Philadelphia Phillies: Hiring Jim Hendry would be a fatal mistake

The Philadelphia Phillies should absolutely steer clear of former Cubs GM Jim Hendry.

While the rest of the baseball world is focused on where JT Realmuto is going to sign and which team is going to trade for Francisco Lindor, a rather surprising piece of information leaked regarding the Philadelphia Phillies future front office plans. According to Howard Eskin of SportsRadio 94WIP, current President of Baseball Operations Andy MacPhail has recommended Jim Hendry to owner John Middleton as a possible GM candidate.

When I first saw this tweet, my first reaction was genuinely: “What in the world are we doing?” Almost every other team in baseball has prioritized analytically-savvy front offices spearheaded by youth and innovation, and the Phillies are out here targeting a near 70 year old baseball dinosaur?

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A guy like Hendry embodies everything that is plaguing the Philadelphia Phillies at the moment. MacPhail is decades past his prime, and Hendry is just another one of his old pals who shares the same thought process and mindset when it comes to constructing a baseball team (which hasn’t been working for MacPhail!).

If you’re not familiar with Hendry, he was the Chicago Cubs’ general manager from 2002 to 2011. During that span he went 749-748, cracking the postseason on just three occasions. His 2003 team was very infamously “five outs away” from winning the World Series, but he ultimately failed at bringing Chicago a championship.

In the final years of his time as Cubs GM (2009-2011), Hendry oversaw the 2nd, 1st, and 2nd highest payrolls in all of baseball. The team failed to make the postseason all there years, and was one of the worst in the MLB in 2010 and 2011.

Hendry was replaced by Theo Epstein in 2012 (an innovative, analytically-savvy exec), and he joined the Yankees as a special assistant soon after. He’s been with New York ever since, helping the team with their scouting during that timespan as well.

Outside of Hendry’s less-than-stellar resume, he is just very much reflective of an era of baseball that has come and gone. He was initially hired in Chicago due to his time working with Dave Dombrowski, and Dombrowski truly does embody everything wrong with some of the more “old school” baseball GMs. Dave has build a reputation for himself as someone who guts farm systems to win games, leaving organizations in horrible spots once he leaves. While it’s been proven to help teams in the short term, it’s just not the way smart baseball teams operate when it comes to extended success (Dodgers, Rays, Braves, Yankees, Astros).

Hiring someone like Hendry is essentially MacPhail doubling down on all his previous mistakes. It’s his way of saying, “I was actually right this entire time, so I’m going to recommend you hire someone who thinks exactly like me.” On top of that, MacPhail and Hendry’s relationship likely extends outside of baseball, meaning the current Phillies president will always have some semblance of a voice into what’s going on with the team.

There are a plethora of smart, young executives out there begging for a high-paying President job (Erik Neander for example), and the Philadelphia Phillies would be seriously wise to invest their attention into them, as opposed to someone who’s been in baseball for the last 30 years.

Even just waiting a full year to hire the previously mentioned Theo Epstein seems like a better plan than bringing in someone like Jim Hendry. He at least has a winning track record.