Hendry "has never traded away a prospect worthy of any real value in the end?" I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I tend to think Dontrelle Willis ended up having quite a bit of value "in the end." (You said nothing about the prospect's perceived value at the time of the trade itself.)

I think you nail the Eyre and Howry signings for the jokes that they are (too much for too long for middle relief), you fail to mention the most unforgiveable parts of the Niefi and Jones signings. Perez will be weakly grounding to the middle infield in 2007 for $2.5 million, and Jones will be posting a negative MLVR into '08. Not only has this been a 'treading water' offseason for the Cubs, it has put a serious dent in their playoff chances for the years to come. And nobody will be able to blame Derreck Lee when he heads for free agency after this year's 75 win season.

How can you say Hendry is one of the top 5 GMs when he's done virtually nothing to improve the team by any measure? I don't see any big signings or big trades that actually DID anything for the Cubs.

How bout Hendry even considering offers to trade Prior. That would be the biggest joke in the world considering he will likely attain 3 or 4 cy youngs once rocket and carpenter finally go

Billy Beane, Brian Sabean, John Schuerholz, Walt Jocketty, Brian Cashman. That's your top 5 GMs in the game (in no particular order).

Bryan--
"Hendry stayed creative during the ensuing winter"

He did? Which creative move did he make in the 2004/05 off-season? Signing Scott Williamson and Chad Fox, both worthwhile deals, for me just doesn't deserve the "creative" label being applied to the poor off-season Hendry had.

Bryan--
"And with Todd Walker still on the Cub roster, retaining Grudzi would have simply been a lost cause."

The Cubs declined the option on Mark Grudzielanek on October 28th 2004. On the same day, both Todd Walker and Mark Grudzielanek filed for free agency, as was their right. Todd Walker re-signed with the Cubs on December 7th, the same day as Nomar Garciaparra. Mark Grudzielanek signed with the Cardinals on January 6th.

In other words, it wasn't a case at all of the Cubs deciding to let Grudzielanek go because Todd Walker was already on the club. No, the front office had a decision to make. They made one, and in my opinion it was the right one. But they had the option of going either way.

"Curiously, two weeks later, the Cubs then gave Neifi Perez a one-year deal to stay in Chicago."

They gave him a one-year deal worth an expensive $1m, with an extra $1.5m available in incentives should he end up with a starting shortstop's playing time. It wasn't a deal anyone should have had a problem with, a good few hundred thousand dollars too much aside. Late inning defensive replacement Neifi Perez, there's nothing too wrong as such with giving him the last spot on the roster.

The problem wasn't the deal itself. The first problem was that the Cubs already had a twentiefth man on the roster in Jose Macias, if that doesn't overstate the Gremlin's talents. Neifi Perez as the last man on the roster is just about acceptable, though not at $1m. Neifi Perez as the last but one man on the roster, not so much. Macias should have been cut. He wasn't good at hitting, he wasn't good at fielding, he wasn't good at baserunning, he wasn't good at anything whatsoever besides being able to play a wide variety of positions with equal incompetence. Hendry had the chance to non-tender him on December. Instead he offered him a one-year deal worth exactly $825,000 too much.

The second problem was that the Cubs failed miserably in restricting Neifi Perez to the late inning defensive replacement that never picked up a bat role in which he would have contributed something to the team. Even prior to Todd Walker going down injured on April 10th, Neifi Perez was already being used as the first bat off the bench. Perez then started semi-regularly at second base until Garciaparra followed Walker to the DL ten days later, and then there was no getting him out of the lineup the rest of the season.

In truth, things at first worked out well for the Cubs. As late as June 5th, when Neifi was miraculously hitting .325/.348/.485. But from that point on, Neifi would hit .247/.271/.328 the rest of the season, including .150/.181/.175 up until June 28th, the date that the amazingly hot and somewhat talented Ronny Cedeno was recalled from Iowa. There was the Cubs' big chance to make the switch, to install Cedeno as the starting shortstop and confine Neifi Perez to the bench once again, preferably to just being a late inning defensive replacement. They blew it. Cedeno warmed the bench, and Neifi's sucktitude knew no bounds.

"Henry Blanco was given a two-year, guaranteed deal to take over the back-up catching spot. No great shakes, but hardly a damning move."

But all the same entirely typical of Hendry, who simply cannot help himself when it comes to poor to mediocre players and giving them too much money, sometimes spread over two years rather than one. Neifi Perez, Jose Macias, Henry Blanco, Todd Hollandsworth, a bench like that and it's no surprise that the injuries hit especially hard.

"Many of the reasons for this decision, Cubs' brass says, is related to an undefined off-the-field incident."

I'm not sure if the Cubs have ever themselves specifically referred to the rumoured incident with Jae Kuk Ryu as factoring into their decision for letting Andy Sisco go. I highly doubt it. What you can say though, because Hendry has gone on record as saying so himself, is that the Cubs were disappointed enough in Sisco on and off the field that they thought it would set a bad precedent to purchase his contract, as the Cubs have moved towards using addition to the 40-man roster as an incentive and reward kind of thing. Personally, I think that's a very poor way of doing things.

However, it's difficult to believe that Sisco would have achieved as much as quickly had he stayed with the Cubs, who had good reason to be disappointed with him. His weight had ballooned to over 300 pounds, he was lazy, and there were enough reports of him being a tough guy to put up with in the clubhouse that it's probably safe to conclude that there was some element of truth behind them. Had the Cubs protected Sisco, limiting him to not ending the season any higher than at Double-A short of him going Rich Hill on everyone, it's hard to imagine he'd have approached the game from the 2004/05 off-season onwards with the same lease of life, enthusiasm and dedication that he did end up showing once the Cubs had given him a rude awakening and the Royals a tangible shot at the Major Leagues, all within the space of a week or two. In many ways, the Rule 5 draft was the best thing that could have happened to him.

"The Cubs traded Sosa to the Baltimore Orioles for Jerry Hairston, Mike Fontenot and Dave Crouthers. The Cubs were criticized for not maximizing value, but retrospectively, acquiring more than a bag of baseball's for Sosa is a positive."

They deserved every single bit of criticism they got and more for not maximising Sosa's value. They spent an entire winter trash-talking an asset, then were surprised when the best they were offered was a good utility player, a whatever second base prospect and a retired pitcher. In retrospect, certainly, they improved their lot by doing so, they saved $3.85m, ended up with Burnitz and Hairston instead of Sosa, had Fontenot in the system, but that's besides the point. They could have done so much better.

Besides, it's not as if Burnitz and Hairston were any great shakes, hitting a combined .258/.328/.409 while primarily playing the corner outfield positions, where the National League average last year was .271/.347/.457. Certainly, Sosa hit a pathetic .221/.295/.376, and he could easily have been just as bad in Chicago, even if the Cubs front office never had publicly slandered his name and turned the fanbase against him. But just about nobody expected he'd be that bad (even those that wanted rid of him expected he'd hit his 600th home run this year, for instance), and it's completely illogical to defend the deal and the sequence of events that led to it on the basis of what wasn't known and couldn't be reasonably expected at the time.

"a weird triangle of going from Dubois to Jody Gerut to Matt Lawton to nothing in the matter of weeks. While Matt Murton seems to be the best player of the bunch, safely secured on the Cubs roster, it's very confusing to understand why Hendry did this."

Dubois to Gerut was a good move. I've already let Hendry have it for the awful Gerut to Lawton move. Lawton to Justin Berg was a good move. The second sentence I don't fully understand, but Hendry's reasonings are relatively simple: he'd seen enough of Dubois to think he'd never hit major league pitching, he wrongly thought that a Matt Lawton rental would be able to resurrect a team that he'd wrongly taken to be still alive, and he wanted to get something for Lawton as opposed to nothing.

"Simply put, [Furcal's decision] was devastating to the Cubs, who then were willing to accept Ronny Cedeno as an everyday player. Oh, and they are bringing back Neifi as well, just in case Dusty needs his veteran fix during the season."

The Cubs might have thought it devastating, but I was rooting for Furcal to join the Dodgers, and I strongly believe the Cubs will find themselves a lot better off, in the long-term especially, for having been scorned by him. His bat is very decent, his glove is spectacular but not always reliable, he has fine speed: is that the kind of player that deserves a five year commitment that would make him, at the time of the deal at least, the highest paid player on the roster? I'll take my chances with Cedeno. Of course, doing that would commit me to finding a lot better a bat for right field than Jacque Jones - personally I can't see any good reason to expect that he'll be better than Burnitz was last year.

"In the end, the fact that Chicago received even two players for Patterson is worth trading him."

I really don't follow that logic. At all. Corey Patterson is 279 plate appearances removed from two full seasons' worth of Major League success with the bat (.277/.321/.470 in 1236 plate appearances, 2003 through May 30th 2005), he plays very good defence at a premium defensive position, has useful speed, and is still just 26. Are the chances of a rebound so minute that we're better off with Nate Spears, Carlos Perez and $2.5m? If so, why then did Hendry spent the rest of the winter splurging draft picks, prospects and millions too much on far less talented players to fill out the rest of the roster?

"Jim Hendry has never traded away a prospect worthy of any real value in the end."

As already pointed out, Dontrelle Willis. It happened while McPhail was still General Manager, but Hendry made the trade. It's also too early to write off Hee-Seop Choi, Juan Cruz, Francis Beltran and Justin Jones, and I think Hendry will end up handsomely losing the Juan Pierre trade.

And I really don't believe that a top five trader handles the Sammy Sosa situation as poorly as Hendry did last winter, publicly dragging the reputation of his own player through the mud while simultaneously trying to trade him. Can you name me another General Manager that has run a public smear campaign to try and move a player and had it actually work out better that way?

mike a.: brian sabean at #2? why?

and how about some love for mark shapiro?

(nevermind the #2 bit- i noticed you didn't put them in order, but i don't see why sabean is a top-5 guy)

Hawk and the Joneses:

I don't fellow every move the Cubs make, but it seems to me he has batched two of the moves related to former Twins players and he may live to regret giving away the talent he did on a third.

He gave LaTroy Hawkins closer money even though Hawkins had proven beond a doubt that he could not handle the closer role. Hawkins continued to proove what almost every scout knew, and the Cubs had to basically give him away to dump his salary.

He signed Jacques Jones for more money and years than he needed to considering that no other team offered anything close to what the Cubs offered. It's debatable whether Burnitz is a better player, but he could have had him for one year, leaving room for Pie in '07.

And Justin Jones is ready for a breakout season in AA. He's no Liriano, but his career could take a similar course. A highly regarded prospect until a series of nagging injuries derailed two consecutive minor league seasons. He finally got healthy in the second half last year and became the ace of a staff at Fort Myers that included Anthony Swarzak, Jay Rainville, and Adam Harben.

And Sabean does not belong in the top 5, (neither does Cashman). I would rank them thus:

Shuerholz, Shapiro, Ryan, Beane, Jocketty.

John Schuerholz, Mark Shapiro, Billy Beane, Theo Epstein and Walt Jocketty would be my top five, in that order, with Terry Ryan sixth.

I really don't understand how anyone can think anything of Brian Sabean any more, yet alone place him in their top five. As for Brian Cashman, he's either incompetent or his influence in the running of the Yankees is so insignificant that he's only a "General Manager" in name, and therefore obviously shouldn't qualify for a list of the top five General Managers, or he's both incompetent and powerless. One of the three, and I don't think any of them recommend him at all.

"He gave LaTroy Hawkins closer money even though Hawkins had proven beond a doubt that he could not handle the closer role. Hawkins continued to proove what almost every scout knew, and the Cubs had to basically give him away to dump his salary."

Hawkins' contract was $9m/3yrs, rising to $13.35m/3yrs if performance related bonuses linked almost entirely to Games Finished were met. I don't really know if that classes as closer money, and, even if it does, the fact that he paid him closer money doesn't necessarily mean that he intended for him to close.

Indeed, I can tell you quite unequivocably that he didn't intend for him to close at all. At the time Hawkins was signed, Joe Borowski had ninth inning duties all nailed down, or so it seemed, and Hawkins was signed to be a setup man, and it's my guess that the performance related bonuses were only included at Hawkins' request, a safeguard lest Borowski be completely ineffective and the Cubs should decide to move him into the closer's role.

As it turned out, Borowski never pitched like he did in 2002 and 2003 again, and Hawkins was indeed moved into the closer's role before too, primarily for a lack of alternatives. It's highly likely that Hendry was never particularly keen on the idea, particularly as Hendry, before the 2005 season, was a vocal candidate for Ryan Dempster becoming the closer. Dusty Baker though openly insisted upon Dempster beginning the year in the rotation, and, again mostly by default, Hawkins was pushed to the fore in the bullpen once again.

And, in fairness to Hendry, even if you want to hold all the above against Hendry anyway, even though I don't think that's at all justified, he then managed to turn around, tell Brian Sabean that you don't win anything with kids, and convince the poor guy to part with Jerome Williams and David Aardsma for Hawkins. Aardsma looks a good bet to be a bust, and the ridiculous thing is, as Bryan observed, that the trade was and absolutely still is an absolutely magnificent one for the Cubs, for Jerome Williams alone. Over the winter the Giants meanwhile very quietly exchanged LaTroy Hawkins for Steve Kline. Williams or Kline? Interesting choice, Mr Sabean. But the wrong one.

Once again, 98 years and counting, the Cubs simply suck donkey balls.

The "creativity" you speak of may have been Epstein's.I think Hendry nodded and said yes after conferring with G Little...That trade has the Theo MO all over it...

I couldn't agree more about the Hawkins for Williams & Aardsma. I also agree with a comment above saying that Neifi isn't a problem except we already had Macias. Really, our entire bench was horrendous last season with Macias, Blanco, Hollandsworth, Grieve, and co. coming in as pinch hitters. I still can't figure out how Macias has been a big leaguer for as long as he has. Yeah, he can switch hit but it doesn't do much good if he's hitting sub-.250 from both sides.

oh, and Matt Murton is going to be a star

Brian Sabean isn't even a top 10 GM, but it's hard to rank executives since there's so much turnover.

I'd say the top 5 GM's in the game (in no order) are Brian Cashman, Theo Epstein, Billy Beane, Mark Shapiro, and John Schuerholz, with Bill Stoneman, Omar Minaya, Larry Beinfest, Doug Melvin close. I don't list Hendry near these folks.

He would also sign Jeremy Burnitz that day to fill Sosa's spot, and while Burnitz outplayed Sosa during the 2006 season,

2006 season's in the past tense already? You also misspelled Hollandsworth, & wilted.

Three years, to two very mediocre relievers!

Howry's mediocre?

That left only right field on the shopping list, for which Hendry filled with Jacque Jones. I was a backer of this trade, where most other people I have spoken to hate the deal.

Jones is a groundball hitter moving from the fast turf of Minnesota to the slow infield dirt of Wrigley. And he's in his early 30s. This could get ugly.

Was Hendry GM when the Willis trade went down? I know he was GM in the next off-season but forget if he was then.

I really think that you are missing the big picture here.

The cubs have tremendous financial resources and by far the most forgiving fan base in sports. Their fans can't throw their money at the team fast enough, no matter how poor the product is.

Therefore, the cubs payroll should be far more than what it is. Hendry has some culpability here.

Secondly, the cubs division and the entire national league for that matter, is weak and entirely winnable.

Hendry has no excuses for this team not making the playoffs more often or for having a losing season last year. Considering him among the best GM's is a joke.

It seems more than a little ridiculous to hold Hendry responsible for the Cubs payroll. Talk to ownership, not the GM. With such a forgiving fan base, if you're truly interested in maximizing revenue, you cut payroll rather than spend like a drunken sailor. The Cubs are solidly in the top 1/3 of teams as far as spending.

That said, I don't know how you consider Hendry top five after the last couple winters. There's more to being a sucessful GM than coming out on top on trades, and Hendry's decisionmaking in other arenas -- his roster construction, his penchant to spend excess money on the margins, the continual granting of excess-length contracts for marginal players -- has begun to outweigh his trade wizardry. The Cubs simply aren't constructed soundly. The often-overexpensive driftwood on their bench is a direct result of Hendry's sloppy general managing. And while he may have not had much to work with on the free agent market in the way of outfield improvement, the end result of this winter is that the Cubs are again depending on healthy starting pitching to be a contender, a bet I wouldn't want to take.

How about we give Doug Melvin some props?

When Hendry signed Burnitz, he cited Burnitz's high average with Runners in Scoring Position in 2004 as a good reason for the move (as mentioned on WGN news). If Hendry believes one year of RISP data means anything, he does not understand anything about stats

Some comments.

1. Brian Sabean is not a top GM. He gives away far too many draft picks for marginal players, and that trade of Liriano, Nathan, and Bonser for Pierzynski was hideous. Look at the Giants' starting lineup - Mike Matheny, Sweeney, Vizquel, Durham, Finley, Bonds, Alou, and Perez. An outfield of Finley, Bonds, and Alou would be the oldest in baseball history. Of course Randy Winn will be playing much more than Finley. Still. In my mind the top GMs are Schuerholz, Terry Ryan, Mark Shapiro, J.P. Riccardi, and Billy Beane.

2. Jacque Jones is not a good acquisition by any means. Jacque Jones is one of the *rare* players who strikes out a ton AND hits into a ton of double plays. Who else does that? No one. All the top DP guys are contact hitters like Sean Casey. Except Jones. Couple that with Jones's low OBP and he's an out machine. It's bad, there's no way around that.

3. If the Cubs lose Mateo right after Sisco, someone needs to reconstruct the talent evaluation. Protecting scrubs like Koronka and Wellemeyer over real talent is simply inexcusable.

4. Trading Bear Bay for Cliff Bartosh was inexcusable. Trading Jermaine Van Buren for Matt Ciaramella was inexcusable. Trading Justin Jones for Doug Man-Cave-Itch was inexcusable. Hendry's trades are getting worse and bankrupting the farm system, which has to got to be right on the cusp of entering into the lower third of farm systems.

5. The Farnsworth trade was not a bad one. Novoa is an arm that throws hard. Scott Moore is a legit prospect. Posting a mid-800s OPS in High A ball as a 21 year old is respectable. He has errors, but he's learning 3rd now, having moved from short. He strikes out a lot, but a lot of higher touted prospects strike out more - he's no Dallas McPherson and even Dave Krynzel strikes out about as much. Add in 22 stolen bases and 7 caught and you have a guy who could possible put up numbers like Hank Blalock did this year except with more walks and steals. Nothing earth-shattering, probably looking at no better than an .810 OPS but it's better than what the Tigers got for Farnsworth.

Oh yes, how can anyone be against Neifi Perez. Give it up people. What's wrong is how Dusty Baker uses Neifi Perez, not Neifi Perez himself.

You know who Neifi Perez was this year? Orlando Cabrera. That's right. Same OPS, BETTER, (yes, you heard me correctly, BETTER) defense. At a cost of $6.5 million less a year.

Oh please, will you people stop whining about Juan Mateo? He's an A ball pitcher who has only started 16 games in 4 years, for crying out loud. Plus, it's not a given by any means that he won't be returned sometime this year. My God, you'd think we'd given up Johan Santana. He was 22 last year which is old for high A too. Or he could be 2-3 years older since he's Dominican. If the Cards want to waste a roster spot on the kid, be my guest.

Willis is the only prospect traded by Hendry that panned out, but it's not like Hendry traded him for some LOOGY project; Matt Clement was a very effective pitcher for the Cubs during his tenure with the team, and I still don't understand why we let him go (although his performance in Boston may be an indicator of why it happened).

Re: Mateo. The idea is not that it's clear Mateo is awesome, but why waste roster spots on people who it's clear are NOT great?

Anyway, 22 is not too old for High A, generally that's right on track, anybody who puts up good numbers at the age of 21 in High A usually gets a lot of good attention for that reason. But even to assuage that, Mateo was converted to a pitcher later. He didn't start out as one which explains some of the feeling of him a little behind.

After 30 something years of saying "Wait till next year", and believing it, I'm wising up. The Trib company is responsible for the chronic failure of this team. I've seen it over and over again, they change the pres & gm, make drastic changes in the team, bring in some big names, but stop one or two players shy of making a team that will nail it down. Although they'll get a good core they will never make the changes necessary to put us over the top. They feel that if we can catch "Lightning in a bottle" then great, if not we will always have that "Loveable Loser" tag to fall back on. They know that Cub fans are the most loyal in the world and they will make money from them no matter what team they field, so why spend big bucks for a championship when they can pocket it themselves?? Look at the improvements Hendry made when he first came on board. Then look back at the team that Dallas Green was able to build. Both times we were just inches away, maybe one or two players, but because they were restricted by the trib co., they couldn't put that nail in the coffin. We can blame whoever we want, but bottom line is this, it takes money to win a world series(with the exception of a couple of one-time flukes)and until our beloved Cubbies are under different ownership we will continue to watch, with envy, other teams celebrate on the mound after winning the world series.