Fire Rick Hahn

[hi8is]

If JR is letting TLR go but enabling Hahn and Kenny with another shot - they need to be given the power to…

1.) Explicitly hire whoever the f*** they want for coaching positions 

2.) Ability to DFA parts of this club that they can’t trade who were brought in by Bologna 

If they are getting another chance then they should do so with the ability to make their own choices.

[bmags]

35 minutes ago, mmmmmbeeer said:

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?

I believe hahn should go after players he thinks should improve the team and pay them money to do so, and manage internal politics effectively like a President position should be able to do.

What pre-TLR solutions did Hahn bring in that led you to believe it was TLR sabotage? There was no player he signed that did not fit Hahn's previous patterns of outfielder acquisitions, gleeful spending on bullpen, or "flyer" pitchers to round out the rotation. The only player that has ever surprised me from Hahn was Yasmani Grandal (good signing imo).

[Soxuality]

We all watched this too long. 

There are many reasons to can Hahn.  Here is one, the C position as a whole.

Let's look at the last few years of Hahn's performance re: the C position: 

a) Letting Narvaez go and develop into a better player elsewhere;

b) Drafting Collins in the first round at all (and watching how MiLB Rule-5ers Yerminator, Narvaez, late rounders like Kevan Smith and especially Seby Zavala all develop into comparable or better players as his 1st rounder;

c) Insisting over the years like everyone else in the inept Sox FO that Collins was a C when all of baseball insisted he wasn't, all the while watching his trade value gradually become lower and lower over time until he got into the same situtation of most bad Sox FO high round picks i.e. you might as well hope for growth because the trade value is zero;

d) Signing Grandal when McCann was a far superior defensive/pitcher's C *and* when McCann was available to be signed to an extension which would have been a shorter deal for much less money at the time;

e) Never actually knowing that Grandal was a shitty defensive player anyway while most other people seemed to, and generally and miserably failing to recognize that the proper way to augment an exciting (if threatening to be one-dimensional) young offense is to add pitching and defense to it, not adding more offense at the expense of pitching and defense;

f) Collins for McGuire: finally, at long last, Hahn salvages some of Collins value and acquires 4+ years of controllable Reese McGuire, a quality lefty platoon backup C that teams like the Padres and Guardians usually acquire and hang on to, but he just can't leave well enough alone, so Hahn has to trade Reese for Diekman. 

First, it should be noted that Hahn only got McGuire because the Jays were forced to cut their extra 3rd C because their FO is full of people who maybe are "too good" for their jobs, and have "too much depth," unlike the Sox who generally have needs because they are stupid and can't admirably fill them at all. 

So Hahn of course then takes 4+ years of a lefty-hitting cheap platoon C in McGuire, who is way better than 1st rounder Zack Collins has ever been, and trades him for an older 2nd pen lefty in Diekman who is under shorter control but who is owed millions and cannot be cut without freely unlike McGuire.  But the real kicker here is we already had 5 years control of Tanner Banks as a second lefty -- and a considerably more versatile one at that -- and so there was really no point to acquire Diekman at all, even at the time.  Hahn was "building quality depth" by taking that cheap long-term potential part-solution and exchanging it for essentially an improvement over Tanner Banks -- hey, would the decision makers with Dodgers or Rays or CLE even think Diekman is better than Banks at all?  prolly not IMO -- and so Hahn sends Banks down to bring over his new money-making gas over from Boston, who was happy for the free cheese.  This is how Rick Hahn "spends money," "uses trade capital," and "builds quality depth." 

Suffice it to say, the Rays, Dodgers, Yankees, etc. don't make real long habits of operating in these "White Sox ways."  Just look at what Hahn has had to work with (Rule-5 good players, Reese salvaged for Collins aka Nothing, McCann for literally nothing, etc.) and then look at what he's ended up with: really expensive and shitty defense at C in the form of a guy who physically has deteriorated exactly as expected and is now (as should have been expected) a sunk cost albatross platoon 1B/DH (again).

[shago]

All of us have watched the Bulls and White Sox front office clown cars under Jerry...

Until Jerry the Hut is gone, no one is going to be  'enabled with the power to ....' do anything. Least of all his lead court jester Rick fkn Hahn. 

[maxjusttyped]

"mired in mediocrity"

[NCsoxfan]

Guys Hahn is awesome. Remember he received executive of the year votes! Who needs to win in the playoffs if Rick received votes a year ago?!?

[Lip Man 1]

Hahn's 10 year track record:

Seven losing seasons

Two winning seasons

One season at .500

And remember the Sox weren't always "rebuilding." There were years when they actually were trying to win.

[shago]

6 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Hahn's 10 year track record:

Seven losing seasons

Two winning seasons

One season at .500

And remember the Sox weren't always "rebuilding." There were years when they actually were trying to win.

Give that man an extension, he's doing an excellent job. ? 

? ? ? ? ? ? 

[JoeC]

9 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Hahn's 10 year track record:

Seven losing seasons

Two winning seasons

One season at .500

And remember the Sox weren't always "rebuilding." There were years when they actually were trying to win.

 

Some of those early sucking seasons also can be blamed on KW, but yes.

to me, Hahn has 2 years to prove that he can put up of shut up. Give him full control of the personnel decisions so that all of the blame (or credit) lies at his feet.

Can’t fully judge someone’s performance if they are constantly being undermined and overruled by their management.

[Harry Chappas]

1 hour ago, JoeC said:

 

Some of those early sucking seasons also can be blamed on KW, but yes.

to me, Hahn has 2 years to prove that he can put up of shut up. Give him full control of the personnel decisions so that all of the blame (or credit) lies at his feet.

Can’t fully judge someone’s performance if they are constantly being undermined and overruled by their management.

He admitted in the press conference that he has no control.  The team is run by KW and JR makes the big decisions. 

[caulfield12]

2 hours ago, JoeC said:

 

Some of those early sucking seasons also can be blamed on KW, but yes.

to me, Hahn has 2 years to prove that he can put up of shut up. Give him full control of the personnel decisions so that all of the blame (or credit) lies at his feet.

Can’t fully judge someone’s performance if they are constantly being undermined and overruled by their management.

So then KW gets credit for the 2012 season, too?

So just two winning seasons in a decade.

[South Side Hit Men]

51 minutes ago, Harry Chappas said:

He admitted in the press conference that he has no control.  The team is run by KW and JR makes the big decisions. 

Seemed more like shifting the blame, Hahn's primary competency in life.

Did the same with the manager he extended before firing him 60 games later. The ridiculous bullpen Game 3 was both Hahn's idea and fault, since he only provided Ricky two starting pitchers. Hahn did the same thing right after Tony left, with Joe Kelly gave up two runs on September 2.

"Never let a crises go to waste".

[JoeC]

37 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

So then KW gets credit for the 2012 season, too?

So just two winning seasons in a decade.

Yeah I think that’s fair.

[SCCWS]

On 10/4/2022 at 1:33 PM, hi8is said:

If JR is letting TLR go but enabling Hahn and Kenny with another shot - they need to be given the power to…

1.) Explicitly hire whoever the f*** they want for coaching positions 

2.) Ability to DFA parts of this club that they can’t trade who were brought in by Bologna 

If they are getting another chance then they should do so with the ability to make their own choices.

Unfortunately, we really don't know how involved JR is/was. Most fans assume TLR was a JR hire, But we really don't know if Kelly was also a TLR hire or if Hahn did all the other roster moves except for TLR. 

[South Side Hit Men]

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

So then KW gets credit for the 2012 season, too?

So just two winning seasons in a decade.

Hahn was hired after the 2012 season. The 2020 season was 60 games, with the Sox down to two viable starting pitchers through the first 62 games. If they did play the remaining 100 games and didn't finish below 10 games under the rest of the way (45-55), they would have been fortunate. They also would have played a normal schedule, so no feasting on the pathetic Central division teams which went 0-7 in the pathetic 16 team playoff farce.

44 minutes ago, SCCWS said:

Unfortunately, we really don't know how involved JR is/was. Most fans assume TLR was a JR hire, But we really don't know if Kelly was also a TLR hire or if Hahn did all the other roster moves except for TLR. 

We have seen enough from his previous eight years as GM to know Hahn is completely out of his element.

[T R U]

Im just amazed that we didn't even get a whiff of a possible replacement at GM. It was pretty much like no matter what happened they were all coming back.

TLR would have been back too had it not been for his heart issue. This organization is just pathetic.

[Big Hurtin]

16 hours ago, maxjusttyped said:

"mired in mediocrity"

[chw42]

16 hours ago, maxjusttyped said:

"mired in mediocrity"

The team has been sleep walking since the ASB last year. 

[Chicago White Sox]

32 minutes ago, T R U said:

Im just amazed that we didn't even get a whiff of a possible replacement at GM. It was pretty much like no matter what happened they were all coming back.

TLR would have been back too had it not been for his heart issue. This organization is just pathetic.

The good news is Hahn will just fire himself when the times comes ?

[bmags]

Just in continuing to build the case that Hahn is bad, I will keep drilling comparisons to the Atlanta Braves.

For those new to my series, titled "Rick Hahn is bad", I've chosen the Braves because they to me are the most similar franchise to the White Sox. If that sounds odd, I'm referring to:

- They are in same market group designations as the White Sox, so they do not get extra first round picks or international money (in fact, they've been crushed in international since the Coppy fiasco)
- Have a strong but fickle fan base with a not great tv market that has put their budget in a lower stratosphere than the big market Dodgers/Giants/Red Sox/Cubs/Yankees/Mets/Phillies that are also teams who lack the additional team building boosts.

For example, the estimated final payroll (I really can't find a site I like for this, but this comes from fangraphs roster resource) has the 2022 payroll of the Braves (post WORLD SERIES) at 188 million, less than the final 2022 payroll for the white sox of $196M. Both were also at similar payrolls.

 

My thing with just firing Hahn for a new GM that, while likely being hand tied at how much can be done to revolutionize the MLB roster, could get a head start in trying to improve the organizations scouting and player development to be among the best in the game...which ANY franchise can achieve regardless of market size as the Tampa Rays and Guardians have shown.

The Braves you may have noticed also had some underperforming stars this year.

Albies and Acuna were injured for much of the year and not great in terms of production. Rosario's playoff magic did not translate at all, and Marcell Ozuna was awful in more ways than one. Matt Olson was good but not up to typical Matt Olson standards.

Ian Anderson took a big step back, Odorizzi was a bad pickup, and Will Smith regressed in the bullpen.

That is not the depths of struggles of the White Sox, as some guys had career years (Swanson and Riley). But the sox also had some of that of their own.

Anyway this is a long way to get to the big difference between the franchises is while Hahn's minor leagues were completely tapped out by the time our team arrived in 2020, the Braves has not stopped.

The modern braves arrived in 2018 when Acuna and Albies flew thru the ranks and added to longtime vets (Freeman) and smart trades (Inciarte and Swanson).
Their starting pitching that year consisted of Julio Teheran, Folty, Sean Newcomb, Anibal Sanchez, and Brandon McCarthy.

They still had one of the top farms in baseball.

In 2019, they added from their farm Austin Riley, Mike Soroka and Max Fried join the rotation.

In 2020, they added from their farm Ian Anderson, Touki Toussaint, and Kyle Wright.

In 2021, they added from their farm William Contreras and Kyle Muller.

In 2022, they added from their farm Michael Harris and Vaughn Grissom. Harris hits a 135 OPS+, Grissom a 118 OPS+ playing dynamic CF and 2b.

They added Spencer Strider who was one of the best pitchers in baseball in the second half.

They were able to replace Freddie Freeman with Matt Olson by trading out top prospect Christian Pache and Shea Langeliers.

Look at their SP compared to 2018. Look at their bullpen. Look at their position players.

You cannot have sustained excellence merely on the backs of your core being strong every year. You have to add and add and add and add and add and add. The pipeline can't stop.

Michael Harris was a 3rd round pick in 2019, 20th overall. The Braves paid him 500k. 17 picks earlier the white sox took Andrew Dalquist and paid him 2 million. Did I mention he's a lefty?

Vaughn Grissom is an 11th rounder from 2019. 

Shea Langeliers was picked 9th overall  in 2019 which led to Olson.

In 2020, they selected Spencer Strider in the 4th round for 500k. Because of the Jared Kelly bonus, the white sox selected a 10k signing who I don't know has played in baseball yet.

They entered the year 22nd in org rankings for their farm. But that still allowed them to acquire Matt Olson, and introduce the possible NL rookie of year with either Strider or Harris. a 4th round pick and a 3rd.

We will focus on the signings and ML budget. But it is all so much harder for the sox because they cannot sustainably bring talent in from draft and intl, and develop it.

 

[maloney.adam]

1 hour ago, T R U said:

Im just amazed that we didn't even get a whiff of a possible replacement at GM. It was pretty much like no matter what happened they were all coming back.

TLR would have been back too had it not been for his heart issue. This organization is just pathetic.

You didn’t hear, we hired a new GM. His name is Tony Flenderson. The organization is going to have a new culture and a new way of looking at things. Get excited!

Edited October 6, 2022 by maloney.adam

[South Side Hit Men]

1 hour ago, maloney.adam said:

You didn’t hear, we hired a new GM. His name is Tony Flenderson. The organization is going to have a new culture and a new way of looking at things. Get excited!

Just needs a heavy dose of black hair dye.

Created a thread to discuss Hahn's record within White Sox organizational history and also against his peers over the past decade.

The Sox and Colorado are exactly the same in terms of record and money spent. They also operate in a very similar bizarre manner.

La Russa vs. Hahn

 

[reiks12]

Hahn supporters in a nutshell:

Quote

You cant blame the awful results of his free agents because he wasnt the one who wanted to sign them.

Quote

You need to credit Hahn with cheap free agents like Cueto and Elvis.

Which is it? 

[hi8is]

17 hours ago, SCCWS said:

But we really don't know if Kelly was also a TLR hire…

We know.

Manager Tony La Russa Was ‘Driving Force’ Behind Joe Kelly Signing With White Sox

[chw42]

James Click might get let-go by Houston. Do the right thing and clean house Jerry.