Trader Jim

The Cubs have now won six in a row after two consecutive sweeps, from the White Sox and now Rockies, only their second and third swept series this year. A key off day is ahead, followed by a critical weekend home series with Milwaukee - a sweep announces the Cubs as a force in not just the Central, but perhaps the NL as a whole; 2 out of 3 says "we're in this thing till the end"; 1 out of 3 or a sweep loss says "Just kidding about those six in a row." At least two wins is basically a must.

With Jacque Jones seemingly on the way out (although the deal to Florida fell through over money), however, a lot of the talk has been about whether Jim Hendry has done a good job as manager of this team, especially on the trade front. Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus contends that during Hendry's tenure, "the Cubs’ [sic] have developed a nasty habit ... of doing everything in their power to degrade a player’s value, and then trading him for pennies on the dollar." The article starts by discussing the Barrett trade, then goes on to cite various examples of players who were run out of town, including Hee Seop Choi, Mark Bellhorn, Sammy Sosa, Corey Patterson, Todd Walker, and now Jones (when and if he gets dealt).

A couple things here. First, no matter what you think of the Barrett trade, it seems a little presumptuous to suggest that it was the Cubs who were trying to run Barrett out of town. I can't recall seeing anyone in the organization doing or saying anything publicly to degrade Barrett, and it was the media - indeed, not just the local but national media - who decided that Barrett was a clubhouse cancer because he'd had a couple incidents involving tempers flaring over the past couple of years. Witness how the Rich Hill thing got blown up despite the fact that there was pretty clearly nothing to it beyond any normal dugout interaction for a pitcher and catcher who had just given up an RBI single to the pitcher. It may well be that Barrett wasn't popular in the clubhouse, but if that's true, it doesn't seem to have made the whispers.

Second of all, and this is going to be true of nearly all the trades I'll discuss, other teams have scouts. Everyone saw that Barrett was having a bad year. It was probably the worst possible time to trade him and get any value back. That said, if Lou Piniella went to Jim Hendry and told him to trade Barrett - as may well have happened - it was up to Hendry to get what he could. Around the same time that Barrett and Zambrano tussled, Piniella appeared to realize that he wasn't leaving enough of his own imprint on this team. Things have started to turn around since then. If that's partly a result of Piniella being more in control, then if Barrett leaving was part of that control issue... well, that isn't really Hendry's fault, is it?

With that said, let's take a look at the deals done by Hendry since his promotion to GM on July 5, 2002. (Note: I have deliberately excluded deals so minor on both sides that they don't rate a mention.)

July 31, 2002: Cubs trade Darren Lewis to the Pirates for Chad Hermansen.
As it turned out, Lewis would never play another game in the majors, and he was hitting .241 in limited action, so it can't really be argued that he was "devalued" by the Cubs or Hendry. Hermansen did even less, but he ended up being spun off in the offseason in a much better trade that we'll get to shortly.

August 22, 2002: Cubs trade Tom Gordon to the Astros for Russ Rohlicek, Travis Anderson, and Mike Nannini.
This was legitimately a bad trade, although to be fair, the Cubs were busy cutting bait as a 67-95 season wound to a close under an interim manager. Gordon had been a solid reliever for the Cubs, saving 27 games in 2001, and ended up having several more productive years - in fact, he's still pitching for the Phillies, although his stats so far this year are mediocre. He did have a 204 ERA+ with the Yankees in 2004, however. So, could the Cubs have gotten more for him? Well, Gordon was a rental for the Astros, so the Cubs were trading a guy who, presumably, they didn't think they could resign, and taking what they could get. What they got wasn't much - none of the three guys who came over ever made the bigs that I can tell. Certainly none of them did it with the Cubs. I doubt this was a case of Flash being run out of town, though. The Cubs traded a guy they expected not to re-sign and happened to receive prospects who didn't pan out. Wasn't the first time that happened, won't be the last.

August 25, 2002: Cubs trade Jeff Fassero to the Cardinals for Jared Blasdell and Jason Karnuth.
Fassero was also a free agent after the '02 season. He was also 39 years old and had gone 5-6 with a 6.18 ERA for the Cubs that year; it's probably amazing that we got anything for him at all. (Of course he proceeded to go 3-0, 3.00 down the stretch for the Cardinals, and then pitched four more years, although not very well in any of them.) Karnuth had a brief stint with the Tigers in 2005 but otherwise has done nothing; Blasdell never came up. Given Fassero's ERA, though, you could argue that this was addition by subtraction, especially considering his contract situation.

September 4, 2002: Cubs trade Bill Mueller and cash to the Giants for Jeff Verplancke.
Mueller had missed a lot of the 2001 season after coming over from the Giants for Tim Worrell (a good trade, but not Hendry's), but he OBPed .403 in the 70 games he did play. In 2002, however, his stats were down - he was hitting just .266 in 103 games (though still getting on base at a pretty decent .355 clip). But he, too, was a free agent, and apparently Hendry just wanted to clean house, so off Mueller went for, well, nobody. The following year, Mueller signed with the Red Sox and won the motherfucking AL batting title. This is possibly the best early example of Hendry giving up on a guy, which Silver also accuses the Cubs of doing. History suggested Mueller gave you a good hitter, very solid OBP guy (career .373, for crap's sake), and a solid glove at third (the Cubs' hoodoo position). Instead, they either decided they weren't going to be able to resign him or (more likely) decided they had paid too much for what they'd gotten (possibly true, but injury-affected), and they shipped him off for one cent on the dollar. And the next year he won a goddamn batting title. Of course, the Cubs ended up getting a pretty good, and much younger, third baseman during the 2003 season, but Hendry couldn't have known that at the time.

December 4, 2002: Cubs trade Todd Hundley and Chad Hermansen to the Dodgers for Mark Grudzielanek and Eric Karros.
In November, the Cubs traded minor leaguers of no note for Damian Miller and Paul Bako, but I wanted to keep the list to major leaguers who were traded away. As it happens, they picked up two catchers because Joe Girardi was a free agent and because Todd Hundley was about to be shipped off. Hundley was, in fact, somewhat run out of town; his poor overall play and attitude combined to make him quite unpopular with the fans. As Hire Jim Essian!'s Bad Kermit notes in his post naming Hundley the worst Cub of his lifetime, Hundley was once booed after hitting a home run. By the home fans. That's pretty unpopular. I don't think you could call this any kind of Hendry conspiracy, however. The amazing thing is that Dodgers were willing to send back actual major league players for him. Grudzielanek and Karros had both had serviceable, if wholly unspectacular, seasons in 2002; both did pretty much the same in 2003, although Grudzielanek hit .314 and rather mysteriously received an MVP vote. The two combined for just three seasons at Wrigley, but anything that removed Hundley from the premises has to be considered a win.

June 20, 2003: Cubs trade Mark Bellhorn to the Rockies for Jose Hernandez.
The knock on Mark Bellhorn, according to Silver, was that he struck out too much. And he did strike out a lot, but his OBP in 2002 (when he had 144 Ks to 115 hits) was .374. The Bellhorn trade could be categorized as a panic trade; the Cubs were seeking to contend for the division and Bellhorn, through mid-June, was hitting .209 and not flashing the 27-home run power he'd displayed the year earlier. (Wow, does this sound familiar. Although Jones is hitting .234.) But if Bellhorn was pushed out the door for striking out too much, doesn't trading him for Jose Hernandez - who in 2002 had struck out 188 times! - seem kind of counterintuitive? It was kind of a silly trade, since Hernandez was no better than Bellhorn except maybe on defense, but it didn't end up making much difference. And Hernandez ended up playing a role in a much better trade.

July 23, 2003: Cubs trade Jose Hernandez, Bobby Hill, and Matt Bruback to the Pirates for Aramis Ramirez, Kenny Lofton, and cash.
Even in 2003, I think most fantasy league GMs would have shot this trade down. Ramirez had already had a 30/100 season, although he was pretty miserable in the field. Still, there's no denying that this is one of the best trades the Cubs ever made. The guy who was "run out of town" in this one? Well, maybe Bobby Hill, who was supposed to be the second baseman of the future but didn't do much with the big club, not that he was given much of a chance. When last seen, Hill was in the Padres' minor leagues, so I don't think we ended up missing much. Lofton was just a rental - an exceedingly useful rental who hit .327 down the stretch in 2003 and OBPed .381 - but Ramirez has finally shored up the hot corner that had seen player after player pass through it since the departure of Ron Santo.

November 25, 2003: Cubs trade Hee Seop Choi and Mike Nannini to the Marlins for Derrek Lee.
This was practically payback for the NLCS. I was kind of shocked to see Choi's name on Silver's list - I suppose you could argue that the Cubs didn't give him enough of a chance, but he played in 80 games in 2003 and hit .218 (although his OBP was a respectable .350). Derrek Lee, meanwhile, hit .271, had an OBP of .379, and went 31/92 in HR/RBI. This was an upgrade by any measure, even if Choi had been shortchanged. Did Hendry take advantage of a Marlins team having another post-title fire sale? Maybe so. But he still made a big upgrade at the first base spot, and you certainly can't accuse him of getting "cents on the dollar" for Choi, who isn't even in the majors right now.

December 15, 2003: Cubs trade Damian Miller and cash to the A's for Michael Barrett.
Barrett was never really an Athletic; the Expos traded him to Oakland, who immediately turned him around to the Cubs. At the time, Hendry stated that the move was due to Barrett having shown some offensive spark (which Miller hadn't really) and to his youth (seven years younger than Miller). You could again argue that Miller wasn't given enough chance to return to 2001 form, and he was a favorite of the pitching staff, but read the linked article - Barrett was considered just fine behind the plate and an improvement at it. All told, looks like a case of Hendry trying to upgrade a weaker offensive position on a team that was looking to contend for a division again. I don't see a problem.

March 25, 2004: Cubs trade Juan Cruz and Steve Smyth to the Braves for Andy Pratt and Richard Lewis.
Cruz pitched fairly well in 2002, but went 3-11 due to some bad breaks. In 2003, however, it was more on him, as his ERA was 6.05. Apparently not liking what they were seeing in 2004 spring training either, the Cubs gave up on a pitcher who was positioned, along with Mark Prior, as the next big thing going into 2002. They dumped him to Atlanta, not bothering to get back more than Andy Pratt, who had appeared in 1.1 innings with the Braves in 2002 and managed to issue as many walks as he recorded outs. He did even worse for the Cubs - in four games in 2004, Pratt appeared in 1.2 innings and issued seven walks. For good measure, he also hit a guy. Cubs ERA: 21.60. That was it for Andy. There is a better argument for Cruz being "run out of town" or "dumped at his lowest value" than for someone like Choi. What could the Cubs possibly have seen in Pratt that justified dumping Cruz, who at least had some big league experience that didn't involve sucking utterly? I get the feeling that after the failure of 2003, Hendry started to feel like he had to get rid of everyone who hadn't had a very good year. Surely if he did that, 2004 would only be better! So out went Cruz, Choi, Miller... and all this did make the Cubs better. Exactly one win better, in fact. Of course, in 2004, 89 wins didn't get you a division title.

July 31, 2004: Cubs trade Alex Gonzalez, Brendan Harris, and Francis Beltran to the Expos and Justin Jones to the Twins for Nomar Garciaparra and Matt Murton from the Red Sox.
Ah, the huge four-team deal. At the time this seemed genius. The goat of 2003 (well, one of) plus two minor-leaguers for Nomar, who at the time had only had one major pre-2004 injury and was coming off two straight seasons in which he had nearly 200 hits, knocked in over 100 runs, and had OPS+ numbers of over 120. On the other hand, Nomar had been injured and missed a high number of games in 2004 itself, and he ended up playing in just 105 games for the Cubs over two months of 2004 and the whole of 2005. Jose Macias played more games for the Cubs over that time than Nomar did. Murton, whom Hendry apparently insisted upon receiving, has had his playing time with the Cubs but perhaps did not receive enough in 2007 before being sent down to get more at-bats. So - was this a bad trade? I don't think that can be argued. Gonzalez was brutal at the plate in '04 - his OBP was .241 at the time of the trade - and his ties to the 2003 debacle weren't endearing him to anyone. Getting Nomar back was more like icing on the cake. Beltran and Harris had minimal chances with the Cubs but didn't do much with them; Harris is hitting well for Tampa Bay this year, but raise your hand if you had that one. Getting rid of Gonzalez can't really be quarreled with, and while accepting Nomar was in some respects taking on someone's hand-me-downs, he sure hit a lot better than Gonzalez did when he was actually on the field.

February 2, 2005: Cubs trade Sammy Sosa and cash to the Orioles for Jerry Hairston Jr., Mike Fontenot, and Dave Crouthers.
This is the big one. Sammy Sosa was most definitely run out of Chicago, and the organization packed his bags for him. They're the ones who released the security tape showing Sosa leaving in the seventh inning. Sosa had had a down year - his 35 home runs and 80 RBI were his lowest totals since 1994. He hit just .253, his lowest average since 1997. But he was still Sammy Sosa, right? Well, maybe that was the problem. The newspapers seemed only too happy to report on stories like the early departure, or how Sosa's boom box was unpopular with teammates. Whether or not the Cubs were trying to push Sosa down into the mud could be debated; for his part, Sosa accused Dusty Baker of trying to hang the Cubs' 2004 failures on his shoulders (which is a little unfair, but I mean, the guy was making $16 million). The question is, had the press not gotten so negative about Sammy, could he have been traded for more? (Hairston spent one middling year in Chicago before being shipped out in mid-2006; Fontenot has only just started to make his mark this year, though he's hitting very well at the moment; Crouthers never came up.) Hard to say, but I'm not sure, personally. Let's say no negative stories had ever come out about Sammy. There's still the matter of his declining statistics, which dipped significantly in pretty much every category from 2001 to 2004. With his enormous contract - $17 million in 2005, some of which the Cubs had to pay - he wasn't very tradeable, and if a team called you up offering to trade its biggest star, wouldn't that give you pause?

This is where the Hendry criticism bothers me a little bit. I mean, it's not like I think Jim Hendry is the greatest GM ever, but just what was he supposed to do in a situation like this? The stuff in the clubhouse existed whether it got out or not, so it came down to either keep a slumping Sosa at the risk of creating a huge clubhouse rift, or trade him for team chemistry and hope he kept sliding - which he did. Could Hendry have gotten more back? It's doubtful. Increasingly these days, teams are not that willing to trade big-name players for each other, and Sosa's value had been diminished by his own stats and the perception that he mostly seemed either to hit a home run or strike out. (In 2000 Sosa hit 50 home runs and had 143 non-HR hits. In 2004 he hit 35 home runs, but had just 86 non-HR hits to go with that.) Did the Cubs throw him under the bus? Absolutely. And they did this because even though the fans had noticed Sosa's diminished prediction and begun to boo accordingly, Sammy was still the face of the Cubs. If Sammy were going to be traded, he had to be more unpopular first, lest he turn things around in Baltimore and Hendry get flamed for the move. So the Cubs made Sosa unpopular, and then shipped him out for 15 cents on the dollar.

This, more than anywhere, is where Silver's point actually holds water. Hendry likely felt his legacy was at stake. If Sosa had to be traded, Hendry wasn't going to be the guy who traded "Sammy Sosa, hero." So instead, the organization worked to see to it that Hendry was trading "Sammy Sosa, slumping quitter jerk." It worked pretty well, too - ask a random sampling of Cubs fans, and I bet most of them have had their memories of 1993-2003 pretty colored in retrospect. (The steroids issue - though the evidence for Sosa is almost exclusively statistical - probably played a role in Hendry's decision as well. If it looked like Sosa's name could be dragged into the discussion, why not cut ties with him as early as possible?)

Assuming the order to release the tape of Sosa came from Hendry or someone very close to him, that would be a definite failing on his part - why make Sosa look like a bad character guy in addition to someone who was slumping with age? But again, I'm not sure it wouldn't have come out eventually. You don't just foist off a future Hall of Famer (as Sosa certainly looked at the time; he may still be, though the era will make it dodgy) for no reason, and the Orioles would have known this. While Hendry deserves some blame for helping ruin the memory of Sosa for Cubs fans - although it would be unfair to suggest that Sosa himself doesn't deserve a good deal of it as well - I'm not sure he deserves much for failing to get anything back for Sosa. As I said at the beginning - other teams have scouts too. If Sosa had still been hitting 50 home runs a year he could have left the final game of '04 wearing a thong and eat a broiled kitten and he still wouldn't have been traded. The Orioles knew Sosa was on a downturn just like the Cubs did. Did we think they would give us back Tejada? Hairston wasn't good, but heck - he wasn't significantly less productive than Sosa in 2005.

In summary, the criticism of Hendry on the Sosa front is true but quite possibly irrelevant. Other teams' general managers were not going to be stupid enough to trade for Sosa's name (especially given his price tag) while ignoring his statistics, and suggesting that Hendry could have gotten way more than he did strikes me as a gross misrepresentation of the facts of the situation.

February 9, 2005: Cubs trade Kyle Farnsworth to the Tigers for Roberto Novoa, Scott Moore, and Bo Flowers.
Here were Farnsworth's ERAs with the Cubs between 2000 and 2004: 6.43, 2.74, 7.33, 3.30, 4.73. He seemed to have some epidemic where he would have a great year, either get too high on himself or just stop working as hard, then have a bad year, then realize he needed to play better and turn it around. After five years of this (six if you include the year where he was mostly a starter, in 1999), the Cubs had seen enough, sending him to Detroit for a surprisingly robust package. True to form, Farnsworth had a great year in 2005, with a combined ERA of 2.19 for the Tigers and Braves, but he's been solidly mediocre for the Yankees in the two seasons since. You might argue here that Hendry could have waited until after Farnsworth's inevitable up year in 2005 to trade him, assuming he too had noticed the pattern. But Farnsworth, I think, had frustrated the Cubs by performing at his worst when they were most intent on relying upon him, and middle relievers are rarely going to bring you a strong package in return. Novoa and Moore are still in the organization, so at least there's that.

May 28, 2005: Cubs trade LaTroy Hawkins and cash to the Giants for Jerome Williams and David Aardsma.
Talk about a trade that had to happen. Hawkins had a couple monster statistical years for Minnesota in 2002 and 2003, so the Cubs brought him on as a free agent. While statistically his year-plus in Chicago looks decent at first glance (2.63 ERA in 2004), consider that he had just 29 saves as a Cub and 13 blown saves. That's a pretty bad rate. (In 2003 alone, Joe Borowski had 33 saves to just four blown.) Hawkins was brought in to be a middle reliever, ending up forced into the closer's role when Borowski struggled to start 2004. After about a year of the fans screaming about his blown saves, Hendry had evidently seen enough and spun Hawkins to San Francisco. That he got two pitchers back suggests that maybe, in fact, these other teams don't have scouts. Williams had won ten games in 2004 (in just 22 starts) and Aardsma was considered a talented kid who needed some polish. Neither ended up doing a ton for the Cubs - Williams had an okay remainder of 2005, I guess - but it was a pretty good package at the time. Was Hawkins traded for cents on the dollar? Some have argued that Hendry doesn't do enough to build up players' good attributes, rather harping on the problems that mean they need to go. Who could have avoided noticing Hawkins' unpopularity in Chicago and copious blown saves, though? I think Hendry got pretty good value in this deal.

July 18, 2005: Cubs trade Jason Dubois to the Indians for Jody Gerut.
Clinging to hope in the wild card race - five games back of Atlanta, while well off the pace in the division - the Cubs, well, mostly stood pat. This trade was a lateral move - Dubois, who had been touted for a couple years as a future star, had underperformed in platoon action, but Gerut, at the time, wasn't doing much more aside from having a much better OBP. As it turned out, the Cubs would probably have been better off keeping Dubois; Gerut was dinged up and saw almost no time with the Cubs, getting just 14 at-bats - in which he recorded one hit - before being shipped right back out. It's hard to call this a bad trade, but it wasn't a very good one. Even though Gerut's pre-trade stats had been fairly decent, his recent injury history made it a bit risky, and in fact there was no payoff.

July 31, 2005: Cubs trade Jody Gerut and cash to the Pirates for Matt Lawton.
On paper this was a great deal for the Cubs. They gave up only Gerut and cash, rather than any prospects, to get back Lawton, who at the time was getting on base at a .380 clip. At this point the Cubs were still over .500 and just four back in the wild card race - on the other hand, Houston was coming on like a house afire, and Lawton wasn't exactly a final piece. Hendry's deadline deals in 2005 were pretty weak - I can understand why he wanted an OBP guy, but the Cubs could have used a deeper rotation for the stretch. At any event, Lawton wasn't even an OBP guy for the Cubs, getting on at a .289 rate - the same as Dubois, for whom he'd effectively been traded.

August 9, 2005: Cubs trade Mike Remlinger and cash to the Red Sox for Olivio Astacio.
Remlinger was another reliever acquired after a great statistical year who couldn't duplicate it with the Cubs. But trading him for nothing didn't make much sense, especially with the Cubs still within screaming distance of the wild card if they could have turned it around. Hendry really didn't come through for the Cubs in '05.

August 27, 2005: Cubs trade Matt Lawton to the Yankees for Justin Berg.
By this point, Hendry was just waving the white flag. To be fair, though, Lawton had done little for the Cubs (and ended up doing even less for the Yankees) and by August 27, the Cubs had sunk to fifth and were pretty well done. Lawton was making a lot of money to do as little as he was doing, so pushing him off onto a contender wasn't that bad a move. You do wish the Cubs could have tried to squeeze New York for more, but this didn't really matter much.

August 29, 2005: Cubs trade Todd Hollandsworth to the Braves for Angelo Burrows and Todd Blackford.
Hollandsworth had been a super sub in 2004 when healthy, but had underwhelmed in 2005. Naturally the Cubs got nothing back for him. Again, though, he was a pending free agent on a non-playoff team, and he wasn't a major piece. The strategy of selling minor pieces to contenders and rolling the dice on their prospects isn't the worst thing ever, even if the Cubs have rarely gotten any decent prospects out of it. This deal was pretty average, either way.

December 7, 2005: Cubs trade Sergio Mitre, Ricky Nolasco and Renyel Pinto to the Marlins for Juan Pierre.
Pierre was coming off what was not a very good year; Hendry, no doubt, was looking more at 2003 and 2004. Trading three pitching prospects, all of whom have been at least serviceable major leaguers in Florida, was probably a bad move either way. Some Cubs fans were perhaps overly excited by this trade; at the time, it looked like one failed starter and two prospects for a guy who was, at least, a proven commodity (even if that commodity, in retrospect, was pretty overrated). You could argue that Mitre was another case of the Cubs giving up on someone too soon, but eh. I'd more say that the Marlins, as they tend to do, recognized that they could get some live arms for a guy who turned out to be pretty replaceable (2005 Marlins: 83 wins; 2006 Marlins: 78 wins. 2005 Cubs: 79 wins; 2006 Cubs: 66 wins). This was more a case of Hendry believing Pierre's hype, as a lot of us did, and letting himself overpay a little. Hey, if we'd gotten 2004 Pierre in the leadoff spot, maybe it would have been worth it. But that didn't happen. This ended up being more annoying later since Pierre was a one-year rental, although after 2006, who wanted him back in center anyway?

January 9, 2006: Cubs trade Corey Patterson to the Orioles for Carlos Perez and Nate Spears.
The CP era was officially over once Pierre came to town. Patterson is another case where it's claimed by Silver that he was run out of town for cents on the dollar, but come on. Are you going to argue that Patterson wasn't given a chance? He started 152 games in 2004 and was solidly mediocre; in 2005 he was just crap. How are you going to say that a guy who was barely a replacement-level player in 2005 was traded for cents on the dollar? Patterson turned it around to play okay for Baltimore - maybe he just needed a change of scenery, although it's not like he turned into Andruw Jones. This year, though, he's back to his sub-.300 OBP ways. Maybe Patterson wasn't treated entirely fairly in Chicago, but when you have a team that's trying desperately to stay decent, you can't keep a guy in the lineup who's flirting with the Mendoza line. I find it hilarious how many of the players Silver cites were just terrible for the Cubs. Hey, you know why we didn't get good players back? Because the players we were trading sucked! And I don't buy "Hendry shouldn't have let Patterson's value bottom out and then traded him." Well, what was he supposed to do? The Cubs had put a lot into Patterson and wanted him to succeed. But he kept on not succeeding. I suppose you could argue that they should have traded him after 2003 or 2004 - his value would have been higher, while at the same time the Cubs may already have known that his inconsistency was going to keep him from being the player they wanted - but I disagree. He had so much talent that the Cubs hung onto him, trying to make it work. When they finally realized that he was never likely to put it together, they just dumped him. Not the greatest thing ever, but what was the point in keeping him? Just so he could ride the bench, or hit .220 every day? Come on. This trade doesn't make Hendry a genius but criticizing him for it is pointless.

May 31, 2006: Cubs trade Jerry Hairston, Jr. to the Rangers for Phil Nevin and cash.
The Cubs had just had a rancid May and were in danger of the season being over by June. Hairston was hitting like shit, so he was sent out for Nevin, who wasn't hitting great for Texas but had some history as a power hitter. With Lee on the shelf, the Cubs needed some power. Although the team as a whole didn't turn it around, I don't see anything wrong with this trade - Nevin hit pretty well in his stint with the Cubs (12 HR and an OPS+ of 107), and while it was kind of low-risk, low-reward, I think Hendry could see the writing on the wall with Lee out. Even by May 31, 2006 was a lost season. Trading a bench guy for a power-hitting first baseman was, in its own way, a good thing to just try and see how it would work. Did Hendry have a responsibility to make more happen? Maybe - I remember rumors were flying at the time that the Cubs would try to bring in a big name at first base, but how would that have been smart with Lee inked to a big extension? And let's face it - if losing Lee drops you to 66 wins, you weren't a very good team even with him.

July 31, 2006: Cubs trade Greg Maddux to the Dodgers for Cesar Izturis.
Okay, this sucked. Mostly because I wanted Maddux to end his career with the Cubs. But while this was a bad trade, it probably wasn't Hendry's fault. Maddux, winding down his career, wanted to play for a contender. When the Cubs turned out to be the exact opposite of that, Hendry traded him to L.A.; the rumor was and continues to be that Maddux was practically the architect of the deal. This is another case where Hendry couldn't wait for Maddux's stats to rebound before trading him, since Maddux was looking for a trade, and there had been no reason to trade him sooner. We didn't get great value back, but Maddux's value at the time was about as low as it had ever been - he was old, a free agent, and struggling through his worst season since 1987. Frankly, that we got an actual major leaguer back is kind of amazing, although with the prospects the Dodgers have in their system, perhaps it would have been better to try and get one of them than the light-hitting Izturis, who ended up contributing to the 2007 infield logjam.

July 31, 2006: Cubs trade Todd Walker to the Padres for Jose Ceda.
I always liked Walk. I think the idea that he was pushed out the door is kind of a stretch; that Hendry didn't get back value for him is true, but that's what happens when you're a seller at the deadline. If Walker had stayed with the Cubs, he'd either be riding the bench right now or preventing one of the Theriot/Fontenot pair from playing. So this one was kind of "whatever" in the long run. Not a very good trade at the time, though. (Ceda, a ridiculously raw pitching prospect, threw high-90s and was apparently well-regarded in the Padres organization. But he's at least a couple years away from the majors, if indeed he ever gets there. I guess when you're near 100 losses, you're more concerned with future value.)

This brings us to 2007. The Barrett trade - not a good one, though as I said, I get the feeling Hendry's hands were kind of tied by Piniella. Let's take a look at the trades we've got here and determine how Hendry's trade tenure has gone. I'll assign one point for a good trade, deduct one for a bad trade, and assign no points for a trade that was pretty much "meh."

Lewis for Hermansen: 0
Gordon for prospects: -1
Fassero for prospects: 0
Mueller for prospect: -1
Hundley and Hermansen for Grudzielanek and Karros: +1
Bellhorn for Hernandez: 0
Hernandez, Hill and prospect for Ramirez and Lofton: +1
Choi and prospect for Lee: +1
Miller for Barrett: +1
Cruz and Smyth for Pratt and Lewis: -1
Gonzalez and prospects for Garciaparra and Murton: +1
Sosa for Hairston and prospects: -1
Farnsworth for Novoa and prospects: 0
Hawkins for Williams and Aardsma: +1
Dubois for Gerut: 0
Gerut for Lawton: +1
Remlinger for prospect: 0
Lawton for prospect: 0
Hollandsworth for prospects: 0
Mitre and prospects for Pierre: -1
Patterson for prospects: 0
Hairston for Nevin: +1
Maddux for Izturis: -1
Walker for prospect: -1
Barret for Bowen and prospect: -1

Overall I give Hendry a 0 as a trader, which over 25 trades makes him about exactly average, I'd say. His best trades were probably a lot better for the team than his worst trades were bad for it, and some have gotten a lot better in retrospect, while the worst lingering trade is probably Maddux. He had one really good stretch, though you could certainly argue that he peaked in late 2003 (like the Cubs themselves). And there's plenty to be said about his record as a signer of free agents (about which more anon, perhaps), which colors his overall record as a GM. But as far as Silver's column goes, I don't think I'm seeing it. I'm not sure what he thinks should have happened instead to guys like Choi and Patterson, but I don't think deals like the ones cited turned out so badly for the Cubs that Hendry deserves to be raked over the coals for them. There are plenty of other reasons we can find to do that (and when I get to the free agent signings, I'm sure that will happen).