You would think that with a budget of $140m that JH and LP could produce a better caliber on the field. This isn't about available dollars, it's about spending it on the right players who are hungry, young, flexible, and want to compete every day within a team construct. And it should also include a manager that has a roadmap for developing and playing a mix of veterans and youngsters together.

Lou has given up, and the players have stopped responding to him. This was his M.O. in previous gigs as well. Perhaps LOU should take some hints from the Blackhawks and Bulls. Lou, you build with youth and energy!

I think that we need a big trade. Are planning to resign Rich Harden? Neil what do you think the Cubs will do.

Neil, Thanks for running this. It will be a great reference point for discussing possible trades.
For me, Soriano's contract by itself
is particularly irksome...He is not
going to get better as time goes on.

Soriano, Dempster, Bradley...are three cases of Hendry misreading the market at
the time of signing AND overcommitting the Cubs.

unfortunately we have followed the model of signing older players to huge long term deals with no trade clauses. Not only is our roster overpaid, but no one wants any of them. Teams that are winning these days are developing there own players and filling in the holes with a free agent here and there. We have traded every prospect who looked decent for as long as I can remember and always held on to the ones that turn out to be busts. The yankees have proven the last few years that a high payroll does not guarantee sucess on the field. Unless a miracle trade happens, we are stuck with the main pieces of this team for the next few years and with no big time prospects in sight other than vitters. This team reminds me of the 04 team. We were coming off of 2 sucessful seasons in a row yet, management felt compelled to totally gut the roster of anyone who had a positive influence in the club house. I am beginning to believe that we will never win a world series as long as pinella is our manager. He is good enough usually to get a team to the playoffs but then nothing after that. These guys have looked lifeless and have not exactly been playing the cream of the crop the past week. I hope I am wrong but, I think we are in for a long season.

The formula for winning in the bigs is to have a great system and develpment program and with a big city budget to acquire productive supplemental free agents and perhaps a big gun or two. The Cubs and Hendry have npt been able to put together a serious contender with a budget of $140mm and have placed far too much faith in big ticket flawed and unmanagable players. You cannot entirely buy or trade your way to great teams in the MLB...there needs to be a base. If the current woes continue the blessing in disguise may be a chance at a new start with some top tier general management with the right vision all the way through the farm system to Pro player evaluation and acquisition. Unfortunately there are untradable contracts that may not fit into any new system.

The problem really has been Hendry either unjustly over-values prospects, or completely misreads the future market for them, and dumping them for a small portion of what he should've received for them.

The guy doesn't know how to trade/develop/evaluate talent (otherwise we'd have Hamilton now, and he would've gotten a larger return for the likes of Hill, Pie, Cedeno, Ceda, etc.)

He also is clueless when it comes to free agent signings. I don't care if you have a $140 million budget or a $40 million budget...you still should be held accountable for what you put on the field, and Hendry just has not been accountable. He's slow to react to the market, thus missing out on guys, and over-values his own, thereby misreading the market (Dempster is a classic example). Dempster, while not a bad pitcher, is merely just an average pitcher coming off one of Hendry's favorites----a career year.

After the 2006 disaster, the team needed a clear direction. Hendry was finally given the funds to compete with the likes of the Red Sox and Yankees for top-notch talent, and yet he lacked he clear vision. Once you're given that, you must act, and say, "okay, we're going with OBP (which clearly was the direction that needed to be taken)" Or, "we're going to front-line starting pitching with guys that have a clean health record (obviously another need after the Wood/Prior cases)"

But rather than go after front-line starting, which he clearly needed after losing his true aces in Prior and Wood from the rotation, he went for Lilly and Marquis. And while Lilly has certainly done a great job, he's nothing more than a 3-4 type in the rotation, and Marquis is just a 5th starter, which is where you develop one of your own, rather than hand-cuff the team with a $7 million/yr 5th starter.

Furthermore, at that time, we still had prospects like Marshall, Pie, Cedeno, E. Patterson, etc., that could've netted us top-notch talent.

But knowing we needed OBP, he went for the "sexiest" signing in Soriano, and hand-cuffed the team for 8 years with his albatross of a contract with no-trade provisions to boot. Funny thing is, when you take a .330-type OBP guy, and pair him with another .330-type OBP guy (Jacque Jones), what did he think would happen?!?! It was a disaster, and we ended up giving Jones away practically, and when we needed an extra Outfielder to begin with, and Josh Hamilton was available, Hendry decided it was better to take a shot at an aging, broken down Cliff Floyd than it would be on a young, former top prospect with legit power, and 5 tool potential.

Ironically, the following year, Hendry realized they needed OBP, so what does he do?!? He goes out, and signs Fukudome, who hasn't had a single AB in MLB, hoping, praying that his OBP skills in Japan, translate to the US, which it did...for the first month, until advanced scouts figured him out.

Fact is, if Hendry is looking to go with Soto, Theriot, Fontenot, Soriano, ARAM, Hoffpauir, Fukudome, and others for the next 2-3 years, then he sure as hell better start selling high on some of these prospects, whose value might never be higher than it is now----guys like Harrison, Thomas, Robinson, Fox, Flaherty, etc. Because most of those guys are about 23-26 years old. If they're blocked for 3 years, it takes up their prime years in MLB, and in other team's minds, they just lost a HUGE amount of value.

It's why, while I didn't like the health of Harden, I still thought that was a pretty good deal for us, because we sold high on Murton, Patterson, Donaldson, and Gallagher. See, all of those guys were in the range I just mentioned. If we would've waited, they'd have lost significant value in other GM's eyes.

It's why we need to contact teams that have all but given up on this year like the Pirates, Astros, D'Backs, Mariners, A's, Orioles, Nationals, and Rockies, and see what it'd take to get:

Pirates: McLouth or Freddy Sanchez

'Stros: Sampson, Valverde, Keppinger, Oswalt, or Carlos Lee

D'Backs: Felipe Lopez, Doug Davis, or Tony Pena

M's: Ichiro, Balentien (though he sucks this year, we might get a buy low scenario on his potential), Bedard, Washburn, Batista, or Vargas

A's: Holliday, Cust, Kennedy, Cahill, Ziegler, Bailey, Casilla

O's: Markakis, Luke Scott, Baez, Sherrill

Nats: Dunn, Johnson, Guzman, Willingham, Villone, Bergmann

Rockies: Hawpe, Smith, Stewart or Atkins, Hammel, Jimenez, Cook, Morales, Flores, Street

As I mentioned last night, we just have to get rid of the likes of Cotts, Patton, Miles, Freel and possibly look to trade the likes of Gregg, Heilman, Fontenot, Soto, Johnson, Lee, etc., trying to turn over the roster of underperforming parts.

Soto's value might never be higher. Fontenot's surely was never higher than last year. We all know Soto will ALWAYS struggle with his fat, and his hand isn't getting better....time to sell high. Once/If Fontenot picks it back up again, we sell high on him, and we convince Lee that for the betterment of the team, he's got to go.

In the OF, Hendry's just going to have to bite the bullet and bench Bradley. We need to find a RF/CF then to replace him and Dunn, McLouth, Hawpe, and Holliday would be at the top of my list. Losing Freel, Miles, and Fontenot would mean we'd need someone like Felipe Lopez, Freddy Guzman or Christian Guzman, or Keppinger, and given the fact the D'Backs have 6 or 7 top picks this year in the first 3 rounds, I would venture a guess that they'd be willing to turn over a good portion of their roster.

The top relievers we should go after would be Pena, Street, Valverde, and Sherrill.

All 4 could replace the likes of Patton, Heilman, Cotts, and Gregg.

I know none of you wants to hear it, but it's time to talk fire sale.

The Brewers are one of the hottest teams in baseball right now, and the Cards are close behind them. Funny thing is, both have sustained substantial losses like Weeks and Hoffman (for a little while), and Carpenter and Ludwick, and they're still kicking our ass. Couple that with the fact the Reds are young and powerful, and have Cueto, Volquez, and Harang, and they'll also be difficult to surpass this year.

What an idiot Hendry is. Hardly any of you believed me during the offseason when I kept saying it....but man, it's undeniable now that he is completely, 100% responsible for our predicament right now. When you count on Dempster and Bradley coming off career years, trade your most versatile guy and possible team MVP, then trade your top pitching prospect for a bum that's never been consistent, and thrust that same idiot into the closer's role after he blew 9 saves last year.....you're looking for trouble.

It literally is almost like he thought Bradley and Miles would be the saviors of this offense, isn't it?!? He pegged Miles as the starter, but he sucked in ST, so Fontenot got the nod, and both have sucked thus far, and can't even hold DeRosa's jock strap. Bradley is a cancer, and is complaining like Jacque Jones did, and still couldn't back up his complaints with production. Was Hendry that mentally challenged that he couldn't see that one coming. I think we all did to a certain degree, though most of you were hoping and praying that you were wrong....well, you're not...He really is that bad, and there's a reason he's been with like 10 teams in his career. One, he was a cancer, and distraction, and two, he could never stay healthy enough to justify keeping his distracting behavior on the team.

Aaron,
While I agree with most of what you said, there is one thing that I disagree with. I am not sure if you were saying to trade Soto in the winter, but to say it now is a little bit of 20/20 hindsight. I don't think anyone saw this coming for him. He is off to a brutal start, but if he was traded over the winter and was having the same kind of year as he had last year, the city would be going nuts, especially when we really don't have a replacement to take over right now. I think he can still turn it around and hopefully next year he returns to form.

But I agree that the moves hendry made over the winter were absolutely brutal. I said it then and I still stick by it, so no monday morning QB'ing here.

I just don't understand what they are looking at when they sign guys like Miles and Gaithright...It only took them 1 month to figure out that Gaithright was horrible. I'm sure they now realize that Miles is horrible too, but HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT BEFOREHAND ??? Are their scouts blind ? Do they see something else that we are not seeing ? Because I know that every cub fan will agree that we all hated those signings when they occured.... just like Jacque Jones, Jeromy Burnitz, etc in past years, ...Do they expect these players to perform differently from their track records ? I just don't get it.

Oh well, I think we are in for a long year. And when you look at what we have on the books as far as payroll over the next 2-3 years, you have to be worried.

Speaking of Miles, my favorite player. Did anyone see that play last night where he went back to catch that floater ?? I know he was moving away from the infield, but that was NOT a hard play. It was only about 20-30 feet into the OF and it wasn't very high, and yet he barely got a glove on it.

So not only can't he hit his way out of a paper bag, he has no speed, a weak arm, and now he has trouble with easy little popups. Other than that, he's AROD. WTF.

And to think we signed this guy for 2 years for $5M (total).

JUST AMAZING.

Guys...where Hendry fails in that he attempts to assume that players, regardless of prior character or reputation, will turn it around playing in the friendly confines in front of passionate fans.

Texas, NY and Washington (especially Frank Robinson) knew of the personality (and performance)flaws of Soriano. And certainly ditto for Bradley (many more times over). These guys have such ego's that they can't and won't adapt to the game around them. How Soriano received his duration of contract is mind-boggling, and to a lesser degree is Bradley. And even Fukodome (an unproven commodity in the states) never should have received 4 years.

We can say all we want that this is what the market predicated, but the major flaw is no commitment to the farm system and willingness to play the kids. As has been quoted numerous times by many here, when the likes of Pie, Hill, Patterson quickly go from "untouchables" to bums, that doesn't say a lot for our coaching and scout staff at any level of the organization.

You look at Boston and they now have this "problem" of what to do with Clay Bucholz, who flirted with a no-hitter at AAA. But no spot for him with Smoltz returning soon. We should have such problems.

JH didn't realize the leadership void created with the departures of Edmonds, DeRosa and Wood. This current roster has no true leader, and Lou is now checked out as manager. That's why managers and players should never receive more than 2 year contracts (except for the ultimate and obvious superstars). It should all be based on consistent performance, not one-year wonders. Guys, you think about it...a $140m budget, and this is what we have to show for it...I think we all here on CCO would have made wiser off-season decisions the last few years (and not just playing hindsight).

Another thing, just look at all the dead salary we have this year. We actually acquired a couple of those guys and are now paying them to suck for other teams or in the minor leagues. Unbelievable.

Whether for 6 or 8 years, Soriano's deal is terrible. You could have gotten similar production/results with DeRosa for 1/4 the price tag, and with a better "team chemistry" associated.

What other organization would give an 8 year no-trade deal for 70 RBI's a year? C'mon guys...let's get real here.