Balta1701

https://www.nbcsportschicago.com/mlb/chicago-white-sox/rick-hahn-referred-to-himself-as-a-jackass-as-fernando-tatis-jr-came-up-again-at-soxfest/320178/

This is as much of a "White Sox" complaint as I can possibly get, but this is the White Sox we're talking about, with their union rep, and with serious payroll limitations. So we're going to say this, and everyone here has a sneaking worry about this already with our owner. There is a nonzero chance the White Sox would decline to offer him a QO if they don't trade him. I don't know what the actual chances are, but we literally just had this discussion 2 offseasons ago and they let a guy go without a QO where they clearly could have offered one. He got a QO one year later from a better franchise.

If there is a significant payroll cut coming next year again, then although not picking up the option seems unwise, moving him at the deadline this year just to get the money off of the 2024 payroll and get something in return would be part of my plan if I wrote one.

I don't know what the next month will look like for Cease, but I will definitely listen on him if I were to get an offer with a strong return. The potential of having a guy for 3 postseason runs instead of 2 should make him far more valuable, and in the offseason teams needing pitching will be more likely to just splurge on a free agent like Giolito rather than make a big trade. Robert is more challenging. He is about to make his first all start team, and he is under control for 4.5 years! A team trading for him right now would be acquiring the guy for up to 5 postseason runs. The value of this player is so high that it's hard to fathom anyone actually putting the price on the table he would require. The Juan Soto trade, for example, was for a guy who would be under Padres control for 1.5 years, only 2 postseason runs, and he returned several top 100 prospects along with guys who were recent dropouts/graduates from the top 100 and a recent draftee. Robert isn't on Soto's level, but he's cheaper and under control for so ungodly long. Could anyone imagine what "twice Juan Soto's cost to the Padres" would look like on paper? We're talking about what, 4 top 100 prospects and more beyond that? The cost for Robert is so high based on the years of control that it is difficult to see anyone meeting it. Most teams simply can't. The handful who have that amount of talent probably wouldn't do so.

What are the White Sox giving up that Baltimore needs? A quick look suggests he's likely quite a bit more valuable than what you could return for a guy with 1 year of control like Giolito or one of the relievers. If the White Sox were to move Cease or (eek) Robert, he could be a part of a package for either of them.

.255/.332/.433/.765 is the average for all 1b this year so far. This is the highest offensive output of any position.

Genuinely uncertain about this - would trying to do this get the White Sox into "grievance and arbitration/court case" territory?

The only path to competing requires the White Sox to sign multiple pitchers to Clevinger and Cueto like deals, at least 3 to 4 of them, and have them all work out at least as well as Cueto did. That could just get them to tread water, 10 games below .500 again. They would then need an improved performance from the offense and defense "Somehow", because a team at the bottom of the league in those categories is going to stay at the bottom of the league. Finally, they would need no team to run away with the AL Central or wild card, as even by luck it is tough to see them getting to 90 wins. They have to do all of this while spending something like $40 million or less, assuming they can get to this years' payroll again. If they have to do a payroll cut (and they have a drop of more than 4000 tickets sold per game compared to 2022 so far this year), they will have less to spend than that.

Worth noting that ZiPS had the White Sox at 74-88, 14 games under .500, and they're right on track for that kind of a finish? PECOTA had them at 77.7 wins.

I 100% believe that if Tony LaRussa was medically capable of managing the White Sox he would be managing the White Sox right now, and I also believe they'd be a couple games worse than they are right now because his choices go beyond baffling to the point of "doing stupid things because I have to prove I'm smarter than everyone else". What exactly knocked him out last year, something internal or a continued problem with substances, I don't know, but he'd be here right now if it wasn't for that.

Here is a plot this year of K/9 on the X axis and BABIP on the Y-Axis. If your statement was true, then there should be a negative correlation here. There is not, these two properties are effectively uncorrelated (R2 = 0.0085 for a linear fit). However, the White Sox's .263 BABIP for the last 2 months - that would very much stand out as it is lower than any other value on that plot. The story is very much clear, the White Sox's pitching struggled for the first month, because they had generally bad luck. They have been above average for the following 2 months, because they were particularly lucky. It has balanced out them being a somewhat below average staff overall with average luck, because they are a somewhat below average staff overall.

Your three choices are: 1. Rick Hahn leads a rebuild. 2. Rick Han leads a retooling. 3. You find another team/another sport to cheer for. These are the orders of leader Reindsorf. No other options are acceptable.

Do you want Hahn trying to retool a 4th place roster in the offseason with limited resources to spend? As much grief as he has gotten for the last couple years, nothing he has done has been as damaging as his retooling attempts.

Since May 1, they have a 3.63 ERA which is the 4th best in baseball over that stretch. However, this is driven by the fact that their .263 BABIP over that stretch is the best in baseball. Given that their defense is bad and their ground ball rates are low, this should be read as an unsustainable number. Their strand rate is also pretty high - this is simply a lucky stretch for them. It probably balances out their bad April, but it also won’t last the whole season. Their FIP numbers for this stretch alone are in the middle of the league. They have been lucky since May 1. They were somewhat unlucky before that. Overall they’re still not very good.

The hitting coach has been here 3 months. Yes things are clearly worse under this staff, but who hired these hitting coaches?

Kris Bryant has 5 years and $131 million remaining on his deal - after this season. Youd be taking on $140 million if you traded for him at the deadline. Moncada and Eloy have about $42 million remaining after August 1. I am too lazy to look up Palmquist but I struggle to think he’s worth $100 million.

Didn’t they win a game 2 weeks ago on a wild pitch that bounced off the umpire? Kinda seems like winning games on wild pitches is a 50/50 strategy.

This is a real good bullpen? Their ERA is 24th in baseball. They’re probably average if Hendriks were here?

Don’t worry, we won’t extend our CF.

Yes, 28th baseball. But, this pitching staff isn’t good either. They’re bad, just not awful. Picking windows where they are all the way up to tolerable and saying “if they could avoid the losing streaks” ignores how unavoidable those losing streaks are with a roster this weak and with this little depth. Last years team was 16 over if it wasn’t for the two 8 game losing streaks!

The White Sox are 23rd in MLB in pitching fWAR.

They have addressed it. Their coaches realized their guys weren't swinging aggressively enough, so they had them swing more aggressively. It took work to get past the Royals to lead the league in this.

But this does show you how “he didn’t play baseball and wasn’t a scout” isn’t the biggest problem with Hahn.

I would agree with this. If there’s one thing we’ve consistently said about this franchise, it is no longer running very well. You have strikes outdoors by the food workers, massive turnover in the ticket sales staff, the marketing staff can’t even figure out that having Clevinger come out to the song “gold digger” is a bad idea, they signed Clevinger with an insufficient background check, they had a completely unnecessary contract fight with their main play by play broadcaster and are set up to run him out of town, they tried to cover up a coach’s DUI, there’s plenty more. None of these affect the team on the field directly but they have all fed into the dissatisfaction, and anger coming at the franchise.

Honestly, I’m completely ok with this. If you wanted to do this the right way, saving every cent possible now is important. If you can clear out Anderson and Eloys contracts now, do so. Holding onto them runs the risk that you will be stuck paying for next year when they’re hurt or struggling worse, and I don’t really care if they’re better next year because this team isn’t good enough for one or two people improving to do anything other than offset the things they lost to FA.