So make a trade already
INDIANAPOLIS _ Hey look here, our old pal Andy MacPhail is up at the podium in the media workroom to announce his Baltimore Orioles have obtained pitcher Kevin Millwood from the Rangers. Who'd have thought ponderous old Andy would beat fidgety Jim Hendry to the punch here at the winter meetings?
Earlier today, the Yankees, Tigers and D'Backs were up there talking about their big three-way deal. Until then, you might as well have taken an ax to the podium and used it for firewood.
So here's what I'm thinking. Since Major League Baseball has a captive audience and since the sport's starving for some positive attention, every team should be required to make one trade at the winter meetings, even if it's a low-level prospect for a bag of batting-practice balls. Get every GM up to the podium at least once. Heck, I can even here Jim Hendry extol the virtues of that bag of baseballs he got for some A-ball kid (whose loss everybody on every message board would be lamenting).
It would probably go something like this: "Obviously, our scouts liked that bag of baseballs. Our scout, Stan Zielinski, gave us glowing reports. Obviously, we'd like this to lead to more things while we're here."
Something like that. Anything to create some sort of buzz to the winter meetings, which always seem to fall flat every year.
Speaking of not making trades, the Cubs still haven't moved Milton Bradley tonight, even as a new rumor arose of a possible trade to Boston, as absurd as that sounds:
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/
The story I've linked to states: "How Bradley would fare in the cramped quarters of Fenway Park would be interesting to observe. Sort of like watching somebody juggle hand grenades."
No way can I see Bradley dealing with the Boston fans or media, especially after he created a tough time in Chicago, where people seemed eager at first to embrace him. But stranger things have happened. But I still can't see this one.
Other members of the media were kidding the Chicago press corps for being "used" by the Cubs yesterday. They said the Cubs used us to generate interest in Bradley that might not be there. There's a lot of using and being used in the baseball team-media game. One thing is true: There does not appear to be a market for Bradley, and the Cubs are doing everything they can to create one or create the illusion of one.
As one contributor to our corner saloon pointed out earlier today, this is starting to look like Sammy Sosa in the winter of 2004-05. That went all the way until February, when the Orioles finally took Sosa and the Cubs signed Jeromy Burnitz.
The Rays are still my bet in this derby, but their people feel no great inclination to help the Cubs, and who could blame them? The Rays and other clubs ought to squeeze as many concessions as they can out of the Cubs, who must move Bradley.
The Cubs may or may not be active in the Rule 5 draft tomorrow morning. They took David Patton last year in deference to their scouts. Patton really didn't contribute much, and for a long time, he took up space on the roster and hampered manager Lou Piniella in some games. It's also possible the Cubs could lose a player or two. They lost pitcher Donnie Veal to the Pirates last year in the Rule 5.
Hendry tried to put that in a positive light.
"That's part of getting better," Jim said. "We protected five people (to the 40-man roster). There were a lot of clubs who protected less than that. I don't think too many more protected more than that. That's what you want. The better you get, the harder the decisions. Unfortunately, if you have a lot that have to go on (the 40-man), you take the risk of losing people. It doesn't mean you lose them for good."
Think of all the players he's traded & signed that are still on the team. How soon we forget. Yes being a GM is a Poker Game, other teams have GM's that make poor decisions, Angelo of the Bear here in Chicago is one of them. Minaya of the Mets with Oliver Perez, San Diego, Toronto with V.Wells, MacPhail when he was in Chicago, Yankees signing Pavano, Rockies signing Hampton and Neagle, W.Sox with Todd Ritchie, Dodgers with Pierre, and Blanton, Angels with Matthews Jr. Tampa Bay with Burrell, Tigers with Willis, San Francisco with Zitoand Rowland, St.Louis gambling with Holliday and DeRosa, Milwaukee losing Sabathia, Diamonbacks extending Chad Tracy, Oakland with Holliday, Seattle with Bedard and the 1st baseman I can't remeber his name. A lot
more then I can remeber. Where would the Cubs have been in 2007 & 2008 without
D.Lee, Lilly, Dempster, Reed Johnson, Harden. DeRosa. One big mistake is gone, Miles.
HOW SOON WE FORGET.
Bruce--
any insight on the rule 5 selection this morning? Is this another Patton situation where he rides the pine and hinders the manager or is there a better plan? A year off TJ surgery could mean a lot of time on the DL, but really? really want to go through that again? Is this the only deal the Cubs are going to be involved in this week?
Mark Riggins, who was with St. Louis and is the Cubs' minor-league pitching guy, likes Parisi. For now, it gives the Cubs inventory for spring training. The kid is supposed to have a good curveball. He pitched in the Arizona Fall League developing a cutter. He projects as a starter or long reliever. Way too early to say how this will shake out. The Cubs had a Rule 5 guy in camp a couple years ago in Tim Lahey, and they sent him back.
I read an update from Carrie Muskat that Tampa would rather have 1 year of Burrell instead of two years of Milton?
Bradley, however, may be of more use offensively to Tampa than Burrell. There's still a long ways to go here, and nothing is "out."
I did read that Tampa is insisting that the Cubs pay ALL of the second year (12 million) since the first year between Burrell and Bradley is almost a wash.
Do you think Tampa drops out, like reports claim, if they land Soriano from Atlanta?
That really doesn't sound like such a bad deal for the Cubs. Make the money a wash for 2010, and then Lee's $13M/yr contract is up after next season so they could just spend that on Bradley's final year with the Rays or whichever team they deal him to, and then make Hoffpauir or an upcoming prospect the new first baseman. It would be nice to make that happen with a usable part though instead of Burrell.
The Cubs don't seem to think that will be the case. They feel Tampa is in the talks for the long haul.
I understand needing to trade Milton. He is a cancer and for the most part has always been a cancer. However, so far this off-season we have moved almost a 1/3rd of the 25 man roster...Harden, Heilman, Gregg, Bradley, Fox, R. Johnson, and Miles. I understand that most of these guys were not huge contributors but that seems like a lot of turnover. Is it difficult to build a consistant team with this much turnover? These lower roster players are going to play an important part in next years team. How do we fill these positions if we are so close to our payroll limits? I just don't see a lot of in-house candidates?
It is evident that nobody wants Milton Bradley, if it costs them something. The two choices are to keep him or release him eating the whole salary. If we keep him....
1) Pinella makes a lot of money. Tell Lou he needs to make it work.
2) Keep Milton away from the media. Beat writers can't stand him. If Milton is not allowed to talk, he won't say anything offensive.
3) Ask team leaders to reconsider accepting him back on condition that Milton's interaction with team will be limited.
4) My two concerns at time of signing were defense and staying healthy. Milton did acceptable on those fronts last year.
5) Offensively, we need to view Bradley as a "run scorer" rather than a RBI man. Bat him leadoff or second in order. Last year, Bradley was second on team in OBP, and second in runs per at bat. He gets on base and scores. Lee and Ramirez might be able to live with him if it drives up their RBI totals.
Can we make it work?
But it's not going to happen. After all the posturing and seeing who blinks first and all that, the Cubs will trade him, and Tampa still seems to be the most likely destination. The two teams are still talking.
Bruce,
While on the subject of rumors, is there any truth to the story that Ricketts gave Hendry an ultimatum that he needed to deal Bradley before the meetings concluded without exceeding a certain cash threshold, and if he couldn't do it, he'd be re-assigned and Randy Bush would become interim GM? Wondering if that was part of the animated discussion you saw in the lobby a few days ago between Hendry and Crane Kenney.
That's absolutely not going to happen. As long as the Cubs' payroll is where it's supposed to be by Opening Day, that's fine with the owners. They can exceed it for a while, say, by adding a free agent before they trade Bradley. I'm told their discussion the other night was more about business matters, spring training and the like. Hendry is and will continue to be the GM.
I would think Ricketts would make a change in the Spring rather than in the middle of the off-season. Sure the Bradley situation is painful but firing the GM right now would make this a full blown disaster off-season.
Would the Cubs have to move Burrell, if that exchange still happens, in order to afford Cameron/Byrd?
The Ricketts family is not going to fire a GM who has three years left on his contract. If the season doesn't go well, then maybe afterward. It's possible they could keep Burrell and sign one of those guys.
That's the first I've heard of it.
The offseason is not over yet. What is up with all the doom and gloom? Relax a little. The Cubs are going to trade Bradley and going to sign some players. So it didn't happen yesterday. So what.
Nobody moved yesterday that we were going to get involved with. Cameron and Byrd are still out there. There are several pitchers left. There are plenty of relievers left.
I personally don't want Hendry to panic and give Bradley away for another bad player that we then have to try to move for months. NO ONE but Hendry knows what options he has been offered.
If the Red Sox are indeed sending 8 -9 million with Lowell to Texas for Max Ramirez, I would guess Hendry is probably going to have to do something similar for whatever team he deals with, but maybe Texas will turn around and use some of that money on Bradley. Who knows?
This is a Cubs blog! If you are around for very long you'll see that two things that are common are panic and ignorance.
Glad to see someone expressing some common sense. Thank you!
Bruce - Phil Rogers has an article (yeah, I know, it's Phil Rogers) that claims the Crane Kenney has already made the decision to move spring training to Florida. Do you think there's anything to that at all?
The Cubs are still playing the leverage game. That said, I believe Crane Kenney is hell bent on moving to Florida and will do everything he can to talk the Ricketts family into that. It will be a huge mistake. We'll get a gauge of how ruthless the Ricketts family wants to be here. Maybe they'll all come to their senses.
and no one has flinched yet.
I only hope this doesn't turn into the '04-'05 Sosa-Saga.
"I feel very sorry for Jim and his staff tonight. They have worked tirelessly trying to recoup as much of the loss of investment in a spoiled asset, as they could. The problem is that you only have a very short time after an investment in harvested fruit begins to spoil, to make "juice", be happy the loss wasn't greater, and move on to next year's crop!"
Is this a joke?
Jim Hendry has been given an open checkbook for the majority of his Cubs GM career.
Now that he has to actually perform like a MLB GM, he is hamstrung because of this ridiculous Bradley signing. I will guess that there was no other ML team that would have considered giving Bradley a 3 yr 30 mil deal. But Jim did. And why? Because they had a touching dinner date, which ended with Bradley telling Jim how much he wanted to be a Cub. Isn't that sweet? The biggest surprise is that Hendry didn't throw in a no trade clause.
The window has closed on this team. But Big Jim won't admit it because he is now in "save my job" mode.
I still have no idea how Jim Hendry has a job.
Why don't you read "feeling sorry". It applies to ignorant baseball critics like you!
forgot Soriano and Fukudome.
Perhaps a Japanese team would take Milton Bradley's contract. But then he would have to learn how to speak Japanese so the team and the fans could understand him when he complains. He could possibley hit .400 in their league. Or trade him for Burrell and sell him to Japan. Ha Ha just a thought.
Now THAT's an idea I could REALLY support!
Thanks for suggesting it, but the Japanese aren't stupid!
How about Siberia? Do they have a team?
Man we have a lot of money tied up in a team that I'm not very fired up about. Funny how it works though...maybe next year if Soriano plays like Soriano, Lee plays like Lee, Aramis plays like Aramis, Soto plays like Soto, and Zambrano pitches like Zambrano...bradley can trot out into right. Throwing the ball into the bleachers and head butting umps is funny and cute when you're up 7-1, not so much down 8-2. Oh, and those guys listed above have to play that way all year and never get hurt. Yup, enjoy the offseason.
So many people were guessing that Harden would cost the Cubs somewhere in the $10-12M range and yet he is signing with the Rangers for $6.5M plus a possible additional $3.5M in incentives. The deal reportedly includes a $11M option for 2011 or a $1M buyout. And he wanted to stay with the Cubs but they practically kicked him to the curb from the sounds of it. The SP looks like Z, Lilly, Dempster, Wells and Gorzellany with Lilly likely not to be available for the first month or so of the season. And if one of those guys gets hurt, the reinforcements are Marshall and Samardzija....gulp.
let's see we traded for Granderson to play CF, signed Figgins to lead off and play 2nd. who else can we get?
He really has a base of $3M with incentives that can take it to $6.5M total for 2010. There's a mutual option for $11M for 2011 with a $1M buyout. So he's guaranteed $4M and a possible $7.5M for 2010, which includes the buyout.
Rich Harden rhp
1 year/$7.5M (2010), plus 2011 mutual option
signed by Texas as a free agent 12/10/09
10:$6.5M, 11:$11M mutual option ($1M buyout)
$3.5M in performance bonuses based on innings pitched
http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2005/01/texas-rangers.html
I thought I saw somewhere that the innings pitched is like 202 innings.
Keep in mind that the Cubs would have gone to arbitration with Harden and, based on history, he would have received a number larger than the 6.5 base he rec'd on the contract with the Rangers. He made 7 million last year.
...would have settled before arbitration for maybe $10M at most (Cubs would have offered $7M and if Harden's salary request was any higher than $13M the Cubs more than likely could have gone to arbitration and won considering the off year that Harden had) or they would have gotten a draft pick if Harden turned down arbitration. The fact that Harden took less to go pitch with Texas is a pretty good indication that he wasn't looking to break the bank, and he reportedly wanted to pitch for the Cubs again next year.
Great point......I don't get it. He really must have some huge arm issues in those medical reports, that only the teams see.
I was also very excited to see that Lou pretty much called out Zambrano saying that "the kid should approach 20 wins every year with the stuff he has."
This team is in trouble. I think as of now, you have to put the over/under at 84 wins. Maybe less.
Hopefully if the Cubs don't make some significant improvements and find themselves hanging at or below the .500 mark again, they will be able to recognize early enough that they are not going anywhere, so they can make some deals before the trading deadline. They do have a couple very solid players in the final year of their contracts (Lee, Lilly) that would be valuable trading chips, and they might even find a taker for Fukudome if he has a good first four months. He'd only have one full year left on his contract so he wouldn't represent much of a risk for a trading partner. Lee does have the no-trade clause, but given the chance to go to a contender if the Cubs are flailing, I have to believe he'd waive it.
What value is Crane Kenney adding to the equation right now? He seems better suited overseeing a yacht club's financials than those of a major league baseball team. To me it seems like he is just along for the ride and isn't the guy Tom Ricketts needs in his ear or Hendry needs to worry about keeping happy.
Other than installing a skating rink in the Wrigley parking lot so a group fresh off a Saturday bar crawl can lace up the skates, break some bones and then sue the Cubs...
Do they really have the ability to sign someone else before moving Bradley, as Hendry indicated? Or is he just trying to save face?
One thing is true: There does not appear to be a market for Bradley, and the Cubs are doing everything they can to create one or create the illusion of one.
when I asked if that was the case a few weeks ago?
but if Bradley really must be traded, the Cubs might as well eat that 2011 portion of his contract. They have some money coming off the books next year and a whole year to work on it.
Personally, with what has been reported to date, trading for Burrell and keeping him on the bench isn't a terrible option. Chances are they'd have to pay to move him anyway, right? So why not use him off the bench as a pinch-hitter and backup when Soriano goes down or if Lee gets hurt? It's not ideal of course, but ideal went out the window the day they suspended him.
I really didn't expect the Ricketts family to come in and raise the payroll to $175 million, but so far it looks like business as usual. I'm sorry Tom, but screw your updates to Wrigley Field, put the money into payroll NOW. If this team doesn't win, people will stop coming no matter what changes you make to the bathrooms and concession stands.
I love watching games at Wrigley but I wish the damn thing would crumble to the ground. There is absolutely no winning tradition in the place so why do people care so much about it.
The guy just spent $800 million. Money might be a little tight.
People will stop coming? hahaha, no chance. Ever.
lol
"(whose loss everybody on every message board would be lamenting)."
lol, so true!
Figured I'd toss that one out there just for fun.
I feel very sorry for Jim and his staff tonight. They have worked tirelessly trying to recoup as much of the loss of investment in a spoiled asset, as they could. The problem is that you only have a very short time after an investment in harvested fruit begins to spoil, to make "juice", be happy the loss wasn't greater, and move on to next year's crop!
Great businessmen, presumably like Tom Ricketts and Crane Kenny should realize this, whether a baseball man like Jim Hendry does or not. It's OK to have a budget. It's even OK to decide that you want to raise or lower it. That's a privilege of ownership. But to buy the Cubs and not know the value of the assets is stupid.
The assets of the Cubs franchise go far beyond the walls of Wrigley, or the sum of the 40 man and minor league rosters. The assets of other teams may be more limited to those areas, but NOT the Cubs. The Ricketts seemed to know they were purchasing a "brand", but their early actions tell a completely different story. The Cubs are not just "a" brand, they are a National or even INTERnational brand, the value of which is largely in the very active and very vocal worldwide fan base, that lives and breathes Chicago Cubs baseball, and purchase the tickets, the concessions, the souvenirs and all of the advertised products associated with the Cubs. There are Tens, if not Hundreds, of thousands of VERY unhappy Cub fans tonight!
We were all looking forward to seeing the new regime in action, especially after the ham-handed efforts of Sam Zell, et al to run the Cubs. This bungled winter meeting is just one more part of an embarrassing beginning for the Ricketts family. The lack of action toward getting the new regime off to a good start with Cub fans is a TOTAL disaster; and the "family" can only blame themselves, along with Crane Kenney, who seems more interested in kissing Tom's a** and building his own base of operations and influence than in contributing to building a new winning tradition for the Cubs.
True, it was Jim that negotiated the contract with Bradley, but this weekend goes WAY beyond the socially inept Milton Bradley. But lets not forget the pressure put on Jim to get the rarest of baseball commodities (a LH hitting middle of the order bat w/power)(and even rarer still when limiting that player to two positions), when he had a VERY poor field of Free Agents to choose from. If he couldn't work a trade for one that was suited to play in Wrigley, he should have just passed. But in not wanting to disappoint Lou, at least Jim and his staff did everything possible to check out Bradley, and his past team's management & players, before deciding that he might be worth the risk. What's Tom's excuse? Obviously he didn't know what his family was buying, or at the very least, they were woefully financially UNprepared to operate the team the first year, knowing (or they SHOULD have known) that there were going to be extra costs associated with correcting current problems and setting the "Ricketts" course to consistent winning baseball for the Cubs. Regardless of Jim's attempts to cover for the new owners, he couldn't go forward with much of anything until one spoiled asset was disposed of.
Bradley insulted the Cubs, Cubs fans, the game of baseball, the city of Chicago & his teammates, and if MLB actually had a REAL commissioner who was REALLY acting in the best interests of the game, he would have called Bradley on the carpet himself, and when he couldn't back up his insulting remarks, he should have been suspended from the game and his contract voided, and see if an arbitrator had the guts to overturn him. That would have at least solved the Bradley part of this embarrassing start, but it goes beyond that.
One of the very first actions of the Ricketts family apparently is to slap thousands of retired Cubs fans in the face.... who have retired to the Phoenix area, and invested in homes there, so they could be near the Cubs Spring Training camp. I can assure anyone that wants to question me, that most of their investments in those homes, whether year round or just winter, represents a much higher percentage of their total assets than purchasing the Cubs is to the Ricketts! If that decision hasn't already been made, then they should be awarded the Acadamy award for acting in their endeavors to wring every last dollar from the folks in Mesa and the State of Arizona. You haven't seen any articles about the "family" wanting to invest in the Mesa Wrigleyville West, have you?
And what happened to "what's best for the players" as a basis for deciding between Florida and Mesa? There is no way to justify a move to Florida, if the impact on the players is truly first. The migration of MLB teams from Florida to the Phoenix area should be testimony enough for any bright businessman. But then, maybe being "bright" or not isn't the factor that matters. Phil Rogers' column asserts that there are kickbacks to be gained by moving the team to Florida. If that is correct, I'll bet those kickbacks aren't earmarked for player air travel between Florida Spring Training sites!
Suddenly, this "good ole boys" family of Wrigley bleacherites, is acting like the spoiled children of a wealthy aristocrat, instead of someone that worked his way to the top, when they should have been prepared with some EXTRA cash for THIS year to level the playing field for Jim and his staff to operate from a clean slate instead of having to operate while carrying the results of the old ownership regime on their backs!
Your first paragraph lost me. You feel sorry for Hendry? Why? He got the Cubs into this mess. Someone gave him an unlimited budget and he exceeded it -- on crap. Now the team is forced to live with (and pay for) his mistakes.
After seeing what teams are offering for Bradley, I'm all for releasing him. Maybe he (and his agents) will agree to $15 million for his release. Then he can negotiate with anyone who'll have him. Better this than Pat Burrell.
At this point the last person I feel sorry for is Bradley, so I could care less what happens to him, as long as it doesn't affect the Cubs beyond paying him off, but THAT is a large part of my point.
As far as blaming Hendry for Bradley instead of feeling sorry for him, now that is the most classless and ignorant of all. The problem began with a failure on the part of nearly the whole of general GM thinking at that time, which was to accumulate as many POWER "stars" as possible and let them carry the team over the top, because that had become the "norm" of successful franchises for several years, especially after 1998. And it was what the fans wanted to pay to see, and largely still is.
This had taken away from the standard thinking on which the game itself was based, ie: TEAM baseball...get em on....get em over...get em in offense, sound D, and great pitching. It may be boring, but that is still the most tried and true road to success, because that's how the game was designed to be played. In the early years of the game, the fans got excited about great defensive plays, not hitting or pitching.
Jim was suddenly "handed the checkbook" so to speak by an ownership stupid enough in terms of knowledge of the game, to think that you can suddenly turn on success with a few more stars instead of building the team for success, and that latter, though easy to say, is hard to do, because it encompasses so many obstacles to be overcome with the acquisition of EACH player in the process...just as one example:, how one player's talent could be just the thing to put a team over the top, but whose social ineptitude could destroy a team's chemistry and lead to less, rather than more, success.
What was Jim going to say to ownership? Thanks, but no Thanks!!!!! Ownership was pushing for success NOW, because they were trying to INSTANTLY bump up the value of a franchise they were preparing to sell.
And what if this had occurred a year earlier or later? Soriano wouldn't have been available and Jim would have more freedom and more choices. The sheer timing of the thing had an ENORMOUS effect on the outcome because it dictated who was available. All Jim did was continue current thinking and choose the best from those available. The same thing with Bradley. The Cubs needed a LH hitting RF with some power to hit in the middle of the lineup. Now that is a hard to come by commodity in the first place, but to throw out the corner infielders and the weak throwing outfielders, and narrow the choice even further and THEN expect that order to be filled immediately is again stupid on the part of the people that expected him to be able to do that. His choices, dictated by timing, not Jim, were Dunn, a born DH, who has enough trouble as it is in LF, let alone the hardest to play RF in the Majors; Abreu, who is literally afraid to catch anything close to a normal wall or fence. let alone a brick one in a small park where MANY of the catches are close to the wall; and Bradley, a sometimes malcontent, often injured, but seemingly now healthy, Switch Hitting DH/RF, coming off a career year in which he hit over 320, hit more than 20 HRs and led the majors in OBP and who had played all over the OF but mainly CF because of his good D, speed and good arm.
It's pretty easy to see why he chose Bradley to concentrate on; but he did all the homework that could be expected of ANY GM, and determined that he was the only choice other than just don't sign anyone. And just how do you think you and others like you would have judged Jim if he had left this team, that was so close to success, without that LH bat to start the season? And don't try and insult my intelligence, or that of other fans, by suggesting that your attitude would have been any different that it is now! And what would Jim have been able to say to soothe Lou, or to explain it to a baseball ignorant ownership, or a d*!^@d attorney of a boss, that hired a priest to remove a non-existent curse?
After the fact, there are so MANY wannabe GMs coming out of the woodwork, INCLUDING sportswriters, who by NOW ought to know better, jumping on Jim's back as if they would have done a single thing differently under the same circumstances, it makes me SICK to my stomach.
Of course I feel sorry for Jim and his staff! They worked hard and only get a "kick in the teeth" from ignorant fans for their trouble.
I'm sure if you did some searching online you could come up with plenty of Cubs fans who didn't agree with the Bradley signing.
"It's pretty easy to see why he chose Bradley to concentrate on; but he did all the homework that could be expected of ANY GM, and determined that he was the only choice other than just don't sign anyone. And just how do you think you and others like you would have judged Jim if he had left this team, that was so close to success, without that LH bat to start the season?"
Surrrrre.....he did his homework. A player who, I believe, had played on 6 different teams and had problems in just about all of his stops. Or as you so eloquently put it "sometimes malcontent". Yea the timing was just terrible.....Hendry ran out and couldn't wait to fill that coveted LH role with Bradley. And check the stats from Dunn, Abreu and Ibanez and also checked when they signed. If I'm not mistaken, it was well after Hendry was wowed at dinner. A player so great that the Cubs will now have to eat just about all that remains on his contract just to try and trade him.
And how do you define a team "that was so close to success"? Did you miss the playoff sweeps? And last years results?
And probably a better way to judge a player before you sign him is not to go by a career year prior to free agency. But maybe I'm just an "ignorant fan" so what do I know.
Enjoy the Cub Convention, BroLight
Here's a suggestion...Why don't you begin by checking your facts and dates.
I wasn't "for" the signing of Bradley either. I was hoping for Ibanez, but he signed early, while Hendry was still doing that "homework"! That left Dunn, Abreu, Bradley or Nada!
I would have settled for Nada, and played Hoffpauir in RF, but then "I" wasn't going to have to work with Lou or answer to Sam Zell through Crane Kenney, either.
As for the "homework" which you seem to doubt....if you can't remember, and apparently you can't or you hadn't learned to read yet, there were plenty of published articles in the Chicago papers and on the Cubs MLB website about the people Jim talked to and the endorsements given by these people, including the manager in Texas and Billy Beane in Oakland. Most of the people had opinions much like Kenny Williams' statement this week, in fact. But Omniscient Matt from Peoria knew better than professional managers and GMs! Right Matt?
"so close to success" is being in the playoffs! About half the time they are NOT won by the better team, but by the one that is playing the best at that time! You don't abandon playoff caliber teams or tear them up and start over. You try to make them better, as Jim tried to do.
The trouble with "career years" is that you don't know that they are until that career is OVER. But it does represent a positive direction AND give a huge clue as to what is possible from that player...
And you are right, your statements prove it. You are one of the "ignorant fans"!
I think both would have been better choices...to say no one was available is not correct.