Fire Rick Hahn

[The Kids Can Play]

On 10/13/2022 at 5:46 AM, shago said:

Cleveland front office good … 

… we have Rick Hahn 

 

Besides their FO making Hahn look inept, Cleveland has Francona and we had LaRussa.

It's so interesting how Cleveland spent a 126 million less (28th payroll) to get better results the the Sox and have one of the best ranked farm systems, to the Sox being one of the worst. 

Great job Rick Hahn! For your spectacular results, you get to keep your job because your boss Jerry Reinsdorf is evidently clueless and doesn't give a S%*#!.

Keep up the good work Jerry and Rick...as you continue to reward your fans with your over promised rebuilding to become eventual champions...now going into year 7.

Edited October 17, 2022 by The Kids Can Play

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, shago said:

Not much there to be stolen in the first place ... poor man's Ron Cey

This just isn't true. When he first came up, every ball he hit was crushed, and he teamed that with a solidly patient approach at the plate. He definitely needed coaching on that as he got himself in trouble with strikeouts at first, but he looked like an absolutely dynamic player. 

[shago]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

This just isn't true. When he first came up, every ball he hit was crushed, and he teamed that with a solidly patient approach at the plate. He definitely needed coaching on that as he got himself in trouble with strikeouts at first, but he looked like an absolutely dynamic player. 

He wishes in his early years he looked even close to Ron Cey with the Dodgers in the late 70s

[caulfield12]

Semien up for his second consecutive Gold Glove.  Might go to Gimenez. Not a single member of the White Sox nominated. 

[ShoeLessRob]

23 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Semien up for his second consecutive Gold Glove.  Might go to Gimenez. Not a single member of the White Sox nominated. 

 But Grandal is an elite framer!

[Lip Man 1]

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

Semien up for his second consecutive Gold Glove.  Might go to Gimenez. Not a single member of the White Sox nominated. 

Why would any Sox player even be considered?... they looked buffoonish in the field.

[JoeC]

Now, assuming this is a true Hahn hire, I'm giving Hahn 2 years. Give him full control and autonomy in decisions, and if he fails, fire him.

Nevermind - didn't read beyond the headlines / twitter posts.... Espada ain't coming.

Edited October 21, 2022 by JoeC

[flavum]

7 minutes ago, fathom said:

No SoxFest again. What a bunch of cowards.

I’ve never been, but I’m assuming the feeling is mutual by both fans and the team. 

[wegner]

11 minutes ago, fathom said:

No SoxFest again. What a bunch of cowards.

Absolutely cowardly....agree with you 100%

[GreenSox]

Looking at the Phillies further reveals how stupid Hahn is with his budget.  The Phillies use minimum salary players at C, SS, CF, 3B, none of whom produced particularly well. They didn't spend much on the pen. But they spent their money on 2 good hitters (Schwarber and Castellanos), on "premium talent" in Wheeler and esp. Bryce Harper.
The Sox signed no "premium talent",  and poured money into the bullpen, 2B, UI and C. Most of those players figured to be nothing but hole-fillers anyway; the only compelling signees were Lynn, Grandal and Hendriks.

Sox had a stronger base to start than the Phillies, and should be able to do what they did while spending less.

Edited October 24, 2022 by GreenSox

[bmags]

4 hours ago, GreenSox said:

Looking at the Phillies further reveals how stupid Hahn is with his budget.  The Phillies use minimum salary players at C, SS, CF, 3B, none of whom produced particularly well. They didn't spend much on the pen. But they spent their money on 2 good hitters (Schwarber and Castellanos), on "premium talent" in Wheeler and esp. Bryce Harper.
The Sox signed no "premium talent",  and poured money into the bullpen, 2B, UI and C. Most of those players figured to be nothing but hole-fillers anyway; the only compelling signees were Lynn, Grandal and Hendriks.

Sox had a stronger base to start than the Phillies, and should be able to do what they did while spending less.

I do think somehow, even at current levels, it is underrated how bad Hahn is here at soxtalk.

[Chicago White Sox]

4 hours ago, GreenSox said:

Looking at the Phillies further reveals how stupid Hahn is with his budget.  The Phillies use minimum salary players at C, SS, CF, 3B, none of whom produced particularly well. They didn't spend much on the pen. But they spent their money on 2 good hitters (Schwarber and Castellanos), on "premium talent" in Wheeler and esp. Bryce Harper.
The Sox signed no "premium talent",  and poured money into the bullpen, 2B, UI and C. Most of those players figured to be nothing but hole-fillers anyway; the only compelling signees were Lynn, Grandal and Hendriks.

Sox had a stronger base to start than the Phillies, and should be able to do what they did while spending less.

I mean, JT Realmuto is both their best player and the highest paid catcher in all of baseball.  They also traded a ton get him, although he has been worth every penny.  Not trying to discredit your point, but probably important to point out.

That being said, Hahn’s ability to supplement this roster via free agency has been disastrous.  IMO, there are two reasons for this.  First, was several big misses in free agency that resulted in dollars being allocated differently than originally planned.  Second, was the absolute failure to develop cheap pre-arb talent to provide above replacement level production at certain spots.

Regarding the first point, everything probably changes if Jerry nuts up and signs Machado to the deal the Padres offered.  Additionally, let’s not forgot that Hahn actually prioritized a Wheeler signing and made a higher offer than the Phillies, but lost out due to geographical considerations.  Can’t blame Hahn for the miss there, but can blame him for panic signing Dallas Keuchel.  Yes, he delivered in a COVID shortened 2020 season, but was basically useless 18 months into that deal and was never going to be a true TOR starter for us.

So instead of having a cornerstone 3B & SP to build around for ~$55M/year in payroll commitments, those funds went elsewhere.  Grandal is currently the largest free agency acquisition in franchise history at 4/$73M.  I was a huge fan of the signing and won’t rip it now, especially when we needed a LH bat and the alternative was overpaying for James McCann.  The problem was that was our only true high impact move in free agency.  Maybe you can argue the Hendriks signing being one given how elite he is, but at the end of the day he is a reliever and that limits his potential impact to some extent.

But that doesn’t explain where all the money went.  Let’s lay this all out.  The core pieces that Hahn acquired during the rebuild accounted for ~$50M in salary this year (Moncada, Anderson, Robert, Eloy, Vaughn, Giolito, Cease, Kopech, Lopez, & Bummer).  Beyond Grandal, Keuchel, & Hendriks (who made a combined ~$49M this year), the other two expensive core pieces were Lynn ($18.5M) & Abreu ($14M).  That’s ~$132M in total payroll for seven everyday positional guys, four starters, and three high leverage relievers.  That gave Hahn ~$54M to finish offer the roster.  And that’s where the second problem comes in.

Because Hahn failed to build a steady pipeline of talent during the rebuild years, the Sox didn’t have cheap options from within to fill their remaining holes.  Hostetler’s focus early on in low ceiling college bats with little to no defensive utility (Collins, Burger, Sheets, etc) created a system that lacked athleticism.  The Robert signing limited what Paddy could do in subsequent years, which hurt our up-the-middle depth (just starting to see the fruits of his labor here with Sosa & Popeye).  Getz & staff could not develop the few fringe prospects we had like Rutherford, Adolfo, Basabe, & Gonzalez into legitimate major league options (although SF did with the latter).  And our pitching depth in the upper minors became a complete joke.  Despite all the investments that we made into relief prospects, we struggled to develop a critical mass of major league caliber bullpen arms.  Quite frankly, the prospect cupboard was quickly empty after the first few waves and organizational depth became non-existent.

So coming full circle, where did that other ~$54M go?  Hahn spent $11.5M on Pollock to solve “RF” for a year (despite not being a RF) because all our minor league options had failed and Colas & Cespedes weren’t ready yet.  He spent a combined $9.5M on Leury & Harrison to fill 2B for a year and provide some up-the-middle depth that he thought the system couldn’t.  Rick spent $18M on two high-leverage relievers and a shitty swingman because the farm literally had nothing to offer.  For that same $39M, we could have Bryce Harper playing RF ($26M) right now with Eduardo Escobar at 2B ($10M).  All it took was for Hahn’s staff to develop four pre-arb guys to fill out a major league bench and bullpen, but unfortunately that was too much to ask for after a multi-year rebuild

TLDR - So yes, Hahn’s ability to supplement this roster via free agency has been a complete & utter disaster, but beyond just the poor resource allocation is an organization wide incompetence that lead him to prioritize depth over impact talent in free agency.  And it’s those core failings in draft strategy and player development that should prevent from ever being a major league GM again.

[Chimpton]

The only worry is that if they actually do sack Hahn imagine who Jerry would hire to replace him! You would probably get TLR as GM, and his first piece of business would be to extend Garcia's contract!

[A-Train to 35th]

7 hours ago, GreenSox said:

Looking at the Phillies further reveals how stupid Hahn is with his budget.  The Phillies use minimum salary players at C, SS, CF, 3B, none of whom produced particularly well. They didn't spend much on the pen. But they spent their money on 2 good hitters (Schwarber and Castellanos), on "premium talent" in Wheeler and esp. Bryce Harper.
The Sox signed no "premium talent",  and poured money into the bullpen, 2B, UI and C. Most of those players figured to be nothing but hole-fillers anyway; the only compelling signees were Lynn, Grandal and Hendriks.

Sox had a stronger base to start than the Phillies, and should be able to do what they did while spending less.

J.T. Realmuto earns $24 mil, I wouldn't consider that a minimum salary

[Balta1701]

2 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

The Robert signing limited what Paddy could do in subsequent years, which hurt our up-the-middle depth (just starting to see the fruits of his labor here with Sosa & Popeye).  

Let’s not underblame here. When the signing limits went away, the White Sox had plenty of money to spend internationally in 2019, and they didn’t even use all of it. They had multiple years to prep for that class, and were so lazy about that work that they had leftover space to trade to a harder working club, Texas, to get them to take on Nate Jones’s busted deal. 

We should never let this one go. It’s a perfect example of then having an opportunity to improve the ball club and they clearly said “this is not our priority, we care less about this than the Texas Rangers do.”

[35thstreetswarm]

I never thought I’d see the Phillies held up as a model of organizational savvy and roster construction.  I guess the good news is…you only have to hit once 

[Tnetennba]

JR’s operating philosophies certainly handcuff the org, but Hahn’s inability to draft & develop, build depth in the minor leagues, find INT talent, or supplement the core through FA has them where they are.  I would like to think a competent GM could solve a few of these issues even w/in the org constraints, or push hard enough against them for more wiggle room, but that is really unknown.  Laid out like it has been in this thread really spells out just how much of a catastrophe Rick Hahn has been as a GM. 

[GreenSox]

1 hour ago, A-Train to 35th said:

J.T. Realmuto earns $24 mil, I wouldn't consider that a minimum salary

Yes, you (and others) are certainly right about that.  I don’t know what I was looking at.  He belongs in that  “premium talent” category. 

[JoeC]

16 minutes ago, Tnetennba said:

JR’s operating philosophies certainly handcuff the org, but Hahn’s inability to draft & develop, build depth in the minor leagues, find INT talent, or supplement the core through FA has them where they are.  I would like to think a competent GM could solve a few of these issues even w/in the org constraints, or push hard enough against them for more wiggle room, but that is really unknown.  Laid out like it has been in this thread really spells out just how much of a catastrophe Rick Hahn has been as a GM. 

To me, the biggest organizational failure going back to the KW era is in its inability to draft and develop.

[EloyJenkins]

I blame all of this on wheeler's wife. It's all her fault...?

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

I never thought I’d see the Phillies held up as a model of organizational savvy and roster construction.  I guess the good news is…you only have to hit once 

The Phillies aren't spectacular in any way at what they're doing, but they're not the worst in the league. If you're a middle of the pack team that cycles through rebuilds and competitive years, you ought to have a couple of solid playoff runs a decade. 

[35thstreetswarm]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

The Phillies aren't spectacular in any way at what they're doing, but they're not the worst in the league. If you're a middle of the pack team that cycles through rebuilds and competitive years, you ought to have a couple of solid playoff runs a decade. 

 

Yep.  This is what we need to hope for in 2023.

[Tnetennba]

1 hour ago, JoeC said:

To me, the biggest organizational failure going back to the KW era is in its inability to draft and develop.

Yes.  KW had a solid farm when he took over as GM and its been a barren wasteland minus Hahn's fire sale acquisitions in the time since.  Refusal to play the draft bonus game in the years before the current slot/cap system, inability to find impact talent in the draft regularly, and the inability to churn out even average major league talent to fill out the roster has been the greatest failing of the org inside the self imposed constraints to how they operate.  

[Chicago White Sox]

16 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Let’s not underblame here. When the signing limits went away, the White Sox had plenty of money to spend internationally in 2019, and they didn’t even use all of it. They had multiple years to prep for that class, and were so lazy about that work that they had leftover space to trade to a harder working club, Texas, to get them to take on Nate Jones’s busted deal. 

We should never let this one go. It’s a perfect example of then having an opportunity to improve the ball club and they clearly said “this is not our priority, we care less about this than the Texas Rangers do.”

I think the LatAm stuff is a bit tricky.  For years, we underinvested in this area, whereas other clubs would blow through their cap and load up on talent prior to taking their penalties.  Unfortunately, we have to accept a few realities here.  First, it took a little bit of time for Paddy to right our LatAm operations after the Dave Wilder fiasco.  Spending big may not have been a real option early on in his tenure.  Second, Reinsdorf provides his own challenges when it comes to spending big in this area.  Traditionally he has been a stickler for following the rules (see his refusal to go above slot for years), which may have limited Hahn’s ability to mimic what teams like the Padres were doing.  Furthermore, he does not like spending big on unproven talent (draft or LatAm) vs. major league ball players and especially hates pursuing 16 year old Hispanic kids.

Of course the year that the Sox finally decide to go into the penalty box is the year they sign Luis Robert.  Unfortunately for us, the Sox didn’t treat it like a big overage year and only signed 20 players (for reference we would sign 26 players just two years later under the new capped structure).  Without Luis, I think it would have been a normal year.  Again, I struggle how much to blame Hahn for that vs. Jerry.  Don’t get me wrong, investing in LatAm provides the best overall ROI vs other types of spend and it’s Hahn’s job to make that clear to Jerry.  But we all know Reinsdorf is a stubborn f*** who likes to do things his way.

I agree those next three years were problematic.  Not spending up to their cap is simply unacceptable.  I get maybe the 2017-18 class through a wrench with the addition of Robert, but being in the penalty box never stopped the Padres maxing out, even if it had to be on lower priced guys.  It’s very clear the Sox did some poor planning here and did not have counter-measures in place in the event they signed Robert.  The 2019-20 class is the most embarrassing given we were out of the penalty box and to your point should have had ample lead time to use our budget appropriately.  And ultimately our big prize was spending $2.5M on a 22 year old Cuban who projected to be a UT infielder.  I believe there may have been some other Cubans that were intended to part of that class but didn’t materialize for whatever reasons, but that’s still no excuse for not spending to budget. 

So yes, Hahn clearly failed in this area and I didn’t rip him to the appropriate levels, but I do think there are other considerations in the LatAm space that makes his failures less egregious than those on the amateur scouting / player development side of things.

[Balta1701]

34 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

So yes, Hahn clearly failed in this area and I didn’t rip him to the appropriate levels, but I do think there are other considerations in the LatAm space that makes his failures less egregious than those on the amateur scouting / player development side of things.

Notice which one I point out - there's one example where there's absolutely no excuse for how they acted and that's 2019. I'm willing to accept that my strategy might be different from theirs in other years, and that it's all just a roll of the dice so sometimes a Tatis pops out of no where, and that they have to deal with JR, but 2019 is simply pathetic. To have 3 years to do their work because of the Robert penalty and not bother to do their work, and then trade their funds to a harder working franchise - that's just a joke. That's so egregious that I'll point it out any time someone leaves that opening, it should not be forgotten.