You have to hand it to Jim Hendry, he knows what he likes. Former Texas Rangers. Mediocre outfielders coming off of career years. Guys with the initials MB. Neifi Perez.
The Cubs have signed Marlon Byrd to be their center fielder for the next three years. The deal is worth $15 million dollars and in typical Jim Hendry fashion it's back loaded so that the bulk of the money will be paid out in the later years. Specifically, $3 million in 2010, $5.5 million in 2011 and $6.5 million in 2012. This of course has the affect of helping squeeze Byrd into an already tight payroll and still gives Hendry the flexibility to add a pitcher or pitchers with his remaining budget. Apparently he doesn't care about next year or the year after but that's another story. Hey maybe Hendry will be able to talk Derek Lee into taking a $2.5 million dollar pay cut after his $13 million dollar a year contract runs out after the 2010 season so payroll won't have to go up! /end sarcasm
Okay, let's get serious for a minute. This isn't a terrible signing from a baseball standpoint. Marlon Byrd is an average player if you look at his road stats. In a normal year he's likely to put up an OPS of about .750 which is about league average. His defense in center is also average, it fluctuates year to year like most players but in general his UZR is acceptable. When he plays the corners he's defense is much better, going from average to very good. The problem is that his bat doesn't play in a corner outfield spot where you'd normally expect a slugger or at least an above average hitter. In center, if Byrd can just replicate his last three year road splits his bat will be fine though and since his defense is average he's not going to be hurting the Cubs.
What is going to hurt the Cubs is the contract, more specifically the length of the contract. Three years for a 32 year old player in today's game (post-PED's) is stretching it. Players don't start their decline at a set time but generally it comes on in their early to mid thirties. By the time Byrd reaches the end of his contract he will have turned 35 and will quite likely have been regressing for at least a year. By then he's probably going to be a fourth outfielder, and since he'll then be making $6.5 million dollars he'll be an extremely expensive fourth outfielder at that. Those are very hard to trade without eating some of the contract. Unless Jim Hendry knows something we don't about the future of the teams payroll then I'd imagine if he's having trouble fitting in a $3 million dollar contract into the 2010 payroll he's going to have trouble fitting in a similar contract in the 2012 payroll, and having overpaid, below average backups on the roster isn't going to make that easier.
So, is Jim Hendry really doing what's best for the team or is he just trying to save his job? The new owners, the Ricketts, can't be to pleased about the Milton Bradley fiasco that they inherited and that dominated the headlines in the first few months of their ownership. They also can't be very pleased about the team struggling against payroll limitations even though they were only an 83 win team the previous year and regressed in many important statistical categories. Not all of that is Hendry's fault, bad years from Alfonso Soriano, Geovany Soto, Milton Bradley, Kevin Gregg as well as injuries to Carlos Zambrano and Aramis Ramirez helped limit the teams effectiveness. It should be noted that Hendry traded for Gregg when there really wasn't anything to suggest that he was worth spending $4 million dollars on (he fell for the saves total, the most overrated stat in the game) and he handed out $30 million dollars to the volatile Bradley when it would have reasonably been predicted that the situation would end badly. Oh, and the Cubs are still on the hook for five more years of that ridiculous contract he handed out to Soriano after the 2006 season.
Maybe Hendry is trying to save his job with a good 2010 season or maybe he just doesn't have a good idea of how to put together a roster anymore. Before 2006 the Cubs always operated below what their revenue would seem to have dictated. Hendry was forced to acquire players through trades and shrewd free agent pickups. After a poor season in 2006 and with the team likely headed for sale the Tribune decided to open the checkbook and allowed Hendry to go on a spending spree like MLB has rarely seen outside of the Bronx. He spent more than $300 million dollars that winter and he hasn't been the same since. He seems to try to solve all the teams problems in the most expensive fashion now, through the free agent market. There's not a more expensive way to acquire talent in baseball than that. Hendry has only made one trade of real consequence since 2006, his trade for Rich Harden midway through the 2008 season (who he just let walk as a free agent himself without offering arbitration because of financial concerns).
Teams can't live that way, can't acquire all their talent through free agency. They have to be able to make trades to fill holes, deal from strengths, sign amateur talent and look for minor leaguers who are undervalued by their current organizations. Essentially they have to be able to beg, borrow and steal every talent they can find for the least amount of resources. Jim Hendry hasn't done that in awhile and the Cubs are paying the price for it, regressing in the standings and bumping up against financial limits. Marlon Byrd is just the latest example, and the latest to take advantage of Hendry's free agent addiction.
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