Cubs GM Jim Hendry: Part 3: The Ugly

(Photo by David Blanks/Getty Images)

Pierrewas the leadoff hitter that the team was searching for seemingly forever. He had an expiring contract, and while you could argue he wasn’t worth the money the Dodgers spent to sign him, he also wasn’t worth the pitching Hendry gave up to get him if you were only planning on keeping him around for just one year.

At the trade deadline in 2006, Hendry traded Greg Maddux to the Dodgers for shortstop Cesar Izturis. Izturis was relegated to the bench for the Dodgers after they signed Rafael Furcal as a free agent in the off season.

This was the same Furcal that Jim Hendry had targeted as his number one priority that year. Ned Colletti was hired as GM just two weeks earlier and swooped in out of nowhere and stole him from the Cubs, who had been negotiating with him for some time.

Hendry couldn’t close the deal.

Then with the Dodgers in the playoff race and desperate for pitching, Hendry had future Hall of Famer Maddux as a valued commodity to trade. The Dodgers farm system was loaded with young talent like Jeff Kemp, Andre Ethier, and James Loney.

When you’re in a position of power, you can demand one of those players in return if the Dodgers really are serious about making the playoffs. Didn’t players like Jeff Bagwell and John Smoltz come to their teams in similar trades’ years ago for middling veterans? The players that went in those trades had nowhere near the resume that Maddux had.

Yet Hendry settled for the player they no longer needed in Izturis after Colletti already one upped him by getting Furcal. Izturis was gone the next season for nothing in return.

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