Jim Hendry Bust or Great GM?

[Rice Cube]

This was one of the top hits on Google when I looked up "Cubs payroll history"...

Major League Baseball Team Payrolls 1998-2012

2012 $ 88,197,033 (that seems low and might be forgetting about Pena's deferment and whatever they sent over in the Zambrano trade)
2011 $ 125,480,664
2010 $ 146,859,000
2009 $ 135,050,000
2008 $ 118,345,833
2007 $ 99,670,332
2006 $ 94,424,499
2005 $ 87,210,933
2004 $ 91,101,667
2003 $ 79,868,333
2002 $ 75,690,833

I cut it off at 2002 because that's when Hendry took over and he didn't have a lot of time really to tweak payroll right away. For the bulk of the decade the Cubs sort of flip-flopped with the Cardinals and there wasn't that much disparity between the two teams until the backloaded contracts kicked in. So you can make the argument that the money wasn't spent wisely, but you also have to concede that the extra money that the Cubs were supposed to use as an advantage wasn't really there either.

 

[MRubio52]

1. WUT?!?!?

2. 2007 and 2008 weren't as good as that 03 team IMO. 2007 most definitely wasn't. 08 won a ton of games but weren't as good at the top end of the rotation or in the bullpen. Plus I liked 2003's lineup better.

2004 had a ton of bang in the lineup but the pitching was really bad. 2003 was the best balanced of all the Hendry "good teams".

2003's lineup wasn't as good as 2008's lineup. 2008 was better everywhere except for RF and arguably CF. The pitching was better in 03, but that 08 team was certainly WS worthy.

 

[ZAN]

I could have a good year or two with as many blank checks as Hendry got. Just saying.

He was not a success.

 

[Rice Cube]

If I am reading this correctly, you are claiming that the Cubs had a top third farm system prior to acquiring Matt Garza in 2011. Under Hendry's management, the Cubs routinely had the worst farm system in the majors. Do you have farm system rankings from, say, 2005-2010 that have the Cubs being in the top 10?

No, if you do though I can concede that I was wrong. I think they were only 18th or so in 2010, so my apologies for the error. The issue still seems to me to be one part Hendry not evaluating talent correctly, and several parts ownership hamstringing him in draft spending. I'm too lazy right now to look up draft spending history for each team but I think a team that had a good draft budget and was allowed to go overslot would have picked guys like Tyler Colvin or Hayden Simpson in the first round.

Bringing up Aramis Ramirez is like bringing up Alex Brown as being a great Angelo draft pick. Yes, thats nice, but that shouldn't be your capstone achievement.

Comparing the Dempster signing to the deals Soriano and Zambrano is terrible. Thats like comparing the Earl Bennett drafting to Chris Williams and Michael Haynes. Its not even in the same hemisphere. No mention of Milton Bradley? Fukodome? These were some of the worst signings in MLB history.

Right, but it is still an achievement. I don't think many people complained when he traded for Nomar in 2004 either, until after the fact when they just missed the playoffs. Sorry I forgot to mention MB or Fukudome though, those were pretty bad, but even guys like Theo will sign Lackey and Carl Crawford. It's the nature of the business.

Hendry inherited some key pieces to a WS winner, immediately destroyed them, then proceeded to destroy the franchise in his efforts to build/buy a winner. I don't know how you can even judge him yet, because the "mess" he created still hasn't been cleaned up.

I agree with you, I definitely think he did a lot of damage on his own, but again, I also believe that ownership is to blame because they told him to spend out the wazoo (most of those contracts were backloaded) and he did. That team was built to win short-term and they didn't do it, and now the Cubs are fucked. I think our disagreement lies in how much of that lies on Hendry and how much should be attributed to the higher-ups.

Payrolls...Cubs had 2nd highest NL Central in 2003 (St. Louis higher)
2004, Cubs highest and 6th highest in MLB.
2005, Cubs 2nd highest (STL) and 8th highest in MLB
2006, Cubs highest and 6th highest in MLB
2007, Cubs highest and 8th highest in MLB
2008, Cubs highest and 8th highest in MLB
2009, Cubs highest and 3rd highest in MLB
2010, Cubs highest and 3rd highest in MLB
2011, Cubs highest and 6th highest in MLB

That's consistent with the link I found and the differences in payroll between the Cubs and the Cards before 2007 wasn't actually that much.

I think at the end of all this we can all agree that it's good that the Cubs moved away from Hendry, but his achievement was getting the team into the playoffs three years in a decade which hasn't happend for the Cubs since before World War II. Obviously that wasn't enough, but I do think it was enough to not rank him as absolute crap.

 

[MRubio52]

I just don't see that 2008 pitching staff putting together 3 straight great series. It was like they got career years out of everyone at the same time, yet none of the pitchers had great "stuff" other than, allegedly, Zambrano. It would be like the 1989 Cubs riding Mike Bielecki to victory over the Oakland A's. Not going to happen.

I see what you're saying, kinda. Even though he shit the bed Dempster did have good stuff. Harden was a late addition to that team, and at the time he had the most electric stuff on the staff. Couldn't go deep into the game, but it's not unthinkable to imagine that staff putting it together well enough for the offense to take over.

Shoot, the Red Sox managed to win one with Beckett being the only truly dominant pitcher on the 07 staff (which featured Dice-K, and old and hurty Schil, Julian Tavarez, Wake, and a very young Lester). Even the 05 White Sox put together a historic post season run with a stable of guys putting together career years.

The post season is usually such a crap shoot, I think that team had a shot at winning the whole thing, but I do think the 03 team was slightly better suited for winning the WS.

I just happen to think both teams were capable.

 

[Rice Cube]

I do think you were right about the farm system though, and I talked about that a bit in my posts. Hendry probably got lucky and was able to get guys like Wood and Prior and did sign Zambrano while he was good at baseball (then signed him to that contract when he decided to stop being as good at baseball). The Cubs have never actually invested in the minors as much as other teams as far as I could tell but because of the rankings of some of their top prospects, that boosted the status of the organization and that's why I thought they were top third for a while. That obviously isn't true now and was not true even before the Garza trade. My bad.

 

[Rice Cube]

But if the choice is between bust or great GM, I would definitely call him a bust. Even without all the contract messes and the barren state of the farm system, his achievement on the field wasn't all that terrific. He inherited some great players, played in a pretty bad division, and didn't do much against the top teams in the playoffs.

The Cubs should have definitely blown the other teams out of the water, I agree.

The Cardinals and pre-fire sale Astros weren't that bad, though. In the later part of the decade the Reds and Brewers emerged. I definitely agree with you that Hendry didn't use his advantages well. I still think he was restricted by ownership until the big pre-sale payroll spike, but that excuse really only goes so far.

I'll conclude by giving Hendry a resounding "meh" :lol:

 

[X]

He was ok. He wasn't great, but he was far from the worst. We were competitive more during his tenure than we were in any other tenure in recent memory (albeit w/ significantly more dollars.)

If we would've won the 'ship, or been a playoff contender 4 out of 5 years or something, he'd still be here. But he wasn't, so he's not.

 

[Bongi]

I wouldn't call him a bust at all, he gave us chances to win a World Series we just couldn't execute when given those opportunities, the only problem I had with Hendry was how inconsistent we were. The Cubs were good one year, then bad the next year, good the next year, and then once again bad.

 

[ZAN]

You do realize that's Zod, right?

...and the joke is pretty old/ineffective at this point...

 

[dabynsky]

How sad is it that Jim Hendry is probably a top 3 GM in Cubs history?

 

[MRubio52]

How sad is it that Jim Hendry is probably a top 3 GM in Cubs history?

How sad is it that 2 of the top 3 never won anything.

 

[dabynsky]

How sad is it that 2 of the top 3 never won anything.

What Cub GM won anything?

 

[MRubio52]

What Cub GM won anything?

Ohhhh crap they got their first GM in the 30's, didn't they?

 

[dabynsky]

Yeah the title GM wasn't used until the 30s with the Cubs. I suppose you could include Team Presidents from before then since they performed a similar function to include guys like William Veeck, Sr.

 

[Rice Cube]

Tinkers, Evers and Chance didn't need no stinkin' GM.

 

[MRubio52]

Yeah the title GM wasn't used until the 30s with the Cubs. I suppose you could include Team Presidents from before then since they performed a similar function to include guys like William Veeck, Sr.

Good lord, so it's probably Green, Hendry, and ...John...Holland?

 

[dabynsky]

Good lord, so it's probably Green, Hendry, and ...John...Holland?

Yeah I don't really know how to rank those guys from the 30s-40s, but I figured at least one of them ought to be higher than Hendry and maybe Green.

 

[Rice Cube]

Yeah I don't really know how to rank those guys from the 30s-40s, but I figured at least one of them ought to be higher than Hendry and maybe Green.

Yeah, they actually got to the World Series. Stupid division playoffs and championship series.

 

[CODE_BLUE56]

overall he was average,

his recent track record is why people became so antagonistic towards him