Chicago White Sox

The only hope for success is to trade our short-term pieces for long-term assets. That means trading Dylan Cease right now and acquiring multiple pieces that have already been partially developed. The Orioles have numerous top 100 prospects and other interesting pieces. The matchup just makes so much damn sense it should happen. Pretending we can win next year is simply digging ourselves a bigger grave.

That 8/1 game is at 7pm, so basically Lynn has one more start with us.

He’d get to be the head baseball decision maker with a much bigger salary with a much bigger budget to work with. Perhaps he’s content in Cleveland, but I see our job being attractive if Jerry will the new President of Baseball Ops to build the org how he sees fit and doesn’t force near-term winning of him.

Let KW handle the deadline. Formally let Hahn go in October. Immediately hire Mike Chernoff to be our President of Baseball Ops. Let him rebuild the front office as he see fits, but hopefully that means Haber, Getz, & KW JR amongst many others go. Fire the entire coaching staff even if it costs money. Accept that 2024 & 2025 could be very ugly, but do the right things to build sustained success. This is the way and it all starts with Rick being relieved of his duties.

That’s all it takes. Rick had a $185M budget to work with and blew it. That takes a special kind of incompetence.

Both need to go because both have failed to build a quality top-to-bottom baseball org in the modern game. However, KW can actually scout and had built a great pro scouting function when he was running things. I feel much better with KW leading our selling trades than Rick, especially if that’s all we have him focused on right now.

Should be the most attractive job in the world. You basically get 10 years until you’ll be held to any level of accountability and compete against the biggest group of loser franchises in all of sports. Sure, Jerry sucks and creates certain constraints, but any competent baseball person would look at this job as a goldmine if they are the head baseball decision maker (i.e. KW gone as well).

The baseball gods are finally showing us mercy!

And after the Royals passed on the guy despite their own opening.

???

Grandal’s trade value skyrocketing with that gold glove at 1B! Hahn is going to have a menu of offers to choose from now.

Honestly, of all our core relievers, I’m happiest with Graveman blowing games right now. I think it’s very unlikely a team will take on his salary for 2024, so we’re probably stuck with him anyways. Glad Lopez & Kelly pitched well.

Tank Commander Kendall Graveman reporting for duty

If Eloy can’t run down the line, he shouldn’t be playing given his track record. Trying to squeak out one win at the potential expense of a multi-week injury isn’t worth it.

Ryan has been on fire as of late

Checkmate…I have no rebuttal to this point.

While anything is possible with Reinsdorf, for the first time in years I feel like there may be hope for change. Back in 2016 when we were so-called “mired in mediocrity”, we finished with a 78-84 (.481) record and a -29 run differential. We were basically the 19th best team behind the 16th largest payroll. This season ultimately led to the rebuild, which is something no one felt Jerry would ever agree to. Now, as of today, we are sitting on a 41-59 (.410) record and a -75 run differential. We are effectively the 26th/25th best team in baseball behind the 12th largest payroll in baseball. And while 12th may not seem that big, our $185M payroll is only $17M from the 8th largest (in 2016 we were $45M from the 8th largest). Point is Jerry is spending a ton of money and is getting garbage results. Not only that, but it’s having an impact on attendance (worse when almost all teams are up YoY) and ultimately his bottom line. If the mediocre season that was 2016 was able to lead to structural change, then I’d have to imagine the most disastrous season during Jerry’s tenure will lead to something even more drastic. The one thing we know Jerry cares about is never being in the red and Rick has almost single-handily delivered that this year. We are also seeing fan engagement at an all-time low, which poses a threat to future season attendance and TV ratings. Jerry may be super loyal, but sticking with Hahn is literally punting money and we saw there was finally a breaking point with the Bulls when a subpar product threatened Jerry’s golden goose. I just don’t see any way Jerry can ignore all the facts at this point and retain Rick Hahn as GM. Change has to be coming.

No way Rick survives this season. He makes Dave Stewart look like John Schuerholz.

Rick Hahn literally hired this dude to be his manager in a must win season:

One is not like the other ?

Gotta disagree here…I think he will probably be a popular target for many teams.

Pedro & Katz got these guys ready to play!

Let the record show that our entire group of positional players have combined for 1.4 fWAR if you exclude Robert. We rank 26th overall in wRC+. Highlights include: An everyday 1B with a 104 wRC+ An everyday LF with a 103 wRC+ A part time DH/RF with a 76 wRC+ A part time RF with a 35 wRC+ How do you expect to win when you’re forgoing offense at the most critical power positions? And this doesn’t even address the horrors in the middle infield and elsewhere in the lineup. Rick Hahn and the coaching staff should be embarrassed with that his s%*#-show of an offense.

Bump this s%*#.