Hendry's Master Plan....is there one?

… in my book was a good trade.

(1) By dealing DeRosa, you trimmed the payroll enough to basically get two lefty hitters in your lineup: LBR and Gameboard,
(2) Defense at 2nd base has improved from a -4 to a +3 (I think I got those numbers right),
(3) At age 34, we traded DeRosa high before his walk year,
(4) DeRosa will likely not repeat his 2008 numbers,
(5) While DeRosa played a super-sub role, he really wasn’t ever ticketed for that role – he was the Cubs everyday 2nd baseman. Miles will be that super-sub, and is coming in with the knowledge of fulfilling that role (as opposed to DeRosa fulfilling the role of a 2B),
(6) We supposedly received at least one pitcher back in that trade that could be used in a Peavy deal – only time will tell.

This was a 7 player deal remember. Olsen, Marshall, Vitters, and Cedeno were all part of it. I don’t see any way of pulling this off now

Heilman could take Marshall role in the bullpen? Use Marshall in the trade.

Sometimes, there is no bigger plan.

… until we have a disposition on Peavy. Regardless of what anyone says here, this has not been resolved yet…

The 08 team was very fortunate, in that it benefitted from several career years, not to mention taking on Bradley after his own career year-so they would have to repeat or exceed those for the 09 team to be better, or other players will have to have similar breakthroughs

Say what you will about the trade, but DeRosa is a better player than Miles, our CF combo has less power, our RF is more injury prone, our 5th starters are unproven and our bullpen is in flux

we will benefit from a weak division, which will allow us to get to the play offs, it is what we can accomplish there that matters. are we better now for October, hard to say.

If he rebounds, especially w/r/t power, the offense could be improved.
If his career decline continues, the team could be in trouble.

There is no doubt that CF will be substantially less productive this year. I sincerely doubt that we have another 135 OPS+ season in store with Dome and Reed and Gathright.

It’s a given that RF will be improved, as Dome was just horrific last year.

It’s likely, but not a given, that 2B will be less productive. DeRosa had a career year, and even he would be likely to regress. Fontenot can hit, so we’ll have to see how he does playing every day.

We all hope that Soto improves as he enters his prime, but we can’t expect another giant leap forward like he showed last year. For better or worse, Theriot is going to be Theriot. Aramis is going to be Aramis, and Soriano is going to be Soriano.

The wild card is Lee. He could be a plus offensive player, or he could be a gigantic drag on the team.

Bradley + Fontenot > Fukudome + Derosa

most were bitching because Walker was on the outs and DeRosa was coming in to replace him.

L B R

as an “experienced baseball man?”

that it is plenty easy to say we need to go out and get a “baseball mind.” Things were much different for the Hawks. Rocky Wirtz changed the entire way that the franchise operated. McDonough came in and shook things up as well. With the Cubs, there is a lot more uncertainty about the way that the team will operate in the short-term future, both because of the economy and the ownership issues. Who knows if it would be as easy to put such a “baseball mind” in place.

… Sweet Lou would refuse to play him. I’d rather play Gathright then have a 24-man roster.

… but they didn’t want him.

… a little further down, Olney thinks it will happen.

Let’s just wait and see.

where you get the logic for this sort of post.

…KT is laughing. He likely is updating his resume…

Why would he care what Jim Hendry, who as any baseball fan knows has a much better baseball team that Kevin Towers does, is up to?

Moving foward, the Cubs don’t NEED Jake Peavy to be contend. In it’s own backhanded way, Hendry showed that today.