So far, Jim Hendry's off-season moves look bad

But you fail to discuss the other half of Tommy Boy Hendry's moves.

Resigning Dempster to a contract of that length (4 years) and $(52M) seems waaaaay too much given the market. Does anyone have any confidence that a 36 year old Dempster is going to be worth $14M??(Is this going to be Marquis redux?)

Committing all that money to Dempster forced Tommy Boy to let Wood go (and get nothing in compensation). In order to replace Wood at the end of the rotation, Tommy Boy traded his best (closest) young arm in Ceda to get a middling guy like Gregg.

Keeping Wood as the closer leaves Marmol the late inning killer in which he thrived. And then they find their 7th inning guy from Heilman, Smarzd or Ceda.

They could have replaced Dempster with someone like Jon Garland for $45M less, or kept Marquis if need be as a #5.(rotation of Z, Harden, Lilly, Marshall, Garland/Marquis)

And then Tommy Boy goes and essentially replaces DeRosa with Miles. Hendry dumped DeRosa and his $5M salary, and turned around and gave that same amount to Miles, but spread it out over 2 years.

And then there is the mismanagement of "options" on guys like Pie, Hill, Cedeno, etc - which forces Tommy Boy to essentially give them away for nothing.(Of course it could be argued that the prior jewels of Tommy Boy's farm system weren't worth anything, but then what does that say about Tommy Boy's farm system?)

C'mon Phillie - you can hand out some more grades, can't you?

Phil: you are right on with all these assessments. Add to it the signing blunders of Heilmann, Gregg, and Miles, and JIm Hendry's moves will cause the demise of 2009. The worst was letting go the two team leaders: Wood and DeRosa. It is to bad because there were such high hopes and people like me who bought tickets to see the Cubs on the road (in Cincinnati and in Washington D.C.) are really regretting it. Nobody bailing us put.

No doubt dumping Wood and DeRosa were HUGE mistakes. It ruined the teams chemistry.

Bradley seemed like he would be putting up better numbers but with injury and temper-tantrums. So far we have the injuries and the temper tantrums but no offense.

It's a mess.

Have Hendry's bosses told him win it all or you're gone?

I hate to say it, but Bradley is starting to remind me a little of Corey Patterson. It's only a matter of time before the boo-birds run him out of Wrigley with his tail between his legs. Fans are fickle, Bradley hasn't come close to living up to anyone's expectations, and the window of opportunity is closing on this team. With a little luck we can package him in a trade with Derek Lee and pick up another solid hitter for the roster. Trading Mark Derosa may have been Jim Hendry's worst move to date.

Militant Bradley is going to be the demise of the Cubs. Kerry Wood should have retired a Cub! This lineup and team is headed for disaster! Pinella is the second coming of Leo Durocher, the team will soon tire of his act, guys like Lee, Ramirez,Dempster and Soto will fold like a house of cards under his pressure! Hendry bought a contender, NOT a winner!

I will never be able to understand why the Cobs got rid of DeRosa. In my mind, he was the most valuable member of the team last year. He was their best player in the incredibly short post season. His presence on any team will immediately reduce the impact of injuries to critical players. His versatility offset injuries to both the infield and the outfield. I would have thought that he was the last player that the team would have wanted to trade. They got NOTHING for him. I was puzzled last year when they were wanting to get rid of him before the start of the season. It seems like they had been wanting to get rid of him the whole time he was here. This trade, more than any other off-season move, will be the reason that the Cubs are going to underperform expectations.

Jim wrote:

Militant Bradley is going to be the demise of the Cubs. Kerry Wood should have retired a Cub! This lineup and team is headed for disaster! Pinella is the second coming of Leo Durocher, the team will soon tire of his act, guys like Lee, Ramirez,Dempster and Soto will fold like a house of cards under his pressure! Hendry bought a contender, NOT a winner!

I do not miss Kerry Wood, but I would have thought that they would have gotten someone to replace him. I do not think that we should keep players for sentimental reasons.

My god, this team sucks so far. Hendrey, you could have had Abreau, but you settled for Bradley. Hope you're happy.

Brian OShea wrote:

I hate to say it, but Bradley is starting to remind me a little of Corey Patterson. It's only a matter of time before the boo-birds run him out of Wrigley with his tail between his legs. Fans are fickle, Bradley hasn't come close to living up to anyone's expectations, and the window of opportunity is closing on this team. With a little luck we can package him in a trade with Derek Lee and pick up another solid hitter for the roster. Trading Mark Derosa may have been Jim Hendry's worst move to date.

Remember what a happy, sunny guy I was when I signed a 3 year deal to play RF for the Cubs? In less than 1 season I was getting booed and putting up with racist crap. I lasted a little over a year before I had to go. And I was a nice happy guy.

Milton is going to last about as long as Jeromy Burnitz did.

very good column, could have given hendry some more f's. this was the first year that hendry has had to make some baseball decisions instead of just throwing money at players or having money cover up his mistakes.guess what? he has failed and failed big time. the only time things have worked out well is when the check book is open or when the small market teams are looking to unload. what hendry has done to this team should get him fired, plain and simple.

Brian OShea wrote:

I hate to say it, but Bradley is starting to remind me a little of Corey Patterson. It's only a matter of time before the boo-birds run him out of Wrigley with his tail between his legs. Fans are fickle, Bradley hasn't come close to living up to anyone's expectations, and the window of opportunity is closing on this team. With a little luck we can package him in a trade with Derek Lee and pick up another solid hitter for the roster. Trading Mark Derosa may have been Jim Hendry's worst move to date.

I agree, but I'm afraid we're stuck with Lee, since he has a no trade clause. Another of Hendrey's brilliant moves.

all i have to say to fellow CUBS fan is:

PRAY VERY HARD,because,even though it;s very early in the season,many of us have this "sick" feeling
inside telling us that the CUBS may NOT even win their division, let alone get into the playoffs!
this team looks like it is playing "scared"
there is NO consistency! p.s. i hate to say this,but,i'm already starting to think about FOOTBALL!! WAKE UP THE ECHOES! RUDY! RUDY! RUDY!

About time Hendry is held accountable. The Cub's following have been letting him off the hook for to long.

Rogers seems to have missed all the important details of the Hendry debacle. Miles was non-tendered by the Cards, Gathright was released by the bottom feeding Royals, the Cubs still do not have a 2nd baseman tho ESPN/Joe Morgan just did a piece on how 2nd has become a strength position in both leagues, we're stuck with D. Lee thru 2010, Soto is being treated like a 10 year veteran instead of being sent to Iowa for a couple weeks to get things worked out. The Bigs is not the place to take batting practice, expecially when you have a .650 winning record catcher sitting on the bench. Hendry just doesn't seem real smart.

Hindsight is always 20/20 and the season is still early. While they looked absolutely horrible today, the end is nowhere near this team yet.

I'm just as frustrated as the rest of you Cub fans, but I am not abandoning all hope (or logic).

The Cubs will be fine. This is a speed bump.

Lou will be out as manager by the second half. This team is going down, and Lou will not want to go there with it.

Hendry failed to really look at what went wrong in the playoffs. Successful teams almost all have 3 big arms in the bullpen, and guys who can create runs in different ways. They have Marmol, and Samardzija might get there, but nobody's afraid of Gregg, and the Cubs are very beatable in the late innings. Plus, when Hendry dumped DeRosa, he gave up a guy with a .350 career playoff average and 1.022 playoff OPS. But D. Lee (.263/.678) Ramirez (.194/.732) and Soriano (.213/.562) are being counted on to produce when it matters. In two years with the Cubs, Soriano has a .107 average, and .245 OPS. The Cubs will win the division again, but unless they add some post-season performers they are going nowhere.

Jim in Arizona, you're right on. This team has no consistency, no chemistry, no actual teamwork. The players are not playing as a team, with everyone contributing to the game. Each player looks like he is out there playing by himself! Win the division title? We can't win 2 games in a row! Hendry's an idiot! During Sunday's game in St. Louis Lou was saying the bench was getting thin, we were in trouble if anyone else got hurt, etc. Damn right, our utility player is in Cleveland! I was never a huge DeRosa fan, but the old saying is true, you don't know what you got til it's gone. Aaron Miles doesn't show emotion, he's what I call a paycheck player- he doesn't care where he plays, just give him the paycheck!! Fontenot, Theriot, Johnson, and Hoffpaur(spelling?) are the only players that appear to be making an effort. They are talented guys, it's too bad that that talent is wasted on this year's team. Lee is spent, Soriano is crybaby, Bradley is a cancer to the team, Ramirez is fading, and Fukudome? Who knows?
I really do love my Cubs and will stay on this roller coaster ride but Jim is right-Cubs fans need to pray!

Richard Friedman wrote:

Lou will be out as manager by the second half. This team is going down, and Lou will not want to go there with it.

Yeah, right. Cubs hater or panicky Cubs fan?