated contract was a mistake, is a mistake, and will continue to be a mistake. I have nothing against Ryan Dempster, but the Cubs had a surplus of starters and I'd have personally let him and walk and take the picks last offseason.

If the Cubs don't turn it around this season, I think it's a done deal that the new owners will bring in a new GM this winter... and that poor sap is going to be royally screwed.

Like I said - there's a lot of bad contracts that are going to be near impossible to move sans a healthy eating of contract. The Cubs will have very little to trade to restock a system that's as barren as it's been in a decade...

Hoffpaiur and Fox are certainly major league bats - but Hoff is 29, Fox is 26, and they both play a position (DH) not available to the Cubs. I suppose they could move Lee - he's one of the few players on the Cubs whose contract is tradeable (signed only through next season -- probably overpaid, though)... but I wouldn't consider either Fox or Hoff something to build around.

So who has value in a deal? Rameriz, I suppose - but his contract is a mess (and I'm pretty sure he's got an NTC).... Reed Johnson? Puhleaze. Theriot? Not really. Ted Lilly is probably moveable - but both Zambrano and Dempster have sizeable contracts that limit their marketability.

Mark it down - the next Cubs GM is quite likely to be fired well before he has a chance to do any good because this team is constructed in such a way that mortgages ~2011 through 2013/4 in order to win now... If they don't win now, we're in a world of hurt.

That is an exceedingly dumb title. If it's not fair to blame Hendry, then the Cubs' failures *aren't* his fault. Either take out "Fair or not", or modify the title in some other way as to make it not read like a contradiction of itself.

Yes, I think it should read "Fair or not, Chicago Cubs' failures are Jim Hendry's responsibility."

you can certainly blame him for an organizational failure that has lead to the need to overpay to fill out a line-up.

Sure, but the same could be said of how Brian Cashman constructs his lineups. I don't like it when teams overpay for a good lineup, but to me that doesn't constitute a failure by a GM--it's using the resources available.

As the GM of a team with a $140 million dollar payroll, having hand picked the roster and coaching staff -- I'd have to argue the ax falls on him alone. There is no "well look at these guys' seasons before they got here this team is good on paper" award.

I still don't understand why we should blame Hendry for the failure of several of his signings to hit and/or stay healthy. There was little in Soriano's stats to suggest he'd completely fall off the table. Ditto Soto (though you could suggest that a catcher who was only successful in his third turn at AAA might collapse once pitchers adjusted to him). Ditto Fontenot (even though again you could posit that he reached the majors too late and might have already had his peak, a post-peak Fontenot should be putting up serviceable numbers, which he sure isn't doing this year). And the GM surely isn't to blame for losing their best hitter to a serious injury.

Most GMs have to contend with one or two of their established key players not performing in a given year. Hendry has had four of them who either can't play or have literally been drags on the offense. I don't see how that confluence is Hendry's fault. Would any of you have walked into this season and said, "I expect Soriano, Ramirez, Soto, and Fontenot to be terrible this year?" If so, I'd say you'd been channeling Nostradamus.

If Hendry should be blamed for anything here, maybe it is that there aren't good young players to plug into the breach for the underperforming guys. But I'd say that Hoffpauir and Fox are decent depth replacements, even though they aren't really young. And Vitters is still waiting down on the farm. You could also blame him for Bradley, but again, few expected Bradley to be terrible while he was *in* the lineup.

Get on Hendry for his record on young players--not for how the current team is doing. If some or all of the players having bad years this year had shown signs of decline last year or the year before, then yes, blame Hendry. But none of the quartet of Soriano/Soto/Fontenot/Ramirez had shown anything like that.

Who's idea was it to go after Bradley. That was the biggest mistake anyone made all offseason.

I still don't understand why they didn't move on Bobby A.

The Bradley move was dumb, but it wouldn't have been had it been a one-year deal. If the Cubs don't win the WS, Hendry's legacy is going to be that he sacrificed four or five years of real contention for a team that never could quite make it.

There was little in Soriano's stats to suggest he'd completely fall off the table.

This season? Maybe... But everyone KNEW the Cubs were going to be paying 17 million for at least 2 years of a player worth a tenth of that. If it turns into 5 years rather than 2? Jeebus... that's the problem paying top dollar for a player who may be quite good, but isn't A-Rod/Pujols/etc level marquis.... and one who plays an easily filled position at that.

There was little in Soriano's stats to suggest he'd completely fall off the table.

He's 33 years old, an age when it's not surprising when guys go into major decline. This is the risk when you sign guys to 8-year contracts in free agency. For the Cubs, it was never a question of "if" Soriano would be a waste of money by the end of his contract, it was a question of when he would start being a drain and what they could get out of him before then.

Ditto Soto (though you could suggest that a catcher who was only successful in his third turn at AAA might collapse once pitchers adjusted to him).

I think you've answered your own question. Soto's current OPS (.722) is comparable to what he put up in Iowa in 2005-06. That said, I expect Soto's numbers to improve the rest of this season.

Ditto Fontenot (even though again you could posit that he reached the majors too late and might have already had his peak, a post-peak Fontenot should be putting up serviceable numbers, which he sure isn't doing this year).

Mike Fontenot put up an .803 OPS in his minor-league career. Everything about his career screamed that his 2008 season (.909 OPS) was unsustainable, that he couldn't hit left-handed pitching to save his life, and that he'd very likely revert back to what he always was - a decent-hitting platoon second baseman.

And the GM surely isn't to blame for losing their best hitter to a serious injury.

The GM of a team with a $140 million payroll is surely to blame for building a roster whose best backup infielder is Aaron Miles and whose best backup outfielder is Reed Johnson, especially when your team's best hitter is a 31-year-old third baseman who missed 30 or more games with injuries in two of the last four seasons.

The GM of a team with a $140 million payroll is surely to blame for building a roster whose best backup infielder is Aaron Miles and whose best backup outfielder is Reed Johnson, especially when your team's best hitter is a 31-year-old third baseman who missed 30 or more games with injuries in two of the last four seasons.

Not to mention trading a guy who could play RF -- AND fill in quite nicely at 3B -- in order to sign the problem child, injury-prone RF for 3 years... but I'm repeating myself and everyone else.

Good points Kiko, I was going to make the last one as well: with a payroll that large there is no excuse not to have capable backups. Hell, their crosstown rivals the White Sox (who have their own roster construction issues but that's another topic) are getting production from guys like Scott Podsednik and Jayson Nix after injuries forced their starters out, sometimes you have to throw #### against the wall and see what sticks, or uncork enough bottles and hope you catch some lightning. Hendry seems like he's to "by the book" in regards to bench construction -- thinking he'd be fine with a couple decent fielding no hit infield types.

Hendry seems like he's to "by the book" in regards to bench construction -- thinking he'd be fine with a couple decent fielding no hit infield types.

Did he black out memories of F Troop? Because as much as I'd like to, I can't...

I think you've answered your own question. Soto's current OPS (.722) is comparable to what he put up in Iowa in 2005-06. That said, I expect Soto's numbers to improve the rest of this season.

He's already started to do so. After a horrific April that included the shoulder injury, he's hit .268/.363/.458. In June, he has a .916 OPS.

Soto's fine.

Each one of those happenings might not be hugely surprising on their own. But all four happening at once? It is the equivalent of the Red Sox getting subpar years from not just Ortiz but also Youkilis and Lowell, and then losing Bay to major injury. All at the same time. No GM would look good standing against that. Theo's replacements for those four would be Nick Green (3B), Jeff Bailey (1B), Baldelli (OF), and whoever they could scrounge up at DH (Kotsay or Chris Carter). Are they any better than Hendry's candidates of Hoffpauir, Fox, Blanco/Freel (Miles isn't on the team), and Johnson? I don't think so.

Would Theo suddenly be a bad GM if this scenario happened? Would you blame him for the results?

Matt,
The Cubs have been throwing #### against the wall: Hoffpauir, Fox, Blanco, Scales, Freel, even Koyie Hill (Bako was expected to win that job). ####, you're talking about the team that's giving regular playing time to Dwayne ####### Wise. Thank you very much, but I'll take the Cubs crap over the Sox crap even with Pods fluke month. Fox at third the last week or so has been great. Edmonds last year was that same type of pickup. I don't disagree that he weakened the bench prior to the season, but that's really to blame on Lou, IMO. Going back to Dusty, Hendry has always stacked the bench with guys favored by the manager.

If you're talking about benching guys like Soriano or Bradley or Soto, that's on Lou.

The Cubs actually did a very good job putting their bench together, IMHO, and they have a lot of roster depth. Their problems boil down to Ramirez getting hurt and Bradley, Soto, and Soriano disappearing.

If Hendry is to be blamed for anything, it's for overpaying for guys like Bradley and Dempster in the offseason so he doesn't have any flexibility now. But I don't even know how much flexibility he'd have anyway, what with their ownership situation.

The Cubs actually did a very good job putting their bench together, IMHO, and they have a lot of roster depth.

Disagree.

Completely.

The only bats they were going to have -- in the entire organization -- came from a 29 yo 1B and a 26 yo DH. Sure, one isn't going to have a .850 OPS masher available to fill in (unless one hangs onto DeRosa) - but how in the world was Joey Gathright any better a signing than Aaron Miles?

When you spend a combined 3.5 million to bring in 2 human out machines -- and call that your bench, no... sorry - you haven't done a good job, you've FAILED.

Well, not signing them (EDIT: Dempster and Bradley) he'd have about $23mil more dollars this season (less whatever they paid the guys that would have been on the roster instead).

---

It's interesting that the non-Cubs fans are the most optimistic and forgiving of the posts around here lately. Things really aren't that bad for the Cubs right now (it could be worse, see 2006). And there's definitely reason for hope. But watching the team, and games like last night when they strand runners at 2nd/3rd with no outs and 1-2-3 in the order up are very tiring and frustrating. Now that Lee and Soto are hitting, and Ramirez's return is right around the corner and some series against division opponents, it really isn't that hard to see the Cubs making a push.

Moses: Fair enough. The Edmonds signing was about as good as it gets in terms of a low risk high upside move. Like I said, I'm not entirely familiar with their roster situation and from your evidence it does look like they have at least tried to find some production from unlikely sources.

And yea, #### Dwayne Wise.

And yea, #### Dwayne Wise.

I really don't get why he's on the roster at all, much less in the starting lineup every night. Brian Anderson is a much better option all the way around.

If Hendry is to be blamed for anything, it's for overpaying for guys like Bradley and Dempster in the offseason so he doesn't have any flexibility now.

I think the main objection of Cubs fans is exactly this. He locked in Dempster before the market had corrected itself so he ended up overpaying for him. Then, because of budget restrictions (exacerbated in part by the Dempster overpay) he, in effect, traded Mark DeRosa for Aaron Miles and Milton Bradley. In retrospect, it seems pretty clear that DeRosa and a cheaper option in RF (Abreu comes to mind) would have been a big improvement over Bradley and Miles.

I thought he also overpayed Dempster based on an assumption that 2008 was a new "true talent level" for Dempster. This is a common problem that I see with Hendry. If a player puts up a career year as a Cub - Neifi Perez, '04; Glendon Rusch, '04; Mike Fontenot, '08 - Hendry has a tendency to assume that this is the player's true talent level and pays him / builds his roster accordingly.

Now that Lee and Soto are hitting, and Ramirez's return is right around the corner and some series against division opponents, it really isn't that hard to see the Cubs making a push.

All they have to do is start winning, and I see no reason they can't do that. Their starting pitching is going to keep them in games every day - they don't need a huge boost to their offense to start outscoring their opponents.

Things really aren't that bad for the Cubs right now (it could be worse, see 2006). And there's definitely reason for hope.

I agree with this. I don't think that Jim Hendry is some terrible GM who's epically incompetent. He's built the Cubs into perennial contenders, which is certainly more than any of his predecessors did for 30-some years.

But I do think that the problems we've seen with the Cubs are the expected downside risks of Hendry's roster construction - he built an old lineup which leaves you vulnerable to injuries (Ramirez) and performance dropoffs (Soriano), he overpayed for his starters which led to skimping on the bench which limits the team's depth (Miles), and the Milton Bradley signing was a huge gamble the moment it was signed.

So far, those things have hurt the Cubs. Things might turn around and some of these gambles might yet pay off in 2009. But, if they don't, I think it's fair to lay the blame for them on Hendry.

Hendry's true flaw lies within his inability to be a good off-season GM. He's made some damn fine in-season moves (i.e. acquiring Ramirez and Harden for basically nothing), but his off-season activities have set this franchise up for some painful baseball over the next five or six years.

It's unfortunate the Cubs' worst season this decade preceded the most absurd off-season from a talent to dollar ratio we've ever seen. I can't recall such a crop of big-money contracts that were so clearly awful before the inked dried up.

I don't think even Hendry thought the Soriano contract in full was a smart idea. I'm sure his hope was that putting everything on the line for the next several years would pay off, ensuring fans wouldn't mind the back-end of this atrocious contract. It hasn't worked out and Soriano is looking a lot older sooner than most of us thought he would.

As for the Bradley contract, let's not dump on Hendry entirely for that. The market certainly evened out, but even so, the deal wouldn't be so terrible if he were actually producing. We all figured the Cubs were getting a guy that, when healthy, could draw walks, drive in runs, hit for average and power. It hasn't worked out that way, but not because of injuries. Are any of you really saying you saw this sort of regression coming from a relatively healthy Milton Bradley?

I too am surprised that Hendry is getting a big "pass" from several quarters.

What do we know about baseball?

Teams that do well in one season are likely to regress. The Cubs won 97 games in 2008.

Players who do well in a season tend to regress if not named Albert Pujols or David Wright. Literally every member that finished as the starter for the Cubs save Fukudome could qualify as having a standard or above average year by the player's career norms.

Older players are more prone to injury. Derek Lee is 33.

Players who have a history of injury are more prone to injury. Milton Bradley's injury record actually manages to outdistance his suspension history. Soriano has a history of nagging calf and other muscle strain injuries.

What is also lost in this entire discussion is the bullpen not having a lock down guy. Carlos Marmol is not CARLOS MARMOL. And the rest of the pen is pretty blah if not "yikes".

THAT is a lot of force working AGAINST the Cubs in 2009. And a good GM would and should have recognized SOME of this. Instead, Hendry EXACERBATED the situation getting older and more injury-prone.

With minimal bench strength just in case.

That's a poor effort

Walk: No, but plenty of people saw Milton Bradley as a huge ####### risk that might not be worth taking when Adam Dunn was right there for a bit larger price.

What has impressed me about the Cubs is the defense staying ok despite all the flux.

Hendry also kept Vizcaino at the expense of Gaudin and Mike Wuertz. That's another head scratcher.

If a player puts up a career year as a Cub - Neifi Perez, '04; Glendon Rusch, '04; Mike Fontenot, '08 - Hendry has a tendency to assume that this is the player's true talent level and pays him / builds his roster accordingly.

Gary Gaetti! That was before Hendry took over the title, I believe, but it's the ultimate example of this thinking.

Without digging into exactly who was running the draft/foreign FAs when they were acquired - the Cubs record developing bats has been pretty poor. Hill went nowhere. Ditto Choi (again, skipping the 10th digression on him). Ditto Montanez. And Kelton... etc.

Because he moved up to GM from Director of Player Development, I think it's fair to judge Hendry well before the 2003 season (his first complete year as GM). He may not have had all the responsibility for who was drafted and developed -- no one person does in any organization -- but he had some.

A GM, of course, should be judged on a lot more than just his minor league system (trades, major league FA signings, amateur FAs, underlings he hires, etc.). Nonetheless, here is how I would grade the Cubs' drafts from 1998-2005. (Too soon to decided on 2006 or later.)

1998: D+; Corey Patterson proved to be overrated; Eric Hinske was a good find late, but the Cubs gave him away to the A's 3 years later.

1999: F

2000: C; Best pick was Dontrelle Willis. Bobby Hill did not live up to expectations. Produced a handful of other major leaguers, but no one very good.

2001: A; Mark Prior; Ryan Theriot; Ricky Nolasco; and Geovany Soto. The Cubs also drafted Khalil Greene late, but he did not sign.

2002: F

2003: F

2004: F

2005: F

He's made some damn fine in-season moves (i.e. acquiring Ramirez and Harden for basically nothing)

True those were fine moves, but Hendry had the massive resource advantage to do that from ownership. He has never shown the ability to make those sorts of positive moves without that advantage. Now that he has exhausted that advantage, and new ownership will likely be disinclined to give him more resources, the Cubs must get a general manager who can upgrade talent without relying on payroll.

Instead, Hendry EXACERBATED the situation getting older and more injury-prone.

How, apart from adding Bradley? Sure, Bradley is a big example of awarding too much money and too many years, but one of Bradley/Fukudome/Johnson became the Cubs fourth option when Bradley was signed, so the impact of Bradley getting hurt was minimized, if you assumed that Fukudome would rebound enough to be useful.

I'm trying to separate the circumstances of this year from a general evaluation of Hendry, because the article is criticizing him for this year only. You can rightfully get on him for his overall performance (spending too much money, on the wrong people, failing to develop real positional prospects), but this year is marred by the poor luck of four key hitters having been MUCH worse than usual.

And Marmol deserved chances to close after last year's performance. Trading Ceda for Gregg might have not been a good move, but the main blame for the season so far should not go to Hendry--it should go to a collection of normally-good players who are having bad years.

Which teams have better bench strength than the Cubs' group of Hoffpauir, Fox, Blanco, Freel & Miles (Sorry, I was confused when I said Miles wasn't on the team)?

See, I don't know how much you can call it "bad luck". Soriano is old. Ramirez is 31. Bradley is an oft-injured head case. Fukodome isn't that good. (although he's hardly the problem he isn't much of the solution either) Miles just sucks. Geo came out of nowhere to post what might be his career year.

I don't really think seeing some potential problems in the areas listed above took a real clairvoyant. I could be wrong, but there were quite few Cubs fans that saw the same thing coming after what could only be considered a pretty poor offseason.

I'd call the confluence of four major guys sucking "bad luck." Or, at least, the result of something plausibly outside Hendry's control.

Besides, Soriano's skill set really isn't one that you'd expect to fall apart at 33. It's not like he's a one-dimensional slugger. And Ramirez's injury was a traumatic one, not one based on age. 31 really isn't old for a baseball player, either. You could perhaps expect a small decline at that age, from a consistent guy like Ramirez.

I don't know how much we can trust what Cubs fans thought was going to happen this year--most of them have been predicting the worst possible outcome for their team for decades.

In 1988 the Cubs brought up Mark Grace from Iowa. In the 21 years since then, the number of position players that the Cubs have brought up who contributed to the team for 5 years can be counted on Jim Abbott's right hand.

Jim Abbott's hand wasn't that freaky:

Rick Wilkins -- 4 seasons with Cubs, then dealt for 2 seasons of Luis Gonzalez and 4 seasons of Scott Servais. Total: 10 seasons (or parts thereof)

Brant Brown -- 3 seasons with Cubs, then dealt for 4 seasons of Jon Lieber. Total: 7 seasons (or parts thereof)

Adam Morrissey and Bobby Hill -- Morrissey was dealt for 2 seasons of Mark Bellhorn. Bellhorn was then dealt for a season of Jose Hernandez. Hill had 2 seasons with the Cubs. Hernandez and Hill were then dealt (with pitcher Matt Bruback) for a season of Kenny Lofton and 7 seasons (and counting) of Aramis Ramirez. Total: 13 seasons (and counting, or parts thereof)

Hee Seop Choi -- 2 seasons with Cubs, then dealt with Mike Nannini for 6 seasons (and counting) of Derrek Lee. Total: 8 seasons (or parts thereof)

Corey Patterson -- 6 seasons (or parts thereof)

Ronny Cedeno and Felix Pie -- Cedeno had 4 seasons with the Cubs and Pie had 2 seasons. Pie was dealt for Hank Williamson and Garrett Olson. Olson and Cedeno were then dealt for a season (and counting) of Aaron Heilman. Total: 7 seasons (or parts thereof and counting)

Ryan Theriot -- 5 seasons (or parts thereof and counting)

Matt Murton and Eric Patterson -- Murton had 4 seasons with Cubs and Patterson had 2 seasons, then both were dealt with Josh Donaldson and Sean Gallagher for a season of Chad Gaudin and 2 seasons (and counting) of Rich Hardin. Total: 9 seasons (or parts thereof and counting)

Geovany Soto -- 5 seasons (or parts thereof and counting)

Rey Sanchez -- 7 seasons (or parts thereof)

Derrick May -- 5 seasons (or parts thereof)

Dwight Smith -- 5 seasons (or parts thereof)

Doug Dascenzo -- 5 seasons (or parts thereof)

Nice research, FG, but I'm pretty sure you just made my point.

I get your point, but I think it's overstated, especially in that 5 seasons is a pretty long period of time, service-wise.

My gut feeling is that there are a lot of Cubs fans on here who think that Jim Hendry is the devil and want to interpret most anything negative that happens to this team as emblematic of that man's failure.

I think the main objection of Cubs fans is exactly this. He locked in Dempster before the market had corrected itself so he ended up overpaying for him.

And even if the market hadn't corrected itself he would've overpaid. Dempster was an effective innings-eater coming off a career year. Hendry paid on the basis of his good year, largely ignoring the rest of his career.

This is my bigget beef with Hendry: he fixates on individual players. Then he signs them for their potential value, which may be their real value or their market value but is rarely less than that. Also, this doesn't apply to big names like Soriano or Dempster. He'll fixate and sign Rusch and Neifi. Thus he needs one of the biggest payrolls to compete because he's a bad bargain shopper.

Upshot: large payrolls with not much roster flexibility.

When he fixates on the right players, the results can be good. When he doesn't .. . .well, in 2006 the Cubs had one of the highest median payrolls in baseball (meaning they paid their 13th highest paid players more than 27 or so teams paid their 13th highest player) -- and lost over 90 games in the process.

Soriano looks like a catastrophic fixation.

I really don't get why he's on the roster at all, much less in the starting lineup every night. Brian Anderson is a much better option all the way around.

Something I've wondered before and am curious as to whether you or other White Sox fans think the same way. Do you think that Brian Anderson may be suffering from the stigma of being the guy to replace Rowand in 2006 and failing to have a good season? Anderson isn't very good of course but he can at least provide something resembling acceptable overall production at the position yet the team (and maybe the general fanbase?) seems to have an irrational preference for guys who can't be expected to even match his meager performances. It seems like maybe because he had the chance to replace a popular player and failed he's getting a bad rap and not being given credit for what he can bring to the team.

Do you think that Brian Anderson may be suffering from the stigma of being the guy to replace Rowand in 2006 and failing to have a good season?

Brian Anderson suffers from the stigma of not being liked by Ozzie Guillen.

Brian Anderson suffers from the stigma of not being liked by Ozzie Guillen.

Brian Anderson suffers from the stigma of not being very good. Seriously -- what in Anderson's track record says that he could even approach being an average player at this point? He's now had close to 1000 major league plate appearances (admittedly sporadic from year to year) of a .226/.288 /.367 line. Even last year where Ozzie tried to keep him away from right-handers (>40% of his plate appearances were against lefties), the best he could muster was an 81 OPS+. This goes back further than his major league career, though -- the best he could do in a full season at Charlotte (an absolutely tiny, tiny ballpark) was an 830 OPS. Nothing in his minor league track record suggested he was going to become a plus offensive player, and the k-rate (and scouts always talking of a long swing) more than hinted that he was going to have some troubles at the big league level.

When the Sox traded Rowand, I hoped Anderson could become an average bat with a plus plus glove. He has yet to adjust to big league pitching. The glove is decent enough to where he's not miscast as a fourth outfielder.

That's why I think the complaints about x-player playing over BA -- and I myself have certainly done my fair share of this -- are (and have been) petty at best. Whether it's Wise/Podsednik in 2009, Griffey in 2008, Ersad in 2007 or Mackowiak in 2006, it's still the same story -- crappy players abound. I'm rooting hard for Danks so the revolving door in CF can finally come to a halt.

And with that I've spent already spent too much time talking about the Sox today. Marian ####### Hossa -- w00t!

Whether it's Wise/Podsednik in 2009, Griffey in 2008, Ersad in 2007 or Mackowiak in 2006, it's still the same story -- crappy players abound.

At least Anderson can catch the ball. None of the other guys Guillen has thrown out there (except maybe Erstad) could even manage that.

If you're going to put a bad bat in the lineup, the least you can do is make sure he can field the ball.

EDIT: And the Hossa signing seems pretty surprising. I thought the Hawks were trying to decide whether to bring Havlat or Khabibulin back, not that they were looking to make a splash.

My gut feeling is that there are a lot of Cubs fans on here who think that Jim Hendry is the devil and want to interpret most anything negative that happens to this team as emblematic of that man's failure.

Not at all -- yes, I am absolutely scared ####less that if the Cubs don't make a move soon and this season goes to hell, we're in for a rough start (and rough time generally) in the teens.

But I certainly recognize that Jim has, since becoming GM, made the Cubs a consistent contender, something they haven't been since few seasons in the late 60s... Even the vaunted Dallas Green was pretty much one and done.

I also cut him slack for the busts -- Patterson, Hill, Choi, etc -- these weren't guys that only scouts touted or only the statheads touted, everyone loved that system. BPro loved it. Sickels loved it. Baseball America loved it. Everyone had that early aught system among the best in baseball. Sometimes, it just doesn't work out... and like I said - while the bats more or less got shut out -- the Cubs had decidedly more success spotting and developing pitching.

Appreciation for what Hendry has done, though, doesn't preclude giving him the business for mistakes.

I'm not calling for his head - my references to his successor are just based on the fact that a new ownership group is quite likely to want to bring its own guys in, and the fact that the Cubs are built to win now... and if they don't, you'll rarely see a GM get a shot at multiple success cycles unless they bring home the gold.