Battle Of Front Office Friends: Jim Hendry vs. Bill Polian

Cubs GM Jim Hendry, who was seen in Houston at the Colts-Texans game, as well as several Colts home games this season including the AFC Championship Game, cites Colts President Bill Polian as one of his best friends.  In the 15 years Hendry and Polian have been buddies, how many pieces of management advice from Polian has Hendry followed?

Polian is widely believed to be the hardest working evaluator of talent in the NFL, and a guy whose formula for building a winner has resulted in unparalleled success. Polian led the Bills to three straight trips to the Super Bowl, and the players he assembled went to a fourth the following year. He went to Carolina and took the Panthers to the NFC Championship Game in the franchise's second season.

With the Colts, he built a team that won more regular season games in this decade than any team ever, and may win a second Super Bowl in the last four seasons on February 7th. If a sports GM were to choose a mentor, he could do no better than Polian.

Let's see what similarities there are between the two friends.

Polian—Highest paid player is Peyton Manning, the NFL's only four-time MVP and the architect of some of the biggest comebacks in the history of sport. Manning is an automatic first ballot Hall of Famer, and used some of his wealth to finance a children's hospital in Indianapolis.

Hendry—Highest paid player is Alfonso Soriano, who has finished in the top five of MVP voting exactly once. Statistically, Soriano does not compare favorably with any member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, according to www.baseball-reference.com, the best website in the world.

Advantage Polian

Polian—The Colts have won a minimum of 75 percent of their regular season games during the past seven years.

Hendry—The Cubs have won 52 percent of their games in the last seven years.

Advantage Polian

Polian—Once sent me a hand-written thank you note.

Hendry—Used a string of profanity unrivaled even by Bob Knight while signing autographs for a line of kids at a Cincinnati hotel restaurant the morning after clinching the NL Central as my wife and I sat at the next table.

Advantage Polian—by a wide margin

Polian—Drafts rookies who contribute immediately and adapt perfectly to the Colts culture.

Hendry—Drafts players who enjoy long and fruitless minor league careers. The exceptions are Ryan Theriot, Mike Fontenot, and Geo Soto. There are three guys who can turn you into an ex-GM in a hurry. He does seem to have a knack for drafting catchers who become good pitchers—Randy Wells and Carlos Marmol are two examples.

Advantage Polian

Polian—Almost never spends on the veteran free agent market, citing Chad Bratzke, Corey Simon, and Booger McFarland as cautionary tales. Owner Jim Irsay is thrilled to have a spendthrift not writing giant checks to broken down, past-their-prime non-contributors.

Hendry—Habitual overspender who can't wait to overpay part-time players for middling results. Built 83 win team with the third highest payroll in baseball while paying little more than the league minimum to opening day starters Theriot, Fontenot, and Soto. No wonder the Tribune Company declared bankrupcy.

Advantage Polian

This is quickly becoming monotonous. Polian is superior to virtually every GM in sports. Hendry's results have been decidedly mediocre. His free agent signings have been mostly horrible. 

The exception is Ted Lilly, who is shelved likely until midseason. The big name acquisitions of Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, and Milton Bradley have been disastrous. The mid-level signings of Aaron Miles, Bob Howry, and Scott Eyre were equally wasteful.

Hendry has made some outstanding trades: acquiring Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee for virtually nothing is hard to ignore, but overall given the open checkbook the Tribune Company allowed, the results have been terrible. It's better to have been in the postseason three times over the past seven years than not, but the current nine-game losing streak in the postseason is a miserable testament to the Cubs fans torment.

If Polian and Hendry have frequent friendly conversations, Hendry should spend more time listening than talking. Maybe Polian is like an Italian mother-in-law, appearing to be friendly as she shares recipes, but holding back one crucial ingredient.

The daughter-in-law winds up with gravy that tastes like motor oil, and can't figure out why as the mother-in-law grins that her son can't ever get food like his mom's anywhere else.