I'll take Choi first. Whatever his minor league numbers were, there wasn't any reason to believe he would translate that on a major league level. That should be General Manager 101, but Hendry for some reason didn't do this. I said at the time (and if you want me to try to pull up some early 2003 posts I made on the Cubs.com message board I can do that) the reason the organization was sticking with Choi had more to do with salary than with potential. Choi was a rookie (or just about) and therefore cheap. I was told, at the time, that Sammy was eating up all the money, and the bullpen needed addressing, and blah blah blah. My point at the time, and it still is, that the Cubs were too tightfisted to do what it took to win. I think Thome's numbers that season (2003) could not have done anything but make the team better. He would have protected Sammy, or vice versa. And, he may have been a countervailing clubhouse presence against Sosa's rampant ego. It would have required a roll of the dice, and the Cubs passed on it. And, like I said, Choi was a complete non-factor at the end of 2003. of the 43 post-All Star atbats he had, 25 of them resulred in strikeouts. So you tell me, even with all of Choi's "promise," how does the acquisition of Derrick Lee the very next season not bear out my contention that the Cubs vastly overestimated him?

LaTroy Hawkins. He was signed, I believe, to be the set-up man for Borowski. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I remember. Set-up men rarely, if ever, can be considered "dominant" as you said Hawkins was. They have an important role to play, yes, but we saw very plainly that success as a set-up man did not translate into success in getting the final 3 outs of a game. He was thrust into that role when they lost Borowski, but somebody (I can only assume it was Hendry or Baker) considered their set-up man to be closer material. I think they really wanted Farnsworth to take over as closer, but he never had his head screwed on right. And Remlinger, quite honestly, left his best days back in Atlanta. So the bullpen overall was a mess. But the way I see it, Hendry is paid to listen to the scouts and make a decision. Was there nobody out there any better than LaTroy Hawkins? I don't know. What I do know is that he had a direct hand in losing the wild-card his first year here (just one game, but the beginning of the end in my mind) and that play where he caught the line drive and then forced the throw to first that bounced off the runner's helmet and into the stands early in the 05 season was as defining a moment as this team had all season long.

And looking at the future results of a signing or a trade after the fact is completely fair. I still don't see why your determination of whether a move is a good one or not is shaped mainly by the circumstances at that very moment. By that standard, the White Sox got the better end of the Sosa trade because George Bell was a past MVP who helped them get to the playoffs that year. It's as if the 13 years Sammy then gave us (and the very little that George Bell later did) don't count for anything.

Jim Hendry does not have magic powers. But he does have the ability to listen to people who get paid to evaluate baseball talent. And he can make decisions to shape the team to his liking. And with that comes praise when he's right, and scorn when he's wrong. And he's been wrong far more often than he's been right, in my mind.

In 1995, be pitched a few games with Baltimore and was let go. Over the 1996 and 1997 seasons, hepiches a little bit with Atlanta, and does nothing spectacular. He finishes 1997, and goes into 1998 with the Yankees at their peak in recent years. They turn him loose after only 9 games, at which point he kicks around who knows where until 1 start with the Cubs (and a horifically bad one at that) at the end of the 2001 season. That's nearly 3 full seasons out of the majors. But Lynch and MacPhail are working their reclamation magic, so he stays.

In 2002, the end of the El Pulpo/Alfonseca era, he gets 12 holds, 2 saves, and 4 blown saves. He never saved a big-league game in his life until 2002, by the way. Then, everything falls into place and he has the season he does in 2003. So my point, and if you don't think it's fair I'm sorry, is that Hendry had no reason to consider Borowski a proven closer at that time. In fact, I don't know that he did, because there was talk of Hawkins taking over at closer if Borowski didn't pan out. If that's the thinking, forget the turning a set-up man into a closer backup strategy, and get a real closer instead. Tell Borowski thanks, maybe we'll keep you on for situational work, but you aren't our closer of the future. Hendry didn't do that. And I think it was a misjudgment.

If you think, based on Borowski's career path up to 2003, that he should have been the closer for 2004 and beyond, I would say I disagree with you. I didn't like it then, and based on the results, I sure don't like it now.

It's not strikeouts, it's not ERA, but as many times as not it's the number of games a pitcher wins. You win the most games in your league, and you're the favorite for the Cy Young, which goes to the best pitcher in each league. Other stats may come into it, but when a pitcher wins 25 games, believe me, he's a Cy Young winner.

Losses are the flip side of this. When a pitcher gives up 7 earned runs in 3+ innings, more often than not his team will lose the game and he will be held responsible by taking the loss. That doesn't always mean his team will lose the game, either. An assorted start here and there can be overlooked. But a pitcher who loses 4 games more than he wins, regardless of ERA and number of innings pitched, cannot be said to have had a good season.