Updated with $/WAR: Every Hahn MLB Free Agent Signing since 2012/2013

[Chicago White Sox]

19 hours ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

I wonder what a similar evaluation would look like with the Cubs since Theo took over? Lester certainly helps, much like Abreu did here, but Heyward, Chatwood, Darvish would all bring down the production rates significantly.

Moral of the story? Hahn hasn’t been good with free agent signings overall but his bad signings are greatly magnified because he is consistently working with low payrolls.

Theo has a generally poor free agent record if you include his time in Boston, but ultimately he has proven himself to be an elite talent evaluator.  Hahn on the otherhand has failed in pretty much all aspects of being a GM.  Regardless, you got this payroll thing backwards.  To Theo’s credit, he’s had larger payrolls to work with and competitive teams already in place and as such was able to take on more risk in free agency.  When you’re Rick Hahn and B & C free agents are an essential part of building a competitive roster you really can’t afford to have major misses.  But alas, as Bmags pointed out Hahn has completely failed in that regard outside of Abreu.

Edited April 12, 2019 by Chicago White Sox

[Balta1701]

2 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Theo has a generally poor free agent record if you include his time in Boston, but ultimately he has proven himself to be an elite talent evaluator.  Hahn on the otherhand has failed in pretty much all aspects of being a GM.  Regardless, you got this payroll thing backwards.  To Theo’s credit, he’s had larger payrolls to work with and competitive teams already in place and as such was able to take on more risk in free agency.  When you’re Rick Hahn and B & C free agents are an essential part of building a competitive roster you really can’t afford to have major misses.  But alas, as Bmags pointed out Hahn has completely failed in that regard outside of Abreu.

The point I've been stressing over the past 5 years is that B and C free agents can't work as an essential part of building a competitive roster. You can find B&C free agents signed, you can even have them contribute, but they cannot elevate your team above what it would be without them. If you count outright busts and disappointments, it's like a 75% rate of things being bad league-wide. If you need 1 or 2 players a year to fill holes and your team is a 98 win roster without them, maybe one or two of them fit well and help you reach 102 wins, while one struggles and gets benched (Literally the 2017 Astros described there). If your team is a 72 win team, you can sign and even trade for a bunch of those guys, add $50 million in payroll, and you wind up with 76 wins. 

I've taken 2 messages from this history: right now, you cannot build a winning franchise on the free agent market, your team must be strong enough to win on its own and your free agents should just be looked at as warm bodies - anything you get from them is gravy on top. Second, you are better off signing one top-level guy, Scherzer or Harper or Machado, than you are signing several mid-level guys, because even though there are busts at the top and the cost of a bust is higher, the rate of busts is lower at those dollar amounts.

[Chicago White Sox]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

The point I've been stressing over the past 5 years is that B and C free agents can't work as an essential part of building a competitive roster. You can find B&C free agents signed, you can even have them contribute, but they cannot elevate your team above what it would be without them. If you count outright busts and disappointments, it's like a 75% rate of things being bad league-wide. If you need 1 or 2 players a year to fill holes and your team is a 98 win roster without them, maybe one or two of them fit well and help you reach 102 wins, while one struggles and gets benched (Literally the 2017 Astros described there). If your team is a 72 win team, you can sign and even trade for a bunch of those guys, add $50 million in payroll, and you wind up with 76 wins. 

I've taken 2 messages from this history: right now, you cannot build a winning franchise on the free agent market, your team must be strong enough to win on its own and your free agents should just be looked at as warm bodies - anything you get from them is gravy on top. Second, you are better off signing one top-level guy, Scherzer or Harper or Machado, than you are signing several mid-level guys, because even though there are busts at the top and the cost of a bust is higher, the rate of busts is lower at those dollar amounts.

I don’t disagree, just saying Theo was using free agency to supplement already competitive rosters while Hahn used free agency as a core building block.  It was no doubt a flawed strategy but if that’s the path he wanted to go he really couldn’t afford to miss much.

[SCCWS]

18 hours ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

I wouldn’t consider the Rays or Brewers “successful” organizations. Certainly not in the same light as the Cardinals or even close to it. The Rays have been very competitive over the years but how many rings have they won? How many rings do the Brewers have? Success is ultimately measured by winning championships, not division titles or wild card appearances. 

It depends on who is measuring it. Certainly fans would agree. But I bet JR sees the bottom line and thinks that is success.   If Kenny and Hahn are well paid, they too are probably content if JR is happy.  Obviously Kenny and Hahn have stayed in this organization for a long time despite JR not being committed to winning as the ultimate measure of success. 

[SCCWS]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

The point I've been stressing over the past 5 years is that B and C free agents can't work as an essential part of building a competitive roster. You can find B&C free agents signed, you can even have them contribute, but they cannot elevate your team above what it would be without them. If you count outright busts and disappointments, it's like a 75% rate of things being bad league-wide. If you need 1 or 2 players a year to fill holes and your team is a 98 win roster without them, maybe one or two of them fit well and help you reach 102 wins, while one struggles and gets benched (Literally the 2017 Astros described there). If your team is a 72 win team, you can sign and even trade for a bunch of those guys, add $50 million in payroll, and you wind up with 76 wins. 

I've taken 2 messages from this history: right now, you cannot build a winning franchise on the free agent market, your team must be strong enough to win on its own and your free agents should just be looked at as warm bodies - anything you get from them is gravy on top. Second, you are better off signing one top-level guy, Scherzer or Harper or Machado, than you are signing several mid-level guys, because even though there are busts at the top and the cost of a bust is higher, the rate of busts is lower at those dollar amounts.

Sometimes. Boston won a World Series last year and free agent  JD Martinez was a major reason why.  But I think trades are the key to filling the holes the organization does not produce. 

[bmags]

Yeah. I will go to bat a little for Theo. His record in boston and cubs shows that he can get into FA trouble.

However, where he gets into trouble is when he's trying to squeeze additional wins at the margin of an already great team, and overpays trying to go from 92 wins to 94 or in theory NLCS to WS. He overpays to make sure that spot that's kinda weak becomes strong.

But, he still will have built a core of great players, and the frustration is tying up the org from finding the next upgrade.

I'm fine with a GM failing worst there, as I want to be at the point where we are throwing resources at getting over the top of the next best team, isntead of trying to buoy ourselves up to be close to the competitive teams.

[Balta1701]

13 minutes ago, SCCWS said:

Sometimes. Boston won a World Series last year and free agent  JD Martinez was a major reason why.  But I think trades are the key to filling the holes the organization does not produce. 

1. Where would that team have been without JD Martinez? Clearly not 108 wins, but they still win the East.

2. How many free agents have they added that didn't work well? They are still paying Pablo Sandoval money, they were still paying Hanley Ramirez last year, David Price hasn't exactly been worth his contract (although much like Barry Zito and Heyward maybe the postseason makes up for it), they are still paying Rusney Castillo right now. Boston has some advantages in that they can go out and overspend on a number of players that we can't, but that isn't changing the rules. As I say about the busts for other teams - they can have all of the money back from the Sandoval and Ramirez contracts and have Price's contract end right now if they give back the trophy. 

 

[Chicago White Sox]

2 minutes ago, bmags said:

Yeah. I will go to bat a little for Theo. His record in boston and cubs shows that he can get into FA trouble.

However, where he gets into trouble is when he's trying to squeeze additional wins at the margin of an already great team, and overpays trying to go from 92 wins to 94 or in theory NLCS to WS. He overpays to make sure that spot that's kinda weak becomes strong.

But, he still will have built a core of great players, and the frustration is tying up the org from finding the next upgrade.

I'm fine with a GM failing worst there, as I want to be at the point where we are throwing resources at getting over the top of the next best team, isntead of trying to buoy ourselves up to be close to the competitive teams.

Great post and better summarize what I was trying to say.  Theo takes risks in free agency to push his teams over the top.  He knows competitive windows can be short-lived and once you have a strong core in place adding a few incremental wins becomes far more valuable than efficient spending.  You have to be aggressive in those moments and that will sometimes bite you in the ass, but hoarding money doesn’t help you win a championship.

Hahn on the other hand passed on adding a future HoF (to a very fair contact) during what should be our competitive window because of potential repercussions nine & 10 years down the road.  Instead, he’ll be forced to sign second rate free agents which has been a huge area of weakness for the organization and are unlikely to provide the impact we’ll actually need to build a competitive roster.

Give me the guy who is willing to go big and take advantage of his window any day of the week over the guy who is afraid on taking on any real risk.

[bmags]

1 minute ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Great post and better summarize what I was trying to say.  Theo takes risks in free agency to push his teams over the top.  He knows competitive windows can be short-lived and once you have a strong core in place adding a few incremental wins becomes far more valuable than efficient spending.  You have to be aggressive in those moments and that will sometimes bite you in the ass, but hoarding money doesn’t help you win a championship.

Hahn on the other hand passed on adding a future HoF (to a very fair contact) during what should be our competitive window because of potential repercussions nine & 10 years down the road.  Instead, he’ll be forced to sign second rate free agents which has been a huge area of weakness for the organization and are unlikely to provide the impact we’ll actually need to build a competitive roster.

Give me the guy who is willing to go big and take advantage of his window any day of the week over the guy who is afraid on taking on any real risk.

It's where you have to look over at the dodgers to compare.

No, Friedman has not gotten himself into the same jams Theo has. He also hasn't won a world series with similar resources. Sometimes it's worth the trouble.

[Chicago White Sox]

Just now, bmags said:

It's where you have to look over at the dodgers to compare.

No, Friedman has not gotten himself into the same jams Theo has. He also hasn't won a world series with similar resources. Sometimes it's worth the trouble.

Yup, the Dodgers are a great example of that and with their financial might should be taking far more risks.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

18 minutes ago, bmags said:

Yeah. I will go to bat a little for Theo. His record in boston and cubs shows that he can get into FA trouble.

However, where he gets into trouble is when he's trying to squeeze additional wins at the margin of an already great team, and overpays trying to go from 92 wins to 94 or in theory NLCS to WS. He overpays to make sure that spot that's kinda weak becomes strong.

But, he still will have built a core of great players, and the frustration is tying up the org from finding the next upgrade.

I'm fine with a GM failing worst there, as I want to be at the point where we are throwing resources at getting over the top of the next best team, isntead of trying to buoy ourselves up to be close to the competitive teams.

I've broken down the edge Epstein exploited in the past. Theo is a very smart guy, but he gets a lot of credit for other peoples work too. I think Theo's strongest ability is to surround himself with very smart people - which is one of the most important aspects of any form of management, and should not be discounted. 

That said, Theo used to exploit the draft better than any GM in baseball. Before the draft changes were made made - however many years that was ago I can't remember - Theo used to go over slot repeatedly. His exploitation of the old slotting system paired with his ++ talent evaluation on the offensive side of the ball, was a recipe for immense success. That said, he got a lot of credit in Boston for moves he didn't even make - they were made before him. Ortiz, Pedroia and Mookie though were three grand slams. Rizzo too, despite trading him.

When you look at his Cub drafts, they've been better than the Sox sure, but outside of Bryant what star has there been? Almora is worse than Tim Anderson. Ian Happ is a huge TBD. Schwarber has been the most overhyped baseball player of the past 20 years - he's not very good. Javy Baez was found by a prior regime and Theo wanted to move him! The trade for Arrieta and Hendricks saved Theo. Theo has been with the Cubs for 7 years, he has ZERO pitchers to show for his 7 years. He had next to ZERO pitchers to show for his decade in Boston. Theo can't draft or develop pitching. If you look at Theo's 7 years of drafting for the Cubs, Kris Bryant is really the only feather in his cap. 

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

16 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Great post and better summarize what I was trying to say.  Theo takes risks in free agency to push his teams over the top.  He knows competitive windows can be short-lived and once you have a strong core in place adding a few incremental wins becomes far more valuable than efficient spending.  You have to be aggressive in those moments and that will sometimes bite you in the ass, but hoarding money doesn’t help you win a championship.

Hahn on the other hand passed on adding a future HoF (to a very fair contact) during what should be our competitive window because of potential repercussions nine & 10 years down the road.  Instead, he’ll be forced to sign second rate free agents which has been a huge area of weakness for the organization and are unlikely to provide the impact we’ll actually need to build a competitive roster.

Give me the guy who is willing to go big and take advantage of his window any day of the week over the guy who is afraid on taking on any real risk.

I'll look for it, but there was an old story about the Red Sox pursuit of Carl Crawford. When they were thinking about the Crawford move, they hired PI's to follow the guy around for months!

edit: found something on it http://www.espn.com/boston/mlb/news/story?id=6148268

This is called OVER THINKING your decision, and putting a ton of added pressure on the player you just gave the megadeal too. He was too smart for his own good. 

[Dick Allen]

2 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I'll look for it, but there was an old story about the Red Sox pursuit of Carl Crawford. When they were thinking about the Crawford move, they hired PI's to follow the guy around for months!

edit: found something on it http://www.espn.com/boston/mlb/news/story?id=6148268

This is called OVER THINKING your decision, and putting a ton of added pressure on the player you just gave the megadeal too. He was too smart for his own good. 

Yet his teams win, and there is despair when they only win 95, and Hahn is still looking to Generally Manage a team that wins 80 games.

[bmags]

You can be worse at drafting when you are ++ at other talent acquisition modes like international free agency and trades. Hendricks was a great trade. Arrietta was a great trade. 

Regardless of whether he drafted any stars outside Bryant they are still getting mlb production and depth out of them, and they found two other likely stars in international in eloy and torres.

[bmags]

Also mookie betts was Ben Cherington.

[bmags]

Anyway is there any specific team people would want me to do this exercise for that they think would be comparable to sox? There will likely be a front office schism but i'll still do it since 2013.

[Jack Parkman]

1 minute ago, bmags said:

Anyway is there any specific team people would want me to do this exercise for that they think would be comparable to sox? There will likely be a front office schism but i'll still do it since 2013.

Idk if they have similar payrolls, but I'd do the Cardinals. Look for a mid market team with a history of spending while competing. 

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

1 minute ago, Dick Allen said:

Yet his teams win, and there is despair when they only win 95, and Hahn is still looking to Generally Manage a team that wins 80 games.

So he does nothing wrong?

His FA track record speaks for itself - it's dreadful. So he struggles there... I am merely pointing that out. He has continued to struggle there with the Cubs, and his struggles may have closed the Cubs window despite the youthful and talented offense. 

His struggles with drafting and developing pitching is also very well documented. 

He did really well in trading for Arrieta and Hendricks, and he did real poor in trading for Quintana and Chapman. That just shows that you win some and lose some.

Also, payroll does matter. He was in Boston with a top 2 payroll and unlimited resources and then he moved to the Cubs and has the same unlimited resources at his fingertips. That's really important. It's why I am much more fond of Andrew Friedman's accomplishments than Theo's.

As I said, Theo is a very very smart baseball man, but he's not a god amongst men in the game.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

4 minutes ago, bmags said:

Also mookie betts was Ben Cherington.

No, Mookie was Theo's last draft with Boston. He loved Mookie.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

5 minutes ago, bmags said:

You can be worse at drafting when you are ++ at other talent acquisition modes like international free agency and trades. Hendricks was a great trade. Arrietta was a great trade. 

Regardless of whether he drafted any stars outside Bryant they are still getting mlb production and depth out of them, and they found two other likely stars in international in eloy and torres.

Yeah, but Theo is not +++ at trading. He's like the vast majority of GM's... he wins some and he loses some. Arrieta wasn't even his main target - I still, to this day, think Arrieta's success was greatly "enhanced" unnaturally. Plenty of people around baseball feel that way, but to each their own.

He used to be remarkable in the draft when his resources were endless because the penalties were nothing. He's still a good offensive talent evaluator, but pitching wise he's abysmal. 

[bmags]

9 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

Yeah, but Theo is not +++ at trading. He's like the vast majority of GM's... he wins some and he loses some. Arrieta wasn't even his main target - I still, to this day, think Arrieta's success was greatly "enhanced" unnaturally. Plenty of people around baseball feel that way, but to each their own.

He used to be remarkable in the draft when his resources were endless because the penalties were nothing. He's still a good offensive talent evaluator, but pitching wise he's abysmal. 

He absolutely is +++ at trading. Over a four year period he acquired an all star first baseman, a cy young pitcher, a pitcher that finished third in cy young voting, a starting shortstop, a starting center fielder with a .350 obp, and a dominant closer they rode to a world series.

That's production and a run few can match. Acquiring three elite players in trades is incredibly hard to do.

As much as I love stearns, you could only really say he has acquired one through trades.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

5 minutes ago, bmags said:

He absolutely is +++ at trading. Over a four year period he acquired an all star first baseman, a cy young pitcher, a pitcher that finished third in cy young voting, a starting shortstop, a starting center fielder with a .350 obp, and a dominant closer they rode to a world series.

That's production and a run few can match. Acquiring three elite players in trades is incredibly hard to do.

As much as I love stearns, you could only really say he has acquired one through trades.

The All-Star first baseman he acquired he had traded away already. This would be like patting the Sox on the bat for trading for Gio Gonzalez. 

You think Theo's trade of Aroldis Chapman was a good trade? I would greatly disagree. 

Hendricks was a shrewd move of acquiring someone who wasn't rated highly because of his stuff.. that was a sharp move. 

As I said, I question the Arrieta credit because I just don't think that was a natural outcome. 

His smartest trades were the Russell trade (which is ironic, because Russell is kind of blah... all he has done is gotten worse. He hasn't even put up 3 WAR over the past two seasons combined. Samardzija and Hammell were bad though, so still a nice move. 

The Chapman trade was a complete train wreck, and it looks like the Quintana trade will be one too. How much credit can you give a guy for acquiring 3 stars if he traded 3 young, controllable, stars away as well? As I said, he wins some and he loses some. 

[bmags]

When they lead to world series victories? A lot.

You seem to be capable of a lot of cognitive dissonance that actually all of hahns worst moves are okay, and moves that led to a world series were in fact bad.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

Edgar Renteria (2004, 4 years, $40 million) (1.8 WAR with Sox)

Matt Clement (2004, 3 years, $25.8 million) (2.8 WAR)

 Julio Lugo (2006, 4 years, $36 million) (.1 WAR)

 Daisuke Matsuzaka (2006, 6 years, $52 million plus $51 million posting fee) (8.2)

Brad Penny (2008, 1 year, $5 million) (1 WAR)

John Smoltz (2009, 1 year, $5.5 million) (1 WAR)

John Lackey (2009, 5 years, $82.5 million) (6.7 WAR)

Mike Cameron (2009, 2 years, $15.5 million) (0 WAR)

Bobby Jenks (2010, 2 years, $12 million) (0 WAR)

Carl Crawford (2010, 7 years, $142 million) (4.6 WAR)

That's 467 million in 6 years that contributed next to nothing. 26.2 WAR to be exact. $17.8mil/perWAR.

If Theo was the GM of a small or mid-market team, the decisions like above would cripple the organization for a decade. You can afford to make more mistakes when you have more money. 

[Chicago White Sox]

Just now, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

Edgar Renteria (2004, 4 years, $40 million) (1.8 WAR with Sox)

Matt Clement (2004, 3 years, $25.8 million) (2.8 WAR)

 Julio Lugo (2006, 4 years, $36 million) (.1 WAR)

 Daisuke Matsuzaka (2006, 6 years, $52 million plus $51 million posting fee) (8.2)

Brad Penny (2008, 1 year, $5 million) (1 WAR)

John Smoltz (2009, 1 year, $5.5 million) (1 WAR)

John Lackey (2009, 5 years, $82.5 million) (6.7 WAR)

Mike Cameron (2009, 2 years, $15.5 million) (0 WAR)

Bobby Jenks (2010, 2 years, $12 million) (0 WAR)

Carl Crawford (2010, 7 years, $142 million) (4.6 WAR)

That's 467 million in 6 years that contributed next to nothing. 26.2 WAR to be exact. $17.8mil/perWAR.

If Theo was the GM of a small or mid-market team, the decisions like above would cripple the organization for a decade. You can afford to make more mistakes when you have more money. 

Who is to say he’d employ the same strategy if running a small or mid market club?  His strategy is tied to the financial resources availbe to him.