Chicago White Sox

You continue to move the goalposts. The question is how do you grade the off-season, not who is most responsible for the shitty results this year.

Do you remember the last two off-seasons?

Cueto has not been as good as Guasman, that’s just a laughable statement. As for Schwarber, there was definitely people salivating for him. My man @fathom was all for signing him amongst others. I’ll admit I didn’t push hard for him, but I held out hope for Conforto until it became public about his injury.

On the pitching side of things, my point is the Sox should have pursued a high-end SP and one that would be under control for multiple years given the lack of pitching in the minors. I assumed when they passed on QOing Rodon, they had another free agent SP in mind for his spot. Instead, they decided to roll the dice on a broken down Keuchel and a lottery ticket in Velesquez. Guasman around 5/$110M just made so much sense for us all things considered. As for Schwarber, he was far from a perfect fit, but given the lack of power, OBP, and LH bats in the lineup he would’ve addressed multiple needs offensively. I get we have other 1B/LF/DH types, but that’s on Hahn to find a way to solve if he’s unable to add a LH bat elsewhere. Going into a championship caliber season and not adding some sort of LH power bat was a significant failure. We could all see this lineup’s struggles against RHP coming, even if not to this extent.

Gausmsn and Schwarber look like absolute steals right now. Had I known that Conforto was injured, I would have pushed harder for signing Kyle despite the imperfect. Power and better lineup balance were both critical needs and ones that Hahn failed to address. Didn’t have to play at the very top of the market to find ways to improve this roster. And just to lay it all out, Hahn spent ~$40M this off-season on new additions and so far has only gotten 0.6 fWAR to show for it. Adding Cueto makes it look a little bit better, but he wasn’t part of the original off-season plan. I don’t know how anyone can say with a straight face that Hahn did not completely fail to improve this team.

And yet neither are improvements vs what we got last year.

The same place Pollock plays.

I was pressing for Kevin Gausman as a Rodon replacement and that contract looks like a total steal right now. Offensively, Schwarber was the other left-handed bat many discussed here and he’d be a game changer vs. Pollock. Admittedly Eduardo Escobar hasn’t been much better than Harrison, but I’d still rather have him than Big Energy.

To be fair, Cueto wasn’t an off-season signing and a was a reactive move to Lynn getting hurt. The only SP depth Hahn added during the off-season was VV, which is incredible when you realize how bad Keuchel was over the 2H of last year, the innings limit Kopech faced, and the fact we had almost zero pitching depth in the upper minors. Cueto magically working doesn’t change the bad process before it. On the bullpen side, Graveman has been a good addition, but loses some points when he can’t routinely pitch back to back and your other big bullpen addition is going to be out or heavily restricted for the first half of the season. And don’t get me started on giving Joe Kelly the massive deal we did when we actually knew about those restrictions up front and included them in his contact. I’m still hopefully Kelly can be valuable come October, but that doesn’t change the fact he’s been completely useless for 25% of his contract. Please elaborate on how we improved RF and 2B. I don’t blame Hahn for not foreseeing a rapid decline in Pollock’s bat, but his inability to play RF should not have been a major surprise. The reality is we still do not have a major league caliber RF and continue rotate 1B types through there way too often. As for 2B, Josh Harrison isn’t really an upgrade over what we got out of the position last year and is more or less neutral. Settling for a 1.5 win ceiling 2B while trying to win a World Series is pathetic and ignoring the need for more power and better lineup balance should be considered a fireable offense. And then you have the Leury deal which is so ridiculously bad that it becomes clear that 78 year old, braindead La Russa has legit influence over roster decisions. But whether Rick or Tony made the call there, it was an insanely stupid contact (three fucking years!?!) and made even less sense when paired with Harrison and once you realize our farm system has multiple guys who could quickly replace him in the next couple years. Finally, humanity’s need to constantly assign blame to only one specific driver is immensely frustrating. Hahn completely botching this off-season and the core underperforming can both be true! So can the core underperforming and Tony La Russa being a total disaster both be true! There are many reasons for this shit show of a season, but Hahn’s mind-boggling off-season is no doubt one of them.

Here’s how I’d rate them with the benefit of hindsight. Cueto = A+ Graveman = B McGuire = B- Harrison = C- Velesquez = D- Pollock = F Leury = F Kelly = F Overall, I’d give the off-season an F though. Not only did Hahn ignore multiple important needs, the vast majority of the moves he made were either dumb at the time or have simply not worked out. It’s an impressively bad off-season and we are super fortunate to play in the worst division in all of baseball.

There is a $5M buyout so there is still some chance. Hell, we a broken Adam Eaton $8M. That’s all it would take theoretically.

The scary part is Pollock might elect his player option and that could jump up to $12M if he gets enough plate appearances.

I could see them releasing him mid season next year if he doesn’t return to form

Leury’s wRC+ is down to 37…might be time for his status or longest tenured Sox to come to an end.

My flight just landed and saw that Robert was pulled…can someone explain what happened? Did he get hurt?

I’d wager money that the highest ROI thing a front office could do is make trivial investments in their player development system to improve the quality of living and nutrition for its minor leaguers. Pretty dumb not to treat these players like the lifeblood of the organization and care for them appropriately.

I don’t think our guys liked Dallas all that much when he was on the team

Assuming he’s promoted for the second half and hits in AA, then I’d wager large money he’ll be a top 100 prospect at a few places. And I still think Ramos can sneak in somewhere, probably Fangraphs given they already had him as our #1 prospect. Kid has maintained his walk rate while also improving his K rate & ISO as a legit 20 year old in High A.

GOAT Sox insider called this out back in April! RIP NSC.

Totally agree

Leury is obviously Iron Man in this one, but who is the Captain America leading the resistance against Tony? My sleeper guess is definitely Big Energy. I could see Legend and him clashing.

I maintain my conspiracy theory we see some action over the All Star break, but Tony getting fired seems like an unattainable dream. That being said, this tweet creates the smallest amount of hope for me that Tony may not be bulletproof.

The question is it coming Jerry or KW? I feel like Hahn uses Passan or someone else for his leaks.

What are you seeing in the clubhouse?

Who?