bigfan wrote:
Elmhurst Steve wrote:
The boss did not MAKE the deal though. He encouraged Hendry to make the deal and do whatever it was going to take (according to BigFan's source). But in the end, it's Hendry's call as GM, whether to sign him at all, offer him a deal of reasonable length, or the deal he did in fact offer. He should have told McDonough, or whomever encouraged this deal, that such a contract would be foolish, as would signing a guy that is a defensive liability and gone out and signed Carlos Lee or someone else instead.
Actually Steve, the boss did make the deal. He made the call to the agent and I have enough backing on this one to think it is true.
From what I was told Hendry did not know the terms of the deal until the next day.
Lets say for the sake of argument that what you have been told is accurate. If Hendry's boss DID call the agent and determine the parameters involved in the deal and present them to Hendry, Jim Hendry STILL had the option of telling him that upon examination of those parameters, he finds the deal unacceptable. That he feels the deal involves too many years and would rather pursue other options. I am not as willing as you seem to be, to let Hendry off the hook. In the end he is still the GM and could have decided not to sign off on the deal. I understand why he did-he probably overlooked Soriano's failings and focused on a guy coming off a 40/4o season and thought "what the hell, the deals too long, but if we win a championship, who cares?" But it didn't happen and now all those failings are highlighted, without a championship. I was against his signing and have been critical of him all along. So I do not feel a bit bad about being critical about this now. That said, I'm sure there will be streaks this season where Soriano gets on a real nice tear and carries the club. People will once again be glad to have him-for a while. But his was a bad signing and Hendry had to know when the deal was struck, that it was a foolish contract. What do you think this guy will be like 4 years from now, when they are STILL paying him big coin??