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Cubs fire GM Jim Hendry


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Fukudome was pretty bad too

 

It is, but not on the same scale.

 

What makes Soriano's contract so bad is his age. He's 35 now, which means he'll be paid $18 million each of the next three years. Soriano was once a toolsy player who could run and play defense somewhat respectably. These types of players often hit a wall in their mid 30s.

 

It's always tough when a player is excelling at 29 or 30 and is looking for a 7-8 year deal. In most cases it's not wise to be paying a player around $15/per around age 35 or later.

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Zambrano was bad too. Zambrano and Soriano are problably in the Bottom 10 current cotracts.

 

The difference is that every big team would have given Zambrano that contract.

 

Also, how ridiculous is it that he was allowed to stay on for another month after being fired? He must have said something like "Mr. Rickets, I understand you think I'm terrible at my job, but all the really really important things that a GM does during the season, which you think I am terrible at, needs to be done soon. Don't you want my unqualified self doing that?"

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I really don't see where Soriano was the worst. I wouldn't call it great, considering the amount, but Soriano has at least produced some. The Cubs problem for years is that they've given out large contracts to guys who weren't even that good. If they wanted to spend a lot, they might as well be like the Yankees or Red Sox and buy the best talent out there. Instead, they were always comfortable latching onto second-tier free agents and overpaying them.

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Soriano has had two good years (the first two years) during his contract. In the last three he's had a cumulative OPS of .766 and has stolen a total of 15 bases. He stole 41 in one year (2006) with the Nationals before signing the Cubs deal.

 

And he's got three more years left on that deal. Expect production equal to or worse than what he's been doing over 2009-2011.

 

2 productive years out of 8 for that amount of money makes this one of the worst contracts on the books right now.

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Zambrano was bad too. Zambrano and Soriano are problably in the Bottom 10 current cotracts.

 

The difference is that every big team would have given Zambrano that contract.

 

Also, how ridiculous is it that he was allowed to stay on for another month after being fired? He must have said something like "Mr. Rickets, I understand you think I'm terrible at my job, but all the really really important things that a GM does during the season, which you think I am terrible at, needs to be done soon. Don't you want my unqualified self doing that?"

I don't think that the Zambrano contract is even that bad. This is the first year he's really fallen off of a cliff (first season he's had an ERA over 4.00) and has been pretty healthy for them. And he's only 30 years old.

 

It sucks he's on the books for that much money for 2012, though.

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I really don't see where Soriano was the worst. I wouldn't call it great, considering the amount, but Soriano has at least produced some. The Cubs problem for years is that they've given out large contracts to guys who weren't even that good. If they wanted to spend a lot, they might as well be like the Yankees or Red Sox and buy the best talent out there. Instead, they were always comfortable latching onto second-tier free agents and overpaying them.

 

 

The cubs have paid Alfonso Soriano $78 million so far for 5 years of .819 OPS over 612 games.

 

Over the same time frame, notoriously injury prone former Marlins outfielder has played an average of 4 fewer games per season and put up an .836 OPS and has been paid about $15 million. And he's stolen only 6 fewer bases per season to boot.

 

Alfonso Soriano is the absolute textbook definition of paying a premium price for "a second-tier free agent." He's not the exception to what you said, he's the bronzed statue example of it. I don't see how you can say he's not a bad contract and then turn around and criticize the exact sort of contract they gave him.

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I really don't see where Soriano was the worst. I wouldn't call it great, considering the amount, but Soriano has at least produced some. The Cubs problem for years is that they've given out large contracts to guys who weren't even that good. If they wanted to spend a lot, they might as well be like the Yankees or Red Sox and buy the best talent out there. Instead, they were always comfortable latching onto second-tier free agents and overpaying them.

 

 

The cubs have paid Alfonso Soriano $78 million so far for 5 years of .819 OPS over 612 games.

 

Over the same time frame, notoriously injury prone former Marlins outfielder has played an average of 4 fewer games per season and put up an .836 OPS and has been paid about $15 million. And he's stolen only 6 fewer bases per season to boot.

 

Alfonso Soriano is the absolute textbook definition of paying a premium price for "a second-tier free agent." He's not the exception to what you said, he's the bronzed statue example of it. I don't see how you can say he's not a bad contract and then turn around and criticize the exact sort of contract they gave him.

 

Soriano was a top tier free agent when he got the deal. That is indisputable.

 

Fukudome average around 12 million a year. He was signed to be a middle of the order guy to drive in runs, and the most runs he ever drove in for the Cubs is 58. I know stat wizards will look at his OPS and his OBP and say that he really wasn't that bad, but he was an invisible, non-factor in the Cubs lineup for almost the entire time he was there, and his bat hardly ever helped the Cubs win a game after his first couple weeks there. Milton Bradley was signed to a three year deal when he had proven, for at least 4-5 teams, that he was such a cancer that he could not stay in the same place for more than 1.5 years without his previous team having to pay to get rid of him.

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Milton Bradley lead the league in OPS the year before he signed with the Cubs. I don't get how that's a terrible contract but Soriano is defensible.

 

Also, you can't play the result with the Fukudome deal and not with the Soriano deal. Soriano was considered a top tier free agent when he signed the deal, and Fukudome was a highly sought after Japanese free agent. But you only judge the Fukudome one by the result?

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This is getting ridiculous.

 

You are justifying Soriano's contract based on what he did in his one year with the Nationals. Yeah, he put up some great numbers in a contract year, but that doesn't mean that it was a wise move to be paying Soriano $18 million when he's 37 and 38 years old.

 

Generally I think that when a player hits 30, it's foolish to offer a 7 or 8 year deal with that much money backloaded. That's why the Ryan Howard extension is probably going to turn out badly and is the reason why the Cardinals have been unable to secure anything with Pujols. I wouldn't want to have him on the books for $25-30 million/yr when he's 38, even if he's still one of the best players in the game right now.

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Milton Bradley lead the league in OPS the year before he signed with the Cubs. I don't get how that's a terrible contract but Soriano is defensible.

 

Also, you can't play the result with the Fukudome deal and not with the Soriano deal. Soriano was considered a top tier free agent when he signed the deal, and Fukudome was a highly sought after Japanese free agent. But you only judge the Fukudome one by the result?

 

 

Milton Bradley is the worst clubhouse cancer of his era and much worse than NFL equivalents like Terrell Owens. The minute Chicago made that deal, there wasn't a person in the know who didn't predict it to end absolutely exactly like it ended up- with Bradley having to be jettisoned because of attitude problems.

 

The minute Bradley signed that deal, 30 million dollars pretty much evaporated into thin air in Chicago.

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Milton Bradley lead the league in OPS the year before he signed with the Cubs. I don't get how that's a terrible contract but Soriano is defensible.

 

Also, you can't play the result with the Fukudome deal and not with the Soriano deal. Soriano was considered a top tier free agent when he signed the deal, and Fukudome was a highly sought after Japanese free agent. But you only judge the Fukudome one by the result?

 

 

Milton Bradley is the worst clubhouse cancer of his era and much worse than NFL equivalents like Terrell Owens. The minute Chicago made that deal, there wasn't a person in the know who didn't predict it to end absolutely exactly like it ended up- with Bradley having to be jettisoned because of attitude problems.

 

The minute Bradley signed that deal, 30 million dollars pretty much evaporated into thin air in Chicago.

So what's your point?

 

Soriano has only had two seasons remotely close to his 2006 year with the Nationals. He's earned maybe $24 million of $136 million with his production, and has been drastically underperforming for $54 million, with another $54 million still on the books with his best years far behind him.

 

The Soriano deal is a much worse financial hit for the Cubs because of the dollars and longevity involved.

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Milton Bradley lead the league in OPS the year before he signed with the Cubs. I don't get how that's a terrible contract but Soriano is defensible.

 

Also, you can't play the result with the Fukudome deal and not with the Soriano deal. Soriano was considered a top tier free agent when he signed the deal, and Fukudome was a highly sought after Japanese free agent. But you only judge the Fukudome one by the result?

 

 

No, I judged Fukudome at the time, not by the result. I used to follow the Cubs as closely as I follow the Marlins, and I knew when Fukudome was signed that other than a couple select instances, top Japanese free agents have never lived up to their supposed potential. It's best to think of them as prospects and not as sure things, but Fukudome was signed on a team that had made the playoffs before and was expected to make the playoffs again with the expectation that he provide middle of the order production, and he didn't do that.

 

If you don't believe me about Japanese players, let's go over some.

Kaz Matsui- Disappointment

Dice-K- Disappointment

Hideki Irabu- such a disappointment that Irabu recently committed suicide (RIP)

Akinori Iwamura- Not necessarily a disappointment in that the Rays knew he wasn't going to come close to equaling his Japanese numbers, but as one of Japan's premier power hitters it shows the production reduction from playing over here

Hideki Matsui- actually wasn't that bad but was expected to do much more than he did

Kei Igawa - :hammer

Nishioka for the Twins this year- sucks

Johjima- Production turned out pretty good but was still considered a disappointment

 

Hideo Nomo and Ichiro were/are obviously stars, and there is a long list of Japanese players who have been fine role players, or average starters, but Fukudome's deal (somewhere around 50 million for 4 years) was an obvious sign that the Cubs thought he would be middle of the order caliber. I'm fine with the signing of Japanese players, as long as it doesn't come with extremely high expectations and basing your team around the idea that they are going to be big producers.

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Either way, a $30 million dollar mistake for Milton Bradley doesn't set you back for almost a decade; the Soriano deal did.

 

 

A contract like Soriano's is merely embarrassing towards Chicago, it hasn't prevented them from doing anything. After they picked up Soriano, they still had plenty of money to throw at both Fukudome and Milton Bradley.

 

Soriano's deal alone wasn't what kept the Cubs, with one of the league's highest payrolls, out of the playoffs in the last three years. It was surrounding him with more expensively average talent. Again, you can say all the time what a horrible signing the Soriano one was, but by 2009 the Cubs knew what they were getting and they made the mistake in the building of the rest of their team, by adding guys that it would require a great deal of fortune and luck to get top production out of.

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