Jim Hendry Quotes (93 Quotes)

I've been real happy with him. He's a very well-grounded young man. He did not take his opportunity last season lightly. He went home and kept working after the fall league. He has improved his defense. He just gives you real good at-bats.

The Cubs' faithful would like nothing more than to erase the memory of that heartbreak, but the team's run deep into October should serve notice that these Cubs are bona fide championship contenders. Not since Teddy Roosevelt's presidency have the Cubs played in two straight postseasons. They'll reach it again this year, but they're thinking bigger. On paper we're better than we were last year, ... We feel we're ready to make the next step.

We've always had a lot of respect for him. He pitched so well against us for Houston. He went out there last year with some discomfort and gutted out his starts in Boston. He's a winning-type guy. He's a winning pitcher who, when he's out there, he wins you games.

He won't be changed, the way he approaches the game and his teammates. He has too much character to let long-term security affect the way he goes about his business. He puts the price of winning above the price of his own bank account.

We are looking forward to Juan hitting in the leadoff spot. This contract is a good conclusion to the winter for both Juan and us.

I don't know who he meant. I clearly wouldn't think that Todd Walker would have any reason to tell you I've never not told him the truth. Whether I'm right or wrong, I've spent 27 years of my life telling players what I felt was the truth at that time. My decisions don't always work out, but they're never done with any deception toward the player.

In all honesty, he did not want to have the procedure. He was opposed to it at first. As long as it didn't hurt to pitch, he wanted to continue because his arm is feeling so well. After I talked to the doctors, we felt it's best to do it now.

We are thrilled to have Tim join the organization. To add him to our staff at this time of his year with his track record is a real plus. He is considered in our industry to be one of the finer amateur scouts and his track record for the Blue Jays speaks for itself.

For a while, I thought we were going to a hearing.

We'll sit down in the next few days and plan some kind of action and get the doctors involved, and see what the best approach would be from here.

The player made it real clear he wants to be here and he wants to be here long term.

He's one of the most respected pitching coaches in the game. He's got two World Series rings to show for that. I think he's got a tremendous work ethic. Nobody at the ballpark is here longer during the day than Larry. He spends countless hours trying to get them better. I think he's totally dedicated trying to get everyone to maximize their ability.

Nobody is here at the park longer than Larry. And the pitchers recognize that. He spends countless hours trying to make them better mechanically and mentally.

Hopefully, it's just a little snag and he's back with a few days setback and he's back on his program at the end of the week. Today was the first day that he ever told O'Neal or Larry that he had discomfort.

I think his chances of making the team are real good. We've always professed to be in the 'earn it' business. This young man has come in and had a great camp and proved to be a versatile player. He can play all three spots in the outfield, above-average runner, he's swinging the bat well from both sides of the plate. Hopefully he can carry it from Spring Training to the regular season.

I have a lot of fondness in my heart for Corey. I feel badly at what happened last year. I certainly will try to do what's best for the Cubs first and what's best for Corey second.

He's athletic, he's got some pop in his bat, he can play quality defense ... he runs well. He's 30 years old, and he certainly has a lot of upside left in him.

This is a very competitive guy and a winning type pitcher. The doctors felt he was on a track procedure-wise like Kerry Wood's but maybe a month behind him. We're not counting on him Opening Day. We're hoping somewhere in the month of May he'll be ready. We felt it was a good guy to have in the inventory.

If he chooses to stay in Atlanta, obviously nobody could fault him for that. I just told him what we're trying to do, what my plan may be for the next month, be open and honest.

It's a big blow, so we have to keep plugging and hope we can play better and better.

He would probably pitch now if we wanted him to even though we're certainly not headed to the postseason. Why wait any longer Let's do what's best for his recovery time no matter what the procedure involves.

We've always thought the world of him.

Holly gets a chance to go to one of the finer organizations in the game, a contending club and a club he's performed well against. John Schuerholtz and Bobby Cox felt like as well as they are going, they could use a veteran who can pinch hit off the bench, which Holly has done well.

When things don't go as well as we all planned, there's enough fingers to be pointed everywhere, but it's certainly not coming from (management),

Dr. Kremchek felt that from his studying the MRI, it would be nothing to stop him from being available once Spring Training opens. Why we're doing it now is to avoid a sprained ankle that would set back his rehab. We're just trying to give ourselves the maximum amount of time, no matter what it is.

We haven't had any reason to plan for anyone to play first base.

He was doing a lot of conditioning on the lower half of his body over the winter. He was in real good shape. Then he woke up one morning and found his knee was swollen.

Obviously it's a tragedy. Oscar helped a lot of young guys become better pitchers and better baseball players. He has a wonderful family, and Oscar will be missed.

When Felix comes here, you want him to play a decent amount of time. If we had an injury in the outfield, it certainly would've been Felix who was called up. He's capable of coming up and performing.

It can't be a real significant injury because it's hard to believe somebody can throw 98 miles an hour and have a serious arm problem. He hasn't had any discomfort at all. He hasn't had any complaints since going to the 'pen.

He has physically never looked better to me. He's probably 10, 15 pounds lighter than last year and is just in great shape. He's done as much precautionary preparation work as anyone could. He has already been throwing and gotten ahead of where he usually would be at this time.

The Sox were the best team in baseball and they deserved to win -- I'm happy for them. But whether the Sox won the World Series or not, we won 79 games last year and that's not acceptable.

I wouldn't consider anything insurmountable gaps at this point. Obviously we've got time to get something done, whether it's tonight, tomorrow or next Friday.

He's had a zero-complaint camp. When he said he had a little snag today, there's no sense in coming out Thursday without him seeing somebody.

He will have one of the most important jobs in our organization. He'll have complete autonomy in the amateur draft.

We have made a lot more deals after the winter meetings since I have been GM than at the winter meetings. We are still hopeful to be active in the pursuit of an outfielder. We'll keep grinding it out until we rectify that.

Obviously, Dr. Kremchek's reputation speaks for itself. We have (glowing) reports and reviews from us for his work with Dempster and Scott Williamson. Plus he has a general concern for players from the other clubhouse over the years whether it was a significant injury or not.

It's obviously not a place we wanted to be. For a lot of reasons, it didn't work out the way any of us wanted. You just have to adjust and move on. There is no sense taking the month of September, hanging our head and feeling bad about what happened the six months before. We're going to try to get some people more playing time.

I really haven't set a time frame. It's something I'll focus on at the appropriate time that I feel comfortable.

I think it was makeup and knowing his stuff was good. He had two outstanding pitches, but I felt he was the one guy in-house who really had the intangibles. I'm not going to act like I was that smart that he'd do the job the way he's done. I thought internally, he's the best candidate. I'm a big believer that the ninth inning is done as much on makeup as stuff.

My focus is we won 79 games. That's a bad year. Anybody who sits in this seat and thinks that's acceptable, that's wrong. The urgency for me is to rectify coming off a bad year. If the White Sox hadn't won, we still have 79 in the win column and that's never going to be acceptable as long as I'm doing it, and we have to try like heck to get it fixed.

Jones' batting average numbers were down but I think his overall production will rise. He hits a lot of balls into the gap.

I really haven't set a time frame. I feel the same way about Dusty Baker as I did the day we signed him. For anyone to think it's a controversial issue, that would be wrong.

We're certainly at the point where we're not going to take any chances. He's had a zero complaint camp. When he said he had a little snag today, there's no sense of him coming out on Thursday.

I haven't thought about it.

He certainly made no secret of the fact he wanted to be a Cub for a long time, and we certainly wanted to accommodate him. He's a special player.

We had a healthy Nomar, who was going to hit third. We thought Corey was going to take a step up, instead of a step back,

He's the smartest man in baseball. He can do whatever he wants to in this game.

Obviously, ... it's entertaining to watch.

We've found ourselves significantly behind the Cardinals by the month of May or the middle of May. Credit them for how well they get out the gate. Certainly over the winter we'll look at avenues to try to get out of the gate better and maybe approach things differently.