Another Bush

The Cubs have hired Randy Bush to be their assistant general manager reports the Tribune's online service:

Bush was one of a handful of special assistants to Hendry, along with Gary Hughes, Paul Weaver, Ken Kravec and former GM Ed Lynch. He won two championship rings with Minnesota in 1987 and '91, and was head baseball coach at New Orleans University when Hendry hand-picked him to join his staff in January of '05.

Bush's reputation as a top-notch talent evaluator made him an easy choice for Hendry, who is likely to travel less in '07 because of his recent heart scare at the winter meetings.

I'm glad to see that Bush is a top notch talent evalutaor, yet has only been with the Cubs for 23 months. I guess that means he is not really responsible for Angel Guzman, Corey Patterson, Andy Sisco, Ryan Harvey, Bobbie Brownlie, Luke Hagerty, Chadd Blasko, Brian Dopriak, ... You get the drift.

Someone remind us, who was in charge of scouting in those days?

And that brings us to Greg Couch's most recent column on the Cubs.

...the Cubs just lost 96 games. So they're looking a little like a 5-year-old begging for attention. Look how much money we've spent! Look at me! Look at me!

On top of that, the Cubs have absolutely no plan. They don't drive toward anything. Some teams are speed teams, some are power, some are pitching. Some develop through the minors. What is the Cubs' philosophy? Now it's the Great Band-Aid philosophy. Where are we bleeding? Quick, patch it.

But the Band-Aid philosophy beats their usual Give-kids-Beanie Babies philosophy.

Greg is right that this beats the old approach and that Jim Hendry continues to show no semblance of a strategy.

But, this is what this page warned about in the early fall. By not extending Jim hendry's contract when Andy MacPhail was ousted, trouble was sure to follow given the need for job preservation over long term progress.

What's next? A signing of a guy like Jason Marquis to a contract and have the GM suggest that he's a good pitcher because of a non-stat like wins despite being a failure in the presence of a proven great coach like Dave Duncan?

Ugh.