Rick Hahn and his Trades

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

Rick deserves flack for his shortcomings undoubtedly - the draft still hasnt shown anything for him yet and his FA signings have not been great.

But... let's talk about Rick's trades and the risks he took trusting his team with the talent they still saw.

Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease for Quintana. Could he have possibly gotten a better package? If Eloy continues to grow and Cease is even a back end guy this is a steal assuming Eloy is the player he has shown he can be. I'd say no. Eloy a franchise offensive talent and cease just needs to be good enough to start for this to be a huge win.

The Chris Sale trade will never be lopsided. Sale is too good for that but if he netted a 4-5+ WAR 3rd baseman for 6 years and a 3 starter (which is conservative) with a 2-3 WAR in Kopech then both sides win and Hahn looks sharp for him moving that talent into his window.

The Adam Eaton trade. This could be an all-timer. If Lopez finds consistency or dunning bounces back, adding onto the fact that giolito alone would more than enough, this turns into an all time trade win. Giolito was trending downward but the arm talent was there. The Sox love the term arm talent in their organization. They maximized this one and now need to find that potion with reynaldo 

We can hate on Hahn and we can claim he had great assets but plenty of guys have traded away great assets for nothing. It looks like Hahn has traded his assets for the exact right pieces. Kudos.

Go Sox.

Edited June 15, 2019 by Look at Ray Ray Run

[Chicago White Sox]

Yeah, can’t really hate on these trades.  Gotta give respect where respect is due. Add the Robert signing to the list as well because that was just as pivotal of a rebuild move.  Just needs to figure his shit out in free agency and add the finishing pieces.

[poppysox]

9 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Yeah, can’t really hate on these trades.  Gotta give respect where respect is due. Add the Robert signing to the list as well because that was just as pivotal of a rebuild move.  Just needs to figure his shit out in free agency and add the finishing pieces.

I agree with all the above and McCann was a nice FA find and nothing wrong with the trade for Colome.  He has missed on a few most notably Alonso.  As the saying goes...if you are never wrong than your not trying hard enough.  I for one like the overall job RH has done with the rebuild and trust him to complete his mission this off season.

[Jack Parkman]

34 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

Rick deserves flack for his shortcomings undoubtedly - the draft still hasnt shown anything for him yet and his FA signings have not been great.

But... let's talk about Rick's trades and the risks he took trusting his team with the talent they still saw.

Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease for Quintana. Could he have possibly gotten a better package? If Eloy continues to grow and Cease is even a back end guy this is a steal assuming Eloy is the player he has shown he can be. I'd say no. Eloy a franchise offensive talent and cease just needs to be good enough to start for this to be a huge win.

The Chris Sale trade will never be lopsided. Sale is too good for that but if he netted a 4-5+ WAR 3rd baseman for 6 years and a 3 starter (which is conservative) with a 2-3 WAR in Kopech then both sides win and Hahn looks sharp for him moving that talent into his window.

The Adam Eaton trade. This could be an all-timer. If Lopez finds consistency or dunning bounces back, adding onto the fact that giolito alone would more than enough, this turns into an all time trade win. Giolito was trending downward but the arm talent was there. The Sox love the term arm talent in their organization. They maximized this one and now need to find that potion with reynaldo 

We can hate on Hahn and we can claim he had great assets but plenty of guys have traded away great assets for nothing. It looks like Hahn has traded his assets for the exact right pieces. Kudos.

Go Sox.

I think you're wrong about the Sale trade because I think that both Moncada and Kopech will have multiple 6 WAR seasons and Basabe has a chance to be a solid regular. 

If either Moncada or Kopech are 5-7 win guys by themselves it is even. If both are 5 win guys and Basabe is a 2-3 win guy it is a heist. 

Edited June 15, 2019 by Jack Parkman

[Lip Man 1]

On the subject of Hahn and his trades, I've got a suggestion. It's clear the Sox are going to need more pitching to make the jump hopefully next year regardless of if the injured pitchers come back healthy. Today you damn well better have six guys who can go, given injuries and slumps. Personally I'd love a seventh guy too either a top prospect or a vet thankful to have a nice payday at the Triple A level. 

Anyway, what I'd do if I was Hahn would be to try to get some pitching now (in the next month) not necessarily for this season but for the future and to "beat the rush" as it were when the big money teams are going to be heavily involved in the few free agent pitchers out there or a bunch of teams are going to be willing to "up the ante" for trading for pitchers.

Remember when the Sox got Freddy Garcia and Jose Contreras in mid-season 2004? They only had to deal with one team each in the deal...not trying to work against a number of them.

I'd do a serious search of the teams that are going to be DOA in a few weeks, see if they have some good pitchers available and make a deal or two right now. Then you aren't in a desperation mode come the off season when it comes to pitching and you may be able to even better yourself by working from a possible strength.

Just a thought.

  

[poppysox]

11 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

On the subject of Hahn and his trades, I've got a suggestion. It's clear the Sox are going to need more pitching to make the jump hopefully next year regardless of if the injured pitchers come back healthy. Today you damn well better have six guys who can go, given injuries and slumps. Personally I'd love a seventh guy too either a top prospect or a vet thankful to have a nice payday at the Triple A level. 

Anyway, what I'd do if I was Hahn would be to try to get some pitching now (in the next month) not necessarily for this season but for the future and to "beat the rush" as it were when the big money teams are going to be heavily involved in the few free agent pitchers out there or a bunch of teams are going to be willing to "up the ante" for trading for pitchers.

Remember when the Sox got Freddy Garcia and Jose Contreras in mid-season 2004? They only had to deal with one team each in the deal...not trying to work against a number of them.

I'd do a serious search of the teams that are going to be DOA in a few weeks, see if they have some good pitchers available and make a deal or two right now. Then you aren't in a desperation mode come the off season when it comes to pitching and you may be able to even better yourself by working from a possible strength.

Just a thought.

  

Good thought.

[Balta1701]

I think it's safe to say at this point that RH's rebuilding trades have put this team in a position to make a jump in 2020, and your evaluations of each of those 3 trades, while somewhat optimistic, aren't unfairly so. 

However, those are not the entirety of Rick Hahn's trades. There's one in 2016 that we still will not even mention in this discussion, but even ignoring that one, Rick Hahn remains the 2nd best GM the Athletics have. These down years were substantially caused by Rick Hahn being willing to sacrifice years down the road for his winning teams in 2015 and 2016, and the trades where he gave up guys who are now solid big leaguers were a big part of that. Yes, several of those guys took a lot of work, but Oakland did that work and now they have several solid big leaguers out of it. Rick Hahn is the difference between Oakland being a .500 team and Oakland being 5 games below .500 right now, and they have been less lucky than we have.

And yeah, I'm going to drag the Colome trade into this too, because it still was not a smart move. We gave up a player under team control for 5 years for one under control for 2 years. At least last year, we should have been doing the exact opposite. If we did that because our staff is too lazy to work with a catcher on their development, that is not an excuse. If we traded Colome for a young catcher who currently was putting up solid numbers and had improved on everything in his game year over year, we would be saying "There's a good chance our catcher's spot is solved, maybe it's not with an all star but this frees up money to go sign Cole and we can move Collins to 1b right now". Instead we're still talking about Grandal and wondering if Collins can play there. That trade fits in with the trend of his previous ones - making moves that are too aggressive for his roster to support, giving up on guys because either he can't see how they could develop or because his organization is too lazy to deal with them.

We're probably going to have to do some moves like that next year to find a pitcher or two, and that move doesn't look particularly good in the light of him making the exact same kind of mistake with guys in 2015 and 2016.

So I'll go so far as to say that RH's rebuilding trades are showing positive promise this year, but his "Win now" trades for established big leaguers have been setbacks for the franchise almost every time. Heck, that phrase describes his first couple years too.

[Chicago White Sox]

3 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I think it's safe to say at this point that RH's rebuilding trades have put this team in a position to make a jump in 2020, and your evaluations of each of those 3 trades, while somewhat optimistic, aren't unfairly so. 

However, those are not the entirety of Rick Hahn's trades. There's one in 2016 that we still will not even mention in this discussion, but even ignoring that one, Rick Hahn remains the 2nd best GM the Athletics have. These down years were substantially caused by Rick Hahn being willing to sacrifice years down the road for his winning teams in 2015 and 2016, and the trades where he gave up guys who are now solid big leaguers were a big part of that. Yes, several of those guys took a lot of work, but Oakland did that work and now they have several solid big leaguers out of it. Rick Hahn is the difference between Oakland being a .500 team and Oakland being 5 games below .500 right now, and they have been less lucky than we have.

And yeah, I'm going to drag the Colome trade into this too, because it still was not a smart move. We gave up a player under team control for 5 years for one under control for 2 years. At least last year, we should have been doing the exact opposite. If we did that because our staff is too lazy to work with a catcher on their development, that is not an excuse. If we traded Colome for a young catcher who currently was putting up solid numbers and had improved on everything in his game year over year, we would be saying "There's a good chance our catcher's spot is solved, maybe it's not with an all star but this frees up money to go sign Cole and we can move Collins to 1b right now". Instead we're still talking about Grandal and wondering if Collins can play there. That trade fits in with the trend of his previous ones - making moves that are too aggressive for his roster to support, giving up on guys because either he can't see how they could develop or because his organization is too lazy to deal with them.

We're probably going to have to do some moves like that next year to find a pitcher or two, and that move doesn't look particularly good in the light of him making the exact same kind of mistake with guys in 2015 and 2016.

So I'll go so far as to say that RH's rebuilding trades are showing positive promise this year, but his "Win now" trades for established big leaguers have been setbacks for the franchise almost every time. Heck, that phrase describes his first couple years too.

Lol...are you still complaining about Omar Narvaez?  Dude’s numbers are quickly fading and by the end of the season your argument won’t hold much weight.  Anyone that actually watches our games know trading Narvaez was the right thing to do.  And to Hahn’s credit, he replaced Omar will a guy capable of handling a young staff.  I hated the move at the time, but James McCann has been a huge reason for Giolito’s rapid ascension to ace-hood.  If Omar is still around, I don’t believe Lucas would be this good right now.

[hi8is]

“He whom shall not be named” has not been mentioned.

[The Sir]

14 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:

I think you're wrong about the Sale trade because I think that both Moncada and Kopech will have multiple 6 WAR seasons and Basabe has a chance to be a solid regular. 

If either Moncada or Kopech are 5-7 win guys by themselves it is even. If both are 5 win guys and Basabe is a 2-3 win guy it is a heist. 

Why does anyone think that? He’s a 22 year old with a .570 OPS at AA. He was solid but far from spectacular at WS last year, and everywhere else, he’s sucked. There’s almost no chance he puts up 2-3 WAR regularly, a slightly larger chance that he gets a cup of coffee and does nothing with it, and an undeniable likelihood that he never makes it at all.

We are not like these other organizations who are so skilled at offensive prospect development that they practically pull useful hitters out of hats. If they are not consensus blue chips, hitting prospects for us will almost certainly amount to zilch.

[Balta1701]

10 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Lol...are you still complaining about Omar Narvaez?  Dude’s numbers are quickly fading and by the end of the season your argument won’t hold much weight.  Anyone that actually watches our games know trading Narvaez was the right thing to do.  And to Hahn’s credit, he replaced Omar will a guy capable of handling a young staff.  I hated the move at the time, but James McCann has been a huge reason for Giolito’s rapid ascension to ace-hood.  If Omar is still around, I don’t believe Lucas would be this good right now.

.875 OPS in April, .766 in May, .853 in June.

James McCann last 28 days: .724 OPS. And no, it's not even worth looking at their BABIP numbers to say which one of those 2 is going to be best described by "fading". 

He's absolutely been better than expected but "our organization is unwilling to teach catchers how to catch" is not an excuse.

[poppysox]

40 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I think it's safe to say at this point that RH's rebuilding trades have put this team in a position to make a jump in 2020, and your evaluations of each of those 3 trades, while somewhat optimistic, aren't unfairly so. 

However, those are not the entirety of Rick Hahn's trades. There's one in 2016 that we still will not even mention in this discussion, but even ignoring that one, Rick Hahn remains the 2nd best GM the Athletics have. These down years were substantially caused by Rick Hahn being willing to sacrifice years down the road for his winning teams in 2015 and 2016, and the trades where he gave up guys who are now solid big leaguers were a big part of that. Yes, several of those guys took a lot of work, but Oakland did that work and now they have several solid big leaguers out of it. Rick Hahn is the difference between Oakland being a .500 team and Oakland being 5 games below .500 right now, and they have been less lucky than we have.

And yeah, I'm going to drag the Colome trade into this too, because it still was not a smart move. We gave up a player under team control for 5 years for one under control for 2 years. At least last year, we should have been doing the exact opposite. If we did that because our staff is too lazy to work with a catcher on their development, that is not an excuse. If we traded Colome for a young catcher who currently was putting up solid numbers and had improved on everything in his game year over year, we would be saying "There's a good chance our catcher's spot is solved, maybe it's not with an all star but this frees up money to go sign Cole and we can move Collins to 1b right now". Instead we're still talking about Grandal and wondering if Collins can play there. That trade fits in with the trend of his previous ones - making moves that are too aggressive for his roster to support, giving up on guys because either he can't see how they could develop or because his organization is too lazy to deal with them.

We're probably going to have to do some moves like that next year to find a pitcher or two, and that move doesn't look particularly good in the light of him making the exact same kind of mistake with guys in 2015 and 2016.

So I'll go so far as to say that RH's rebuilding trades are showing positive promise this year, but his "Win now" trades for established big leaguers have been setbacks for the franchise almost every time. Heck, that phrase describes his first couple years too.

I predict RH will turn Colome into a better player than Narvaez was/is.

[bmags]

3 minutes ago, poppysox said:

I predict RH will turn Colome into a better player than Narvaez was/is.

I will take the other side of this bet enthusiastically.

[poppysox]

Just now, bmags said:

I will take the other side of this bet enthusiastically.

We shall see.  If a 150 is what's offered it will be rejected enthusiastically.

[Jack Parkman]

27 minutes ago, The Sir said:

Why does anyone think that? He’s a 22 year old with a .570 OPS at AA. He was solid but far from spectacular at WS last year, and everywhere else, he’s sucked. There’s almost no chance he puts up 2-3 WAR regularly, a slightly larger chance that he gets a cup of coffee and does nothing with it, and an undeniable likelihood that he never makes it at all.

We are not like these other organizations who are so skilled at offensive prospect development that they practically pull useful hitters out of hats. If they are not consensus blue chips, hitting prospects for us will almost certainly amount to zilch.

He did well at AA last year and he broke his hand this spring. Hand and wrist injuries kill hitters. This is a lost season for Basabe. 

[Chicago White Sox]

21 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

.875 OPS in April, .766 in May, .853 in June.

James McCann last 28 days: .724 OPS. And no, it's not even worth looking at their BABIP numbers to say which one of those 2 is going to be best described by "fading". 

He's absolutely been better than expected but "our organization is unwilling to teach catchers how to catch" is not an excuse.

Do me a favor and check out Narvaez’s Statcast numbers this year.  This isn’t about BABIP, it’s about Omar’s generally weak quality of contact.  The HR’s he’s hit this year are simply not sustainable.  Again, Omar isn’t a bad hitter, but he’s not nearly good as his flukey power #’s suggest.  And while I will not defend the White Sox’s inability to develop him defensively, he’s always going to be a poor catcher regardless how good SEA is at coaching / development.

[SoxAce]

4 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

He did well at AA last year and he broke his hand this spring. Hand and wrist injuries kill hitters. This is a lost season for Basabe. 

Bingo. Clearly he doesn't have much strength in his hand yet. Only 4 XBH in 110 ABs, 0 homeruns. He had 12 XBH in 231 ABs, 6 homeruns last year in the same league. This reminds me of Robert when he was battling his hand injury. Use the ABs to develop, but essentially swinging with one hand so you have to take the numbers with a giant grain of salt.

I hope he gets stronger as the season progresses. 

Edited June 15, 2019 by SoxAce

[The Sir]

17 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

He did well at AA last year and he broke his hand this spring. Hand and wrist injuries kill hitters. This is a lost season for Basabe. 

He had a .734 OPS there last year. Only a White Sox fan would be excited by that.

[TBrown54]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

I think it's safe to say at this point that RH's rebuilding trades have put this team in a position to make a jump in 2020, and your evaluations of each of those 3 trades, while somewhat optimistic, aren't unfairly so. 

However, those are not the entirety of Rick Hahn's trades. There's one in 2016 that we still will not even mention in this discussion, but even ignoring that one, Rick Hahn remains the 2nd best GM the Athletics have. These down years were substantially caused by Rick Hahn being willing to sacrifice years down the road for his winning teams in 2015 and 2016, and the trades where he gave up guys who are now solid big leaguers were a big part of that. Yes, several of those guys took a lot of work, but Oakland did that work and now they have several solid big leaguers out of it. Rick Hahn is the difference between Oakland being a .500 team and Oakland being 5 games below .500 right now, and they have been less lucky than we have.

And yeah, I'm going to drag the Colome trade into this too, because it still was not a smart move. We gave up a player under team control for 5 years for one under control for 2 years. At least last year, we should have been doing the exact opposite. If we did that because our staff is too lazy to work with a catcher on their development, that is not an excuse. If we traded Colome for a young catcher who currently was putting up solid numbers and had improved on everything in his game year over year, we would be saying "There's a good chance our catcher's spot is solved, maybe it's not with an all star but this frees up money to go sign Cole and we can move Collins to 1b right now". Instead we're still talking about Grandal and wondering if Collins can play there. That trade fits in with the trend of his previous ones - making moves that are too aggressive for his roster to support, giving up on guys because either he can't see how they could develop or because his organization is too lazy to deal with them.

We're probably going to have to do some moves like that next year to find a pitcher or two, and that move doesn't look particularly good in the light of him making the exact same kind of mistake with guys in 2015 and 2016.

So I'll go so far as to say that RH's rebuilding trades are showing positive promise this year, but his "Win now" trades for established big leaguers have been setbacks for the franchise almost every time. Heck, that phrase describes his first couple years too.

I won't mention it (nor the SD/CR game from last night and the clutch hits).  It might be a better fit within the "KW and his Trades" thread. :-(

[Jack Parkman]

14 minutes ago, The Sir said:

He had a .734 OPS there last year. Only a White Sox fan would be excited by that.

There is a reason he repeated it, and they say that A+ to AA is the biggest jump in the minors. He was only there in July and August after the futures game. 

Out of all of the OF not named Robert, Basabe looks the most promising by far. 

Edited June 15, 2019 by Jack Parkman

[Chicago White Sox]

22 minutes ago, The Sir said:

He had a .734 OPS there last year. Only a White Sox fan would be excited by that.

Good god man.  That .734 OPS was good for a wRC+ of 111 and that’s not even park adjusted.  That is phenomenal for a 22 year old who as expected had some initial struggles making the biggest jump in minor league ball.

[Chicago White Sox]

11 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

There is a reason he repeated it, and they say that A+ to AA is the biggest jump in the minors. He was only there in July and August after the futures game. 

Out of all of the OF not named Robert, Basabe looks the most promising by far. 

100% agree.

[JoshPR]

I don't always agree with ray ray but that's a Damn good post. This board needs to stop b****ing about everything and let it play out. I agree they have been bad in a few occasions. Mostly with left handed power bats. Its like the sox those type come to die. Laroache, dunn now Alonso lol

[gusguyman]

12 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Good god man.  That .734 OPS was good for a wRC+ of 111 and that’s not even park adjusted.  That is phenomenal for a 22 year old who as expected had some initial struggles making the biggest jump in minor league ball.

Especially for a guy who has the tools to be good defensively in both CF and RF. He doesn't need a great bat to carry him if he can polish his routes.

[SoxAce]

15 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Good god man.  That .734 OPS was good for a wRC+ of 111 and that’s not even park adjusted.  That is phenomenal for a 22 year old who as expected had some initial struggles making the biggest jump in minor league ball.

He was actually 21 majority of that year (late August bday).