When people weren’t freaking out about Carlos Zambrano yesterday, they were freaking out about the future of the Chicago Cubs’ front office. It was an appropriate dovetail, given how disastrously Carlos Zambrano’s 2007 extension worth nearly $100 million has turned out.
The source of the freaking was a tweet from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. The tweet said simply, “Jim Hendry will stay on as Cubs GM, barring Ricketts change of thinking.”
Oh. My. God. Michael Scott, please share our collective sentiment:
Ok. Take a breath.
First, the tide remains squarely against Hendry, and Tom Ricketts knows this. I can’t count on 100 hands the number of times I saw people writing things like, “if Jim Hendry returns next year, I am done with the Cubs” in various corners of the Internet. Sure, that kind of reactionary explosion is not *directly* going to convince Tom Ricketts that it’s time to move on (nor is Ricketts likely to have seen any of the reactions). But it is reflective of fan sentiment, and of that, I’m quite certain Ricketts is aware. And that is all to say nothing of the flagging attendance.
Second, Nightengale’s is the ultimate prediction with no teeth – “barring Ricketts change of thinking” turns the tweet from a bold prediction into precisely nothing. It now says, “Hendry will be the Cubs’ GM next year, or he won’t.” Thanks for that.
Finally, Dave Kaplan responded to Nightengale’s tweet with a “no chance.” Maybe it’s confirmation bias, but for now, I’ll trust Kaplan’s local sources over Nightengale’s.
The fact is, anything could happen between now and November. There remains a non-zero chance that Jim Hendry will be the Cubs’ GM in 2012. But there is no reason to believe that Ricketts is not currently leaning against retaining Hendry, which is very much what I still believe.