Looking back at troubling times with former Cubs GM Larry Himes

Cubs: Himes hoped to replenish the farm with a daring trade proposal

Himes was, in some ways, quite forward thinking, embracing statistical analysis over a decade before the publication of Moneyball. This may be what led him to arrive at his grand plan for the Cubs: re-build around young players. He would re-seed the farm through a blockbuster trade of Ryne Sandberg.

Now I can hear you questioning this logic already. Himes almost cost the Cubs both Maddux and Sandberg – a duo destined for Cooperstown. But put that aside for the moment; the theory wasn’t totally absurd. The Chicago infielder had one of his career years in 1990; his 1991 performance was still outstanding but at age 31, he was showing some small signs of wear. The homer rate went down slightly while the K rate ticked up.

Himes might reasonably have concluded that this was the time to sell Sandberg: while he was still great but without too many great years left. In the event Himes was correct: Ryno had one fantastic season left (1992) and then faded fairly rapidly, though an ugly divorce probably contributed to his decline (a comparison with 2016 World Series hero Ben Zobrist is hard to avoid).

Whatever one thinks of this plan, it is clear, or should have been clear, that what Himes was proposing was potentially radioactive. Yet Himes seems to have been surprised when Cubs management vetoed the plan. This piece (perhaps channeling sources close to Himes) blames the outcome on a pack of ignorant corporate suits more interested in TV ratings than in building a successful franchise. That is probably an accurate characterization of the Cubs’ ownership operation at this time.

But it is hardly irrational for any owner, good or bad, to want to retain a franchise icon who had not yet entered serious decline. Indeed, there are probably some alternate universes where Ryno continued to rake into his late 30s. The astonishing thing is that Himes had agreed to be GM, and based his rebuilding plan, on a mega-trade that he had not discussed in advance with ownership, an ownership that indeed had little interest in rebuilding at all. The Himes regime had stumbled at the first hurdle.

Larry Himes loses a Hall of Famer and Cubs legend in Greg Maddux

Himes’ other great baseball crime was, of course, the Greg Maddux debacle. His failure to sign Maddux, who had become a free agent after the 1992 season, ranks with Brock-Broglio, Bartman, and Dave Kingman singing the seventh inning stretch as horrifying memories from which only senescence will rescue us. Here’s a detailed account of the clown-car negotiations, told largely from Himes’ point of view.

The keyword in the article is “murky” – even today it is impossible to determine why the Cubs failed to sign Maddux. Was it the money-grubbing pitcher? The egomaniacal agent? The abrasive and chaotic GM? The clueless ownership suits who thought sacrifice flies were insects killed to appease angry gods?

That these questions cannot be answered with certainty even years after the event is an indictment of ownership and the front office. An organization worth the name does not let critical, franchise-altering decisions like this simply disappear into a morass of denial.

There should have been a coherent approach to Maddux, agreed upon in advance by all relevant levels of the management chain. Perhaps the right-hander still would have left – indeed, perhaps the Cubs would have made a deliberate, carefully thought out decision not to pay him – but instead one of the most important decisions in Cubs history was carelessly left on the floor for the cat to chew.

Himes Raids the South Side

Himes did trade the moldering remains of George Bell for Sammy Sosa, and this is still a handy stick with which to poke Sox fans. At one time it looked like this might partially offset the Maddux debacle. But with Sosa’s complicated legacy, even this victory is showing some rust.

Himes had much less draft success with the Cubs than he had with the Sox. None of his draftees achieved double-digit major league career WAR production. And his 1994 draft … well … you have to see it to believe it. Ten pitchers in the first ten rounds – it’s less a draft than a cry for help.

Whatever Himes’ skills were, Cubs ownership understood and used them poorly. In retrospect the Cubs’ rudderless mediocrity for much of the 1990s seems almost inevitable. Fortunately, no major league teams today are similarly misman- wait, what?