Can't believe Hendry couldn't have talked ownership into over slotting in the draft for Weiters or whomever...ridiculous.
If the Leader of the operation can't persuade the owner to spend a relatively amount, he hasn't made a good business case...almost certainly the case with Hendry, who always was intent on signing the next FA and never prioritized building the foundation.
From the end of 2006 until the time the Ricketts bought the team, Cub ownership was wanting to sell the team. They did not give a damb about the foundation of the organization.
They simply wanted to put lipstick on the pig.
Moves that might help the team win immediately, even if expensive, were fine. Moves to help with the foundation, even if they had been relatively inexpensive, were not.
Persuasion was not an issue in the decisions, particularly when he was not hired to help persuade the owners what to do or how much money to spend. Thinking it was some deficiency on Hendry's part to have been unable to persuade ownership to sink money into the foundation, when the ownership had no intention of holding onto the team long enough to ever see any return from that investment, misses not only what was happening, but also the goals of ownership, and the role of the GM.