’Nuff said.

and it’s not because of Bradley.

Yes, he didn’t do a very good job building this team but had Soriano and Ramirez been healthy I think the team would have won the division. Yes the Cardinals are good but they only got good after making trades.

Had Soriano and Ramirez played like they should the Cubs would have been so far in the lead that the Cards wouldn’t have gone for the trades they did.

Hendry also built two teams that went to the post season. I’m only 26 so I haven’t suffered as long as many of you but I’ve really enjoyed seeing the Cubs in October with my dad even if they loss. I have no doubt in my lifetime I’ll see them win a World Series. Hopefully sooner than later.

My point is…if you’re only evaluating 2009 then Hendry might have to go even if there were circumstances out of his hands. If you’re evaluating his job based on all of his years working with the team, he deserves to keep his job one more year.

But Hendry is a bad GM.

I thought signing Bradley was a bad idea, but it’s not as though anyone could have predicted the mediocre playing as opposed to the massive number of games missed. So it’s not as though one can oust Hendry simply on the grounds of signing Bradley.

But. Hendry seems to have no idea how to build a team. He is very good at acquiring players, specifically players he covets. But he is prone to tunnel vision, and fails to see the move 3 moves down the road.

This is not to say that Hendry hasn’t made good moves, because he has. Ramirez, Lee, Lilly, Soriano (good but overpaid), Gorzo, Karros, Grudz, Howry, Eyre, Harden, Edmonds. All good moves.

And all GMs are to be forgiven for trades and signings that just don’t work out. Nobody can really blame Hendry for what happened with Nomar, for example. Looked good at the time, but just didn’t pan out.

But it cannot be defended when he makes moves that are so clearly dumb from the minute it occurs. A good GM wouldn’t over value Juan Pierre for one year, a good GM wouldn’t think that Marquis was worth $21 million over 3 years after coming off a really terrible year (I was fine with signing Marquis, but anything more than $15 for 3 years was just moronic). A good GM doesn’t hand the reigns of 2B to a part time role player in Fontenot, and in turn deal a cheap and productive DeRosa for 3 coin flips (at best). Miles, Gathright, Bako, all just total wastes of cash that should have been obvious before the ink was dry on the contracts.

Good GMs will make mistakes. But good GMs will rarely make moves that are so obviously terrible. It’s one thing to overpay for Zito and have him inexplicably fall off a cliff, but it’s something else entirely to give Aaron Miles a dime more than $1 million a year.

His job is to write interesting columns, so I guess he’s successful. But calling the Ramirez signing a mistake? Not giving Hendry credit for good signings — Lee, Lilly, even (I’ll say it) Marquis?

All that said, Hendry had a horrible offseason, and I can see why someone would call for his head. I don’t agree — yet — but I think Jimbo needs to make a mea culpa before too long.