Phil Rogers Hates Jim Hendry

Phil Rogers, as a knighted member of the Cublogoverse owes us more.

Rogers recently wrote a veiled critique of all things Jim Hendry. The gist of the opus is that the Cubs’ moves this offseason have not worked out well (that’s actually a fair point – obvious, easy, effortless, but fair). The lack of depth, rationality, or meaningful insight, however, is where I feel stung for having read it.

But the manner in which Rogers chooses to express the point is baffling. Try on this “criticism”:

As the architect of a winner, Jim Hendry is enjoying a nice run in Chicago. But he does have critics. They argue that he’s mostly thrown money at the Cubs’ deficiencies, and the deals for Alfonso Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, Ted Lilly and Bradley fit that argument. Ditto the contract extensions for Carlos Zambrano, Aramis Ramirez, Derrek Lee and Ryan Dempster.

Um, let me clarify. Your criticism is that this terrible general manager identified “deficiencies,” and then used the free agent market or internal extensions to address the deficiencies? That’s somehow a bad thing? Is the appropriate response to let the deficiencies fester?

Oh, and I love how Rogers follows this point up by listing almost all of the best players on the Cubs. Good point, Phil. I pray every night that I could watch a Cubs team without Soriano, Fukudome, Lilly, Bradley, Zambrano, Ramirez, Lee, and Dempster. Go go Geo Soto!

Rogers’ vehicle for the article was a series of questions from a reader. Here’s a pearl:

“I’m also totally puzzled as to why the Cubs ‘traded’ Mark DeRosa.  It looks as if the real “trade” was DeRosa for Bradley — not as bad as Brock for Broglio, but in the same class.’’

Like I said, Mr. Norton asks good questions.

We’ve tirelessly covered the DeRosa trade, so I’m not going to go there. But let me address Mr. Norton’s hypothetical trade: if the situation were such that a team could actually trade Mark DeRosa for Milton Bradley before this season, that team would be a collective IDIOT for not making the trade. You’re right, though, Mr. Norton – it’s not quite Brock for Broglio, but it would be close. In the other direction.

The rest of the article is a fairly mundane regurgitation of why the Bradley signing sucked, the DeRosa trade sucked, and the Marquis trade sucked (er, what? Actually, Rogers’ primary criticism of the Marquis trade is the contract he was given three years ago. Um, ok.).