Fire Rick Hahn

[Jack Parkman]

7 minutes ago, Tony said:

I think it's fair to say I've turned into one of Hahn's harshest critics, deservingly so, but in a lot of ways I think it would be a mistake to let Hahn go this off-season. 

As mentioned numerous times, the core is mostly coming back in 2023, and not by choice in a lot of cases. You aren't trading Grandal. You aren't trading Moncada. Would be a mistake to trade Robert, probably Eloy as well if you're looking to compete in 2023. There also isn't going to be a lot of budget to play with. Good amount of bad money on this roster. 

Yes, there are very few GM jobs out there and they are always in demand...but any GM that takes this on right now is coming into a risky situation. It's possible for as much that broke bad this year breaks "right" in 2023, but that seems unlikely. If goes similar to 2022...the future starts to look REAL bleak for a while on the South Side. Not sure who's taking on right now, I sort of think it makes sense for Hahn to see it through at least this year. 

Very good summation. Nice post. 

[caulfield12]

Conversely, we will all be saying 2-3 years from now they had one last shot to turn the momentum around this offseason if they had embraced a bold outsider's perspective on a possible fix or retool on the fly.

Hahn is likely to play it super conservatively so that his neck isn't sticking out very far...like a turtle.

[Tnetennba]

1 hour ago, Tony said:

I think it's fair to say I've turned into one of Hahn's harshest critics, deservingly so, but in a lot of ways I think it would be a mistake to let Hahn go this off-season. 

As mentioned numerous times, the core is mostly coming back in 2023, and not by choice in a lot of cases. You aren't trading Grandal. You aren't trading Moncada. Would be a mistake to trade Robert, probably Eloy as well if you're looking to compete in 2023. There also isn't going to be a lot of budget to play with. Good amount of bad money on this roster. 

Yes, there are very few GM jobs out there and they are always in demand...but any GM that takes this on right now is coming into a risky situation. It's possible for as much that broke bad this year breaks "right" in 2023, but that seems unlikely. If goes similar to 2022...the future starts to look REAL bleak for a while on the South Side. Not sure who's taking on right now, I sort of think it makes sense for Hahn to see it through at least this year. 

Since he isn’t going anywhere now, might as well let him go down with the sinking ship.  Let a new GM tear down & rebuild.  I sure as hell don’t want these hacks to get another shot. 

[Balta1701]

1 minute ago, Tnetennba said:

Since he isn’t going anywhere now, might as well let him go down with the sinking ship.  Let a new GM tear down & rebuild.  I sure as hell don’t want these hacks to get another shot. 

Y'all know bloody well that he'll still be here for 2024.

[Lip Man 1]

39 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Y'all know bloody well that he'll still be here for 2024.

Only if JR still owns the team. 

[Balta1701]

Just now, Lip Man 1 said:

Only if JR still owns the team. 

So yeah he'll be here whispering into his ear about how great of a job he's doing Grima Wormtongue style through 2032. 

[Dominikk85]

I think hahn deserves another chance. Yeah some stuff didn't go well but he also had a lot of stuff going against him

1. A manager asleep at the wheel. A good manager alone should be able to add 1-3 wins

2. Bad health by the core hitters. If they can get 130+ games instead of 80-100 out of robert, tim, eloy moncada and grandal (plus better performance out of the latter two) that could add another 5-7 wins or so if not more. 

A new hitting coach maybe could add another 1-2 wins. 

I'm not saying everything went well but if you add let's say 8-12 wins that team would still be in the mix. 

Edited October 4, 2022 by Dominikk85

[Sarava]

One thing Hahn made clear is - in the 20 something years he's been here, all major decisions have been made in consensus between him, KW and Jerry. So unless he's lying, KW is every bit as responsible for this debacle as Hahn is. And so is Jerry - which would probably explain why he gives them so much slack when they fail.

[bmags]

11 hours ago, Tony said:

I think it's fair to say I've turned into one of Hahn's harshest critics, deservingly so, but in a lot of ways I think it would be a mistake to let Hahn go this off-season. 

As mentioned numerous times, the core is mostly coming back in 2023, and not by choice in a lot of cases. You aren't trading Grandal. You aren't trading Moncada. Would be a mistake to trade Robert, probably Eloy as well if you're looking to compete in 2023. There also isn't going to be a lot of budget to play with. Good amount of bad money on this roster. 

Yes, there are very few GM jobs out there and they are always in demand...but any GM that takes this on right now is coming into a risky situation. It's possible for as much that broke bad this year breaks "right" in 2023, but that seems unlikely. If goes similar to 2022...the future starts to look REAL bleak for a while on the South Side. Not sure who's taking on right now, I sort of think it makes sense for Hahn to see it through at least this year. 

I don't buy this at all. Regression is bound to happen, but what are we regressing to? A world series champion? Hahn has shown the only pieces he is capable of putting money behind is an atrociously overpriced bullpen and 35 year old veterans. 

Another GM may be able to reconfigure the roster for better cohesion between offensive power and defensive production, without even bursting through 200 million.

I know you will say the phillies new GM just spent through it and we can't, but they took over an operation that Dombrowski could have spent through as well. 

They hired the best hitting instructor in baseball, brought in big bats, and moved from 16th to 9th in wRC+ this year despite missing Harper for half of it and not getting 2nd half harper from last year.

Some was regression, some wasn't.

There are plenty of people that could have taken Hahns constraints and still thrived. We've said it before, but if you would have told us in 2019 we'd have a 180 million budget in 2022 we'd have been through the moon. And then if you'd have showed us what that roster looked like we would have looked bewildered. This roster just needs some tweaks but the only playbook hahn has will be more bullpen and sub $10 million flyers in RF/2b/SP

 

[Tnetennba]

10 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

Y'all know bloody well that he'll still be here for 2024.

Oh I know, but a person can dream.  The FO will be in place as long as JR runs things, with no semblance of accountability whatsoever. 

[GREEDY]

11 hours ago, Tony said:

I think it's fair to say I've turned into one of Hahn's harshest critics, deservingly so, but in a lot of ways I think it would be a mistake to let Hahn go this off-season. 

As mentioned numerous times, the core is mostly coming back in 2023, and not by choice in a lot of cases. You aren't trading Grandal. You aren't trading Moncada. Would be a mistake to trade Robert, probably Eloy as well if you're looking to compete in 2023. There also isn't going to be a lot of budget to play with. Good amount of bad money on this roster. 

Yes, there are very few GM jobs out there and they are always in demand...but any GM that takes this on right now is coming into a risky situation. It's possible for as much that broke bad this year breaks "right" in 2023, but that seems unlikely. If goes similar to 2022...the future starts to look REAL bleak for a while on the South Side. Not sure who's taking on right now, I sort of think it makes sense for Hahn to see it through at least this year. 

Great post.

Obviously, GM is a position that most would die for, but the big names tied to LAD, TB, HOU etc aren't coming to this situation. 

- A meddling owner.

- Bad organizational depth, maybe the worst if you subtract every club's top 2 or 3 prospects.

- Likely a shrinking budget.

- Aging ballpark in a cold weather city where players might not want to play. 

- And the only money coming off the book is.... a club legend.  

Good luck with that.

[bmags]

9 minutes ago, GREEDY said:

Great post.

Obviously, GM is a position that most would die for, but the big names tied to LAD, TB, HOU etc aren't coming to this situation. 

- A meddling owner.

- Bad organizational depth, maybe the worst if you subtract every club's top 2 or 3 prospects.

- Likely a shrinking budget.

- Aging ballpark in a cold weather city where players might not want to play. 

- And the only money coming off the book is.... a club legend.  

Good luck with that.

Counterpoint

- You can't get fired

- One of the easier divisions to play in

- Clear regression upside and one playoff series leads you to super double protective status

[mmmmmbeeer]

26 minutes ago, bmags said:

I don't buy this at all. Regression is bound to happen, but what are we regressing to? A world series champion? Hahn has shown the only pieces he is capable of putting money behind is an atrociously overpriced bullpen and 35 year old veterans. 

The farm is empty, prospects have been excruciatingly expensive in the trade market, and teams aren't handing out 25-28yo good players for peanuts.  Free agency dollars are determined by JR, a man who has NEVER paid to sign a player to a $100M+ contract.

So what's he to do?  Find value.  To say the RP market has been the best value position in baseball the last 5-10 years isn't an incorrect statement....good bang for your buck as the game evolves to become so RP reliant.  Royals and Cleveland both rode extraordinary bullpens to the World Series within the last decade.  Be it Robertson, Herrera, Liam, Graveman, Kimbrel, etc., they weren't necessarily "bad" moves if those guys pitched to their career norms.  The Kelly signing was an egregious overpay but you can't convince me that wasn't a TLR signing.

Just seems we b**** and moan about all these players that Rick doesn't get, the fact he signs older veterans, etc., with absolutely zero thought given to why he's forced to do those things.  You don't think he wanted to bring Schwarber in this past offseason?  Of course he did....but the money wasn't there.

[JoeC]

13 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:

I'm not 100% bought in, but I'm at least considering the possibility that the best GMs are the ones that have the best computers and actually do what the computers tell them to. 

It's almost like you're suggesting that executives should consider statistics and analytics and help make decisions.

Like a department within their front office dedicated to analytics.

[JoeC]

(and that "dripping with sarcasm" tone I have there is mocking the Sox's front office specifically and not you, Jack. You just happened to be the one who set it up)

[bmags]

2 minutes ago, mmmmmbeeer said:

The farm is empty, prospects have been excruciatingly expensive in the trade market, and teams aren't handing out 25-28yo good players for peanuts.  Free agency dollars are determined by JR, a man who has NEVER paid to sign a player to a $100M+ contract.

So what's he to do?  Find value.  To say the RP market has been the best value position in baseball the last 5-10 years isn't an incorrect statement....good bang for your buck as the game evolves to become so RP reliant.  Royals and Cleveland both rode extraordinary bullpens to the World Series within the last decade.  Be it Robertson, Herrera, Liam, Graveman, Kimbrel, etc., they weren't necessarily "bad" moves if those guys pitched to their career norms.  The Kelly signing was an egregious overpay but you can't convince me that wasn't a TLR signing.

Just seems we b**** and moan about all these players that Rick doesn't get, the fact he signs older veterans, etc., with absolutely zero thought given to why he's forced to do those things.  You don't think he wanted to bring Schwarber in this past offseason?  Of course he did....but the money wasn't there.

Rick Hahn built the most expensive bullpen in baseball and it ended up 20th in ERA. His committed money is still $50 million in the bullpen for next year.

Schwarber signed for 4 years, $79 million, not $100 million. That's $7 million more than Yasmani Grandal 3 years ago. He couldn't afford it because Rick started the offseason at $180 million with a $16 million closer he needed to unload.

I don't just b**** and moan about the players he doesn't get, I b**** and moan about the players he does get. They are both bad.

Rick held on to a $16 million contract so he could trade it for a 2 year $30 million outfielder who ranked 40th out of 49 outfielders in fWAR.

The Mets paid Mark Canha 2 years $26 million and got 2.5 WAR and a 126 wRC+. That's not $100 million. That's just deciding to not pick up the option on Kimbrel and going after Mark Canha. What's that? But Mark Canha's a LFer...oh no.

The Royals got Benintendi and cash for a RFer for Franchy Cordero whom they acquired for a middle reliever. No prospects needed. Benintendi finished 18th out of 49 qualified outfielders and was paid $4.5 million.

The Phillies took on Schwarber for $20 million, that would have cost the white sox not getting AJ Pollock AND Josh Harrison, but they would have gotten 20 more HRs from the left side.

Tony Kemp, soxtalk soup de jour in the offseason to replace our 2b, was only barely outhit by pollock and his superior defense actually put him ahead of Pollock by 1 WAR. He made $10 million less.

The fun thing about baseball is we have 29 other orgs that we can look at with similar circumstances and info and say, hey how are they doing compared to our org. The answer, unless you are the Rockies or Tigers...is better.

[Quin]

55 minutes ago, bmags said:

I don't buy this at all. Regression is bound to happen, but what are we regressing to? A world series champion? Hahn has shown the only pieces he is capable of putting money behind is an atrociously overpriced bullpen and 35 year old veterans. 

 

Nuclear Gandhi strategy?

[southsideirish71]

"Jerry, Kenny and I sat down to discuss the characteristics of the new manager."

"Similarly to just about every major decision.  Its a collaborative process and Jerry, Kenny and I get to a consensus."

This is not a real GM position.  Most owners don't micromanage things like this. 

[ChiSox59]

20 minutes ago, southsideirish71 said:

"Jerry, Kenny and I sat down to discuss the characteristics of the new manager."

"Similarly to just about every major decision.  Its a collaborative process and Jerry, Kenny and I get to a consensus."

This is not a real GM position.  Most owners don't micromanage things like this. 

I loved his smirk when stating that. The question posed was something to the effect of “who gets the final vote between the three of you when there isn’t agreement?”. Everyone knows the answer to that is JR. It’s always been abundantly clear that consensus was never achieved with respect hiring TLR. 

[mmmmmbeeer]

1 hour ago, bmags said:

Rick Hahn built the most expensive bullpen in baseball and it ended up 20th in ERA. His committed money is still $50 million in the bullpen for next year.

Schwarber signed for 4 years, $79 million, not $100 million. That's $7 million more than Yasmani Grandal 3 years ago. He couldn't afford it because Rick started the offseason at $180 million with a $16 million closer he needed to unload.

I don't just b**** and moan about the players he doesn't get, I b**** and moan about the players he does get. They are both bad.

Rick held on to a $16 million contract so he could trade it for a 2 year $30 million outfielder who ranked 40th out of 49 outfielders in fWAR.

The Mets paid Mark Canha 2 years $26 million and got 2.5 WAR and a 126 wRC+. That's not $100 million. That's just deciding to not pick up the option on Kimbrel and going after Mark Canha. What's that? But Mark Canha's a LFer...oh no.

The Royals got Benintendi and cash for a RFer for Franchy Cordero whom they acquired for a middle reliever. No prospects needed. Benintendi finished 18th out of 49 qualified outfielders and was paid $4.5 million.

The Phillies took on Schwarber for $20 million, that would have cost the white sox not getting AJ Pollock AND Josh Harrison, but they would have gotten 20 more HRs from the left side.

Tony Kemp, soxtalk soup de jour in the offseason to replace our 2b, was only barely outhit by pollock and his superior defense actually put him ahead of Pollock by 1 WAR. He made $10 million less.

The fun thing about baseball is we have 29 other orgs that we can look at with similar circumstances and info and say, hey how are they doing compared to our org. The answer, unless you are the Rockies or Tigers...is better.

If I told you last January you could have AJ Pollock or Mark Canha for the same money, who would you have chosen?

I appreciate the reply and I agree he could've done better...every GM can do better.  I just don't think the pitchforks should be out.

[Tony]

2 hours ago, bmags said:

I don't buy this at all. Regression is bound to happen, but what are we regressing to? A world series champion? Hahn has shown the only pieces he is capable of putting money behind is an atrociously overpriced bullpen and 35 year old veterans. 

Another GM may be able to reconfigure the roster for better cohesion between offensive power and defensive production, without even bursting through 200 million.

I know you will say the phillies new GM just spent through it and we can't, but they took over an operation that Dombrowski could have spent through as well. 

They hired the best hitting instructor in baseball, brought in big bats, and moved from 16th to 9th in wRC+ this year despite missing Harper for half of it and not getting 2nd half harper from last year.

Some was regression, some wasn't.

There are plenty of people that could have taken Hahns constraints and still thrived. We've said it before, but if you would have told us in 2019 we'd have a 180 million budget in 2022 we'd have been through the moon. And then if you'd have showed us what that roster looked like we would have looked bewildered. This roster just needs some tweaks but the only playbook hahn has will be more bullpen and sub $10 million flyers in RF/2b/SP

 

So what does a "quality" GM do this off-season with the White Sox? Understanding Jerry is the owner. 

Lay it out for me. 

[bmags]

17 minutes ago, Tony said:

So what does a "quality" GM do this off-season with the White Sox? Understanding Jerry is the owner. 

Lay it out for me. 

I'm assuming a quality GM has an actual ability to use information not available to me. But I don't quibble with the idea the roster largely needs to move forward, I put forward my "eat s%*# and deal with it" roster that I do think gets them to the playoffs because I still cannot imagine Grandal and Moncada being this bad, but it is deeper, and I don't have the benefit of all the salary amounts yet but I figured this was about the same salary range as this year.

Quote

I focus this year on building out a betters scouting and development. I annoint ptatc as head trainer. @Quin leads media and marketing. @flavum gets chief meteorologist.

Bye to everyone in front office except Thome, he's too excellent. Bossard stays. Bossards son gets promoted to AAA because he's nice.

Bye to Abreu. 

C - Grandal, Zavala vs. Carlos Perez
1b - Vaughn v. Sheets
2b - Romy v. Sosa 
3b - Moncada
SS - TA v. Mendick 
LF -  Eloy v. Pollock 
CF - Robert v. Cespedes
RF - Colas v. Cespedes 
DH - Eloy v. Sheets

SP - Cease, Lynn, Kopech, 
Fights - Davis Martin, Reynaldo Lopez
Trade - Lucas Giolito for salary relief to LA Dodgers for James Outman and Jacob Amaya

Bullpen - Graveman, Crochet, Bummer, Kelly, Diekman, Lambert, Ruiz 
Trade - Liam Hendriks to New York yankees for Gleybar Torres, Will Warren

Pre-cuts estimated budget (153 million)

Cleared ~$16 million in budget with Giolito, Hendriks

FA targets: Chris Bassett, Jose Quintana (~$30MM)

So it ends up:
C - Grandal, Zavala vs. Carlos Perez
1b - Vaughn v. Sheets
2b - Torres v Romy v. Sosa
3b - Moncada v. Torres
SS - TA v. Mendick v. Amaya
LF -  Eloy v. Pollock v. Outman
CF - Robert v. Cespedes
RF - Colas v. Cespedes v. Outman
DH - Eloy v. Sheets

SP - Cease, Lynn, Kopech, Bassitt, Quintana
Fights - Davis Martin, Reynaldo Lopez, Stiever, Burke
BP - Graveman, Crochet, Bummer, Kelly, Lopez, Diekman, Lambert

Also Rule 5 will be good huge fun.

1 hour ago, mmmmmbeeer said:

If I told you last January you could have AJ Pollock or Mark Canha for the same money, who would you have chosen?

I appreciate the reply and I agree he could've done better...every GM can do better.  I just don't think the pitchforks should be out.

I appreciate that you acknowledge that Hahn's decisions are of the same level as a fan with only an ability to search fangraphs and baseball savant, but despite me actually being a big Canha fan, I'd have chosen neither. Last offseason I set a number of things the sox needed to balance to compete with the Astros, and acquiring a right-handed hitting LFer just did not fit on the list.

I point out that there were a number of outfielders that moved teams last year and he chose among the worst one (he didn't go after Castellanos! Yay). I didn't even bring up a Starling Marte, whom WAS someone he couldn't get with Jerry as an owner.

[Tony]

2 minutes ago, bmags said:

I'm assuming a quality GM has an actual ability to use information not available to me. But I don't quibble with the idea the roster largely needs to move forward, I put forward my "eat s%*# and deal with it" roster that I do think gets them to the playoffs because I still cannot imagine Grandal and Moncada being this bad, but it is deeper, and I don't have the benefit of all the salary amounts yet but I figured this was about the same salary range as this year.

I appreciate that you acknowledge that Hahn's decisions are of the same level as a fan with only an ability to search fangraphs and baseball savant, but despite me actually being a big Canha fan, I'd have chosen neither. Last offseason I set a number of things the sox needed to balance to compete with the Astros, and acquiring a right-handed hitting LFer just did not fit on the list.

I point out that there were a number of outfielders that moved teams last year and he chose among the worst one (he didn't go after Castellanos! Yay). I didn't even bring up a Starling Marte, whom WAS someone he couldn't get with Jerry as an owner.

So you're going to completely disagree with my take that Hahn shouldn't stay for 2023, but when I ask you for what you would like a new GM to do with the roster in 2023, every starter you listed is currently within the organization. You traded Giolito and Hendricks, and your two FA targets are 33 years old. Interesting...

[mmmmmbeeer]

6 minutes ago, bmags said:

I'm assuming a quality GM has an actual ability to use information not available to me. But I don't quibble with the idea the roster largely needs to move forward, I put forward my "eat s%*# and deal with it" roster that I do think gets them to the playoffs because I still cannot imagine Grandal and Moncada being this bad, but it is deeper, and I don't have the benefit of all the salary amounts yet but I figured this was about the same salary range as this year.

I appreciate that you acknowledge that Hahn's decisions are of the same level as a fan with only an ability to search fangraphs and baseball savant, but despite me actually being a big Canha fan, I'd have chosen neither. Last offseason I set a number of things the sox needed to balance to compete with the Astros, and acquiring a right-handed hitting LFer just did not fit on the list.

I point out that there were a number of outfielders that moved teams last year and he chose among the worst one (he didn't go after Castellanos! Yay). I didn't even bring up a Starling Marte, whom WAS someone he couldn't get with Jerry as an owner.

How much of a role do you think our managerial situation had to do with not only the contracts we DID sign (trade for) but our lack of FAs coming to Chicago?  Do you think free agents were lining up to play for TLR...a big selling point for the FO?

[bmags]

26 minutes ago, Tony said:

So you're going to completely disagree with my take that Hahn shouldn't stay for 2023, but when I ask you for what you would like a new GM to do with the roster in 2023, every starter you listed is currently within the organization. You traded Giolito and Hendricks, and your two FA targets are 33 years old. Interesting...

No, that's not fair. The biggest impact a new GM would have is bringing someone in who can strive to get us to be a top player development organization and maximize our avenues to cost-controlled talent.

That is the first line.

The new GM would not do things like ignore getting an easy top 50 pick in the draft because you may be stuck with a top 5 cy young candidate. The new GM would not trade out our international money when we get fewer resources to sign young players than the other teams in the division. The new GM would stop paying for utility players like Bonifacio and Leury Garcia.

If Hahn had any idea how to to any of that stuff he wouldn't be bitching about payroll. He's the one who has relied on free agency so much for his team building. He can't trade because he ignored the developing of talent needed to supplement the ML level in both trades and call-ups. He had to buy bullpen because you can just look at our AA and AAA squads right now.

And yes, I traded Giolito, who has 1 year left and is going to make $10 million and I get a nice LH outfield prospect and a strong defensive infield prospect who are major league ready. 

I trade hendriks because we cannot have $500 million in our bullpen and we already have a closer in Graveman. I get back a prove-it second baseman in a contract year with the potential to be a contract year pop-up player that we could get a comp pick back for since he's an offseason trade, and the yankees have been lukewarm on and likely will go after Turner.

I sign pitchers that are reasonable to sign under JR because they are older and less likely to sign long term deals. But I have more confidence in Bassitt to be good next year than Giolito so I make the trade-off, especially since I do not like any of the free agent outfielders as a likely fit for JR and as a productive fit for our needs.