Balta1701

This is the White Sox. They had both Grandal and seemingly Moncada play through bad backs last year. They had Robert swing one handed for a month. They regularly play short handed for a week at a time. You have to give us a standard. Hurting more than now? Hurting and in effective? Injured but the team won’t IL him? Or actually on the IL?

Every time someone writes a post like that I wonder what the chances are that Rick Hahn prints them out and displays them to JR to show that the fanbase supports his plans and thinks he's done a strong job.

Aaron Bummer and his 6.82 ERA?

I don’t think you were here much for the lockout? But this is one where I think the players are actually mostly in the wrong. Over the last 20 years, the owners have cut the fraction of income going to players by like 1/3, from 60% to under 40% in 2021. The owners figured out how to collide without colluding; you just make it clear you’re not bidding on someone like the Harper and Machado pursuits. The players would have come out better for 15 years if the locked in a cap and a floor because the floor would have pushed up a lot of veteran salaries. Waiting for one Cohen to come along doesn’t make up for this. Furthrrmore, a league where Oakland and Pittsburgh have to spend moderately is a stronger sport. It’s really bad when franchises wither over 20 years with only one or two competitive seasons, that kind of failure is murder on fanbases (cough). The one legit worry I have to give though is that I don’t know that you can trust the owners to give honest revenue figures to independent auditors determining the tax or floor. Whether it’s not counting parking or owning networks or hiding money in the drywall of some bathroom, there are owners I wouldn’t put anything past.

If the White Sox want to do anything other than flail along hoping for the best, they will have to do things they don't want to do. Basically, the draft rules limit the talent the White Sox can get at the very top of the first round, but that is not the only place talent can be found. They have to get good returns from trades, from the international market, and from their other draft picks. 1. They have to trade Dylan Cease now. His value isn't likely to go up a lot if they hold him until the offseason, and it's likely to go down quite a bit by the trade deadline next year since he will only be controlled for 2 years. 2. They can listen on Robert, and I'm open to arguments that they should take less than he's worth just to make sure they get something strong for him as injury insurance. 3. They must improve their return in the international market. As noted above, the White Sox are still getting disappointingly little from their international signings. They can't be as bad as they've been - the only return they have gotten in the international market in the space of a decade has been the big money guys, Abreu and Robert. Óscar Colás and Lenin Sosa are the first players the White Sox have signed on the international market to contribute to the White Sox since Yolmer Sanchez, and neither has been any good. Even a few players in their roster from this group would help, if they continue to be this bad at the international market they will never build a consistent winner. 4. They must improve the return they get outside of the first round of the draft. The Braves' rotation as we noted a couple times is being keyed by their 4th and 5th round draft picks from 2020. The only guys on the White Sox right now from the lower rounds are Seby Zavala (12th round), Aaron Bummer (19th round), Remillard (10th), and Gavin Sheets (2nd round). That's hundreds of players drafted outside of the first round and it has added up to -1.1 WAR, only 1 positive player on the entire roster outside of round 1. 5. They must start maximizing value rather than minimizing it. Over the next few years, they will have money to spend and spots to fill, but they won't be competitive for big name guys. The game they will be playing is bargain hunting - trying to find valuable guys and then turning them into something useful through trades. If they sign 3 or 4 pitchers per year, spending like $30 or $40 million on them, some of them will be bad, some of them will be good. They have to turn the good ones into something! This is the opposite of how the White Sox have previously behaved. In 2019, they signed Ivan Nova, he wasn't very good, but he did throw innings for them - he turned into nothing. They signed James McCann, he was excellent for 2 years, they turned him into - nothing. They signed Herrera, he was awful. That's how it usually goes! You can't let these guys be walking away for nothing and you can't trade away the guys you do control. 2022 is another great example, as they decided to stand pat at the deadline when they shouldn't have. They let Abreu walk for nothing, they let Cueto walk for nothing, they held Lopez and he imploded, they held Graveman after an excellent first half and he has been far worse since. This is a long term trend - Rodon gave them nothing, they minimized Giolito's value by holding him too long. Play the game the right way and this is an opportunity, act like they are right now and it will continue to be a crisis. Sign guys and turn the good ones into something long term, don't waste the innings you have.

And 13th in OBP, just ahead of Hanser Alberto.

Take a look at a team with a similar number of IL days to the White Sox - the Astros. Luis Garcia - out for the season (TJS) Lance McCullers - missing the entire season Jose Urquidy - has been out since April, may pitch again this week. Jose Altuve - missed 2/3 of the season so far Michael Brantley - hasn't played this season at all, may not. Yordan Alvarez - missed the last 37 games with an oblique With a handful of other guys (McCormick) who have also missed time. Do the White Sox's injury loads even compare to this? Altuve alone might have outproduced everyone you mentioned combined. And this is nothing compared to an actually banged up team like the Dodgers or Yankees. The White Sox have been generally healthy overall. Injuries league-wide were up by quite a bit earlier this year, I'm not sure if the number is still 20% higher but it was 20% higher as of May compared to last year. The White Sox have some injuries, Hendriks hurt admittedly, but nothing that should be remotely outrageous for any normal team. The trick with the White Sox is that they can't endure a single injury because they don't have any depth - oh and they make things worse by being imbeciles (Hendriks, Crochet). The Astros are on their 7th and 8th starters coming into the year, and they've been generally ok. The White Sox's 6th starter left his last outing last year with elbow pain, they did nothing to bring in any depth whatsoever during the offseason, and then had to drag in Touki Toussaint because it was so unbelievable that they might need any more depth than the guy who had an elbow injury.

They’ve been quite healthy this season, among the healthier teams in the league. It only looks like injury matters because anyone getting hurt at all is an instant disaster since the only MLB level backup in the whole organization is Burger.

If we’re thinking on the 5 year horizon there’s also a stadium issue that is going to hit whoever the next GM is. A team that can’t draw fans trying to negotiate for a new stadium in a state that is unlikely to want to pay for it is a bad place to be, one that will affect a GM as well.

This team is 24th in ERA and 25th in pitching WAR. They had a month long streak where they looked better thanks to the best BABIP in baseball by far, but that just means they’ve been streaky by chance. They’ve even been generally healthy, 4 of their opening day starters are here and no pitcher has been lost for the season. Their pitching isnt even ok. If they were an average offense and had this pitching in a normal division, they still wouldn’t be good.

Rick Hahn does, he will tout that as the kind of impressive accomplishment that should earn him another 4 years. You realize how hard it is to build a 3rd place team? The White Sox’s GM couldn’t do that for a 6 year period between 2013 and 2018, so you know this GM must be doing something much better than that guy.

The team last year wasn’t a complete disaster because they got ridiculous lucky performances out of Cueto, Andrus, and Zavala….and they also had a top 5 record in 1 run games, as good as Cleveland.

If he was he did a bad job of it. Literally no one thought last year was a well motivated professional team. 2016? 2015? A 13 year old kid was their coach because no one else was useful.

The odds are that any GM they bring in will outlast him.

Unless they’re being seriously underpaid (possible), this will still look like a decent job. A rebuild is required, but they’re able to spend money and there’s generally good job security. Unless the owner insists on things that are unrealistic (turning around this mess in 2 years), it’s an opportunity to build an org from scratch. You can even just wait out Grifols contract and then bring in your own guy fresh once you’ve built up the organization elsewhere.

If they were going to get rid of him they even had an excuse for how to do it easily - they could have asked KW to serve as interim GM while They conducted a search. The fact that he is still in charge right now days from the deadline definitely says he’s not leaving.

And just think of how much it will help our 2024 bullpen.

I mean, after this season he will be averaging 2 plus or minus about 0.3 fWAR over each of his last 4 full seasons. I’d sorta expect him to continue being a 2 WAR player for at least another year, he’s about the most consistently average player in baseball.

If they were literally going to try another search this offseason, with a 90 loss team, no one with a long term successful resume will want this. They will face the notion of being a scapegoat if the can’t fix the team.

Even if he’s healthy he isn’t producing. Over the last 3 years combined he has an .801 OPS. For a DH who can’t run and is awful when he plays the field, that’s not good. For $13 million next year? Yuck.

Holding onto a guy into his 6th season who is this bad of a DH and insisting he’s not a part of the problem and they’ll be meeting their goals next year is much much more the type of crap this organization would do. For some reason, certain of their fans sticking their heads in the ground and defending these weak players is also the kind of crap we hear from this organization and it’s fanbase.

“The White Sox will try to bring Crochet back in May and he will either struggle or get hurt” was literally the easiest prediction I have ever made.

His last HR was June 16. He has 1 home run over the last 2 months. For any other franchise I would say that the org should be unhappy with Colas, his approach at the plate is terrible. But it’s also the approach the White Sox seem to want.