michelangelosmonkey

So your argument is...Hahn should make good decisions not bad decisions and if he does this consistently over time the team will be good? And I had to wade through your insults for that? It sure seems to me that Hahn has a process, he's following the process and the White Sox now have more talent than I can ever remember them having.

Just so we are clear...Hahn's record on free agents, excluding Abreu, Robert, McCann, Keuchel and Grandal is bad. OK you can go back to your narrative.

I'm not being sanctimonious...I'm just suggesting that hiring someone right now that has a stink on him could be problematic for the "feel good story". You can think the same thing holds for TLR but I don't think the baseball community thinks that and if you can quickly transition to JJ...well why would he be a worse choice than AJ? AJ performed great when he had a super team...does that make him a super coach? JJ knows almost all the players as he coached them all in the minors.

Yes but Hinch has the stink of that cheating thing hanging over him and I could imagine internal discussions of "do we want to taint championships with AJ?" "We have our own AJ in JJ" "JJ not ready but we could use TLR as transition which would be a feel good story" and "It would make the old man happy and TLR DOES have winning baseball experience." Honestly I think it's the most sensible solution...I like the idea of AJ but seems like a lot on the board hate him. Plus...JJ has a really interesting track record within the organization...seems like they targeted him at 25 to be future manager...and he's done a lot of good things on that path.

I actually don't think it's puzzling. I think Hahn wants Jirschele but the organization thinks its too early for him...he's only just turned 30. I think the idea of our own AJ Hinch (who was 35 when he started managing) or Rocco Baldelli is interesting but you have this race horse ready to run and giving it to a rookie jockey is risky. Bringing in TLR to mentor Jirschele and provide the transition to the manager for the next 20 years is appealing in a lot of ways. I think TLR's experience with winning, the White Sox and Jerry could be good....just as long as it's not a long term answer.

The problem with this argument is...Robert as a rookie was one of the best defensive CF's in baseball. His RZR (Revised zone rating) was the highest of any CF...meaning he gets to everything. The only real liability that he had was catching balls over the wall...but given his athleticism I feel like he will figure that out too. I like Engel but I like even more the idea of Ken Griffey, JR 2.0 gobbling every fly ball into CF for the next decade.

Wait...so if I "implore you" you will teach me? Let me get my chair. To summarize so you know where to start teaching me...to this point you have taught me: That Poker is a higher intellectual pursuit and not random outcomes determined by the flip of a card because, shut up. That the process of winning at poker is a dispassionate calculation of the odds and then wagering based on those odds (you didn't actually say that but I'm trying to help you). That even if you lose in the short term at poker while following an intellectual process, since most of the people you are playing against are dumbasses, in the long term you will win. That poker = baseball free agency (I have to use a bit of magic to make that leap but I've already forgone logic on the non-randomness of a card game so what do I have to lose at this point?). That Hahn was not following a process in free agency but was in fact...what...randomly signing people...alphabetically signing people? That the outcome of Hahn's free agency tenure of signing Abreu, Robert, McCann, Grandal and Keuchel was the result of luck...like drawing to an inside straight and having it come up five times...making those successes actual failures because his process was bad. That we need to ignore where the White Sox team is right now, talent wise, because any positive results are an illusion because...math. That I don't play poker professionally, in fact I'm probably dumb and don't win at neighborhood poker. That disagreeing with you makes me a fluff ranter. I think that's about it...so...take it away Professor.

I think this is where we get peace. I kept looking at Avi and wanted to see a "good player" and after his big BABIP year I said..."see! see!" but it was hard to deny the math. And then when he was a free agent I thought...sign him...potential...potential. And then the Rays signed him and I said..."see! see!" smartest team in baseball wanted him. And then he left them and went to the Brewers and I heard a Wisconsin radio guy saying Avi was going to lead the team in home runs...maybe he would hit forty. And I shook my head and said...it's just an avillusion. I SUSPECT the same with Mazara but...dag nabbit...Tim Anderson went from a .240 hitter to a .340 hitter a year ago and even with high BABIP this year was even better. Sometimes it happens...sometimes it's ok to hope.

Ok I'm going to ride with The Hawk and General Custer to the Little Big Horn...it's a bright sunny day, I mean what could go wrong. The case for Mazara is he would fit in so perfectly for us if he could harness his potential. Left handed power hitting RF. If you squint a bit you can see 25 year old David Ortiz the hitter in Mazara...young players develop at different rates and Mazara was a highly thought of young player and has shown enough promise as a hitter in the majors from 21 to still have hope. His defense improved dramatically in 2020 (SSS). He won't cost a lot of money. He and Engel can make a nice platoon. Zips shows him as a 1 WAR player for 2021. We have money to spend elsewhere and if he doesn't pan out...maybe Engel does...or Rutherford, Lugo, Adolfo. 2020 was the year where we hoped one of our outfield prospects would leap forward but then Covid. We also hoped to see the true Mazara...but Covid. Most of the reasons to take a chance on Mazara in 2020 remain with us today and we can't say he's garbage based on 149 at bats in a weird year. The only thing that really changed is our contention window seems to have leapt forward and the idea of trotting out a bad position player seems wrong. Leury gives us stable mediocracy, Mazara gives us a range of potential outcomes including a nice upside. If you could get Benintendi for free would you try him? I'm not sure Mazara and Benintendi aren't the same guy....but I'm not sure they aren't just left handed hitting Avi Garcias. The largest point is...use scarce resources to try to get Bauer or the equivalent and hold off for a year hoping RF fixes itself. Alright I'm tying myself to an anthill and pouring honey on my eyes.

Explain again, Dr Poker, how the eight of hearts would be a better right fielder than Mazara. None is as smart as you but I'm working on my condescension game and its nice to learn at the foot of the master.

Hi8is it is clear you are WAY over your head on this Mazara conversation thing. Do you even PLAY poker? Fluff ranter.

I'm not exactly sure if you are spoofing me or are really this dumb. Card playing is random...there are 52 random outcomes (presuming you shuffle). Saying it is highly statistical (as opposed to lowly statistical???) just means you can make calculations on the probability of what the next card will be. Memorizing the cards played and a skill at bluffing does not make poker four dimensional chess. Still if you want to conflate your game of chance into some Einsteinian labyrinth...good on you. I laid out my arguments about Hahn and free agency in five detailed posts after the initial one that you commented on (by insulting me). If it is too troublesome for you to read so many words...I understand. I have no problem with you saying quantum physics is like darts, thoracic surgery is like marbles or building a winning sports franchise is like parchisi...this is a forum for arguments and all should be welcome no matter how crazy. But good sir...when you start calling people fluff ranters you have gone too far.

I read Bill James (the father of sabermetrics) abstracts from the beginning. One of the first things he wrote is that the difference between an all star and a journeyman is one hit a week...and that without looking at stats we can draw bad conclusions. Then again maybe we have all clouded our minds a bit by stats. It is clear that Adam Engel is a great fielder, is really fast and can hit for some power...does that extra hit a week matter so much that we exclude him? Probably the math says yes and the eyes say no. I think a Mazara/Engel combo next year would be fine...providing we sign Bauer or Stroman/Q. I liked the idea of Mazara last off season...lefty hitter with big upside. I think it is sort of foolish to completely write him off in the weird Covid year...Christian Yelich and Jose Altuve had bad years. Truth is Mazara only had 149 at bats. I'm ok with giving him another shot.

I'm trying to overcome all the typos and grammar errors (your process) to try to understand your point. It seems like your are trying to suggest that the non random process of sports talent evaluation, roster building and franchise budget constraints is the same as the mathematically quantifiable randomness of card playing which further suggests you like using big words and big concepts without actually understanding them. Still the great thing about Soxtalk is you can get all the joy out of b****ing about the idiocy of Hahn's process while I enjoy years of great play by the team he has assembled. Vive la différence

I'm "another one of those people" that can't even understand what you are saying (bolded part) or the coherence of your non-bolded argument. You are judging the process over the results? Kid got all the wrong answers but his process at arriving at the wrong answers is perfect so he gets an A? The White Sox have taken a path to contention and it sure seems we are talent rich now and free agency was part of that. If it makes me, and others like me, idiots for understanding that results are ALL that matters...I'm ok with that label.

I'm coming over to your side. I think actually this might be the ONE year where Bauer agrees to a one year $35m contract which I think the Sox should do. I think Bauer might go for that because I don't think the sort of 9 year $320 million deal Cole got last year is going to be available in a Covid world...at least this off season. Bauer would give us a one year window to see if the Rodon/Cease/Dunning/Lopez/Kopech/Lambert group all fighting to replace him for 2022. Still you probably will have someone like the Angels that offer him 5-$150 and at that point you walk over to your very sensible S+Q alternative. They would likely be affordable and have an upside to be very good. Still for the playoffs...who is your second ace? Seems like we would have a #1, 3 #3's and then a bunch of young arms.

I was late on the rebuild wagon. I always thought there was a WS path like the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks (Shilling, Randy Johnson, Luis Gonzalez with a combined 27 WAR...rest of the team garbage). We stumbled into Abreu and Quintana and with Sale becoming a superstar it seemed you should be able to cobble together a playoff team. The Shields trade was the Sox gambling, needing a 4 to complete their inside straight and ended up getting a 9 which meant they had nothing. When that blew up which obviously in retrospect it did, I gave up and wanted the rebuild. Playing for an inside straight again and again is a losers path. I'm very happy with the way Hahn has played the game after that failure. Kenny always wanted the White Sox to go for it every season and made us just good enough to not get top talent in the draft. I agree the most valuable thing in any organization (in any sport) is the ability to judge talent and it sure seems like Hahn is good at that...the trades, the drafts and the free agent signings sure seem to have us on the cusp.

My only point is that Melky was not a DISASTER. Pablo Sandovar at $95 million was a disaster. Hanley Ramirez at $88 million was a disaster. Yasmany Tomas at $68 million was a disaster all in the same year as Melky's $39 for three. Melky was a roll of the dice that was arguable at the time. I'm not defending the move...I didn't like the go-for-it concept in 2014...I thought we were too far away in talent...but to keep saying that Hahn is terrible with free agents and deny Abreu, Robert, McCann, Keuchel and Grandal as "special cases" really bugs me.

Yeah I think my defense was "Abreu, Robert, McCann, Grandal, Keuchel" but you are welcome to make the counter argument of "yeah, well, shut up".

He's not getting a free pass. There are three periods I think it fair to judge him on...2013-2015 The Sale years where he was trying to put together a winner when we had Sale/Quintana. Hahn was basically a rookie GM and the "go for it" swings sure seem like KW was the back seat driver. This was also the period where the vast amount of the '$188 million non Abreu money' was spent. I'm not sure you can give him worse than a C in free agency in that time as Abreu was a great signing...and Melky, Robertson, Duke were ok. Sox just overall talent at that point of time in majors and minors just wasn't good enough to push them into contention. Period two is the "trying to lose" phase 2016-2019 and how can you fairly not give him at least a B. He signed Luis Robert in 2017 which might be one of the greatest signings ever. Now you have the "all-in" stage 2020-beyond. I'd say incomplete...but i think Keuchel was really a good pickup. I had doubts about that signing and was very disappointed we had swung and missed on Wheeler and might even have preferred Madison Bumgartner...but seems like it was the right choice. I also think Grandal was exactly what we paid for. I'd still like to see our "Bryce Harper" deal...but really, Phillies seemed a year ahead of us at the time and they've gone nowhere with Harper. Maybe the idea of spending the $300 million contract across the young core is a better move. Clearly Hahn is not perfect....Lynn would have been a great addition...Herrera HAS been terrible. But all Gm's swing and miss. I just hate the narrative that he has been a disaster because I just don't think the evidence backs that up.

Based on what? Does he also not get credit for Robert? So excluding Robert and Abreu and Keuchel and Grandal...and using the sample of the time we were tanking and assuming that in that time he was actually trying his hardest to make the team great...ok I'll agree with you. All those 1 year dumpster dive deals were terrible...except McCann but let's put him in the exclusion list too.

https://www.soxmachine.com/2019/11/08/avert-your-eyes-an-accounting-of-white-sox-free-agents-in-the-rick-hahn-era/ I suspect it is actually higher than that as this was an anti-Hahn article. I think it is cumulative WAR during their WS tenure. The numbers would be better now as Abreu has continued to be great. But when they were going for it...Melky was fine, David Robertson was good, Duke was fine. Then we went burned everything down but to judge Hahn's dumpster diving during the rebuild is idiotic.

The goal from 2016-2019 was not to improve the team...it was to fill the roster (and help improve draft position). In 2014-15 the goal was to improve the team which he did (+19 WAR 2014 from Free Agency, +9 WAR 2015). You can question the rebuild but I'm not sure sitting where we are right now you can question the results.

Staggering the amount of money spent on bad free agents??? I just looked at worst free agent signings of last decade and of the 15 shown the White Sox have zero of them. The four years 2016-2019 we averaged $15 million per year signing bad players...but while that is staggering amount of money for me...pretty much chump change for a baseball team. During that same period the Cubs were paying Jason Heyward about $25 million per year to get them 1.5 WAR.

Ohmigod...run for cover Hawk. There is a LOUD faction of Hahn haters here. With free agency please try to place all your focus on the 2016-2019 period when the White Sox were actively trying to keep payroll low and not to compete...and ignore Free agent signings like Abreau, Robert, McCann, Kuechel, Grandal as that does not fit the narrative. With trade talk the only discussion point is that we traded a guy universally thought of as the future best player in baseball for a broken down pitcher who everyone knew was terrible. When discussing Hahn's first round drafting...focus on Carson Fulmer and Jake Burger and steer away from Tim Anderson, Madrigal, Vaughan and Crochett. And when discussing managers, point out how stupid Renteria and Cooper are and that Hahn will never get rid of them because he's weak and stupid. The beast cannot be killed...so try to appease.