Fire Rick Hahn

[kitekrazy]

 I'm gonna do a different take.   A GM relies on scouts.  Then there is your staff in the instructional leagues,  We see the same patterns in the organization.  There are probably people we never heard of that are probably under JRs loyalty program.   There are no outsiders from consistent winning organizations.  Guys like Boston are part of the mired in mediocrity organization.

 There is no pressure on anyone in this organization.  Stone reflected that in some words about the farm system.

 I know drafting in baseball is a crapshoot but even during the KW era there are some major busts.     

There are plenty of organizations that trade that talented player for prospects and then start the cycle over again and might have a few winning seasons out of each decade.  Those big market teams seem to produce good homegrown talent and spend the money.

 When you have a not so good system that is not good at evaluating talent the "get a haul for x player" seems closer to fantasy then reality.  There's enough teams like that. At some point money has to be spent but what good is that if the scouting isn't there.   So far the Sox spend bad money and make bad trades.   

 It will be interesting to see how the Mets fare in Oct.

 With overpriced pitching the Giants got value out of Rodon so far.  Hindsight for the Sox is not good on that one.

[kitekrazy]

On 7/24/2022 at 11:03 AM, Chick Mercedes said:

For the most part, I agree. But something has to shake this team out of this first baseman/DH right handed hitting bad base running speed and defense eschewing bullpen obsessed catatonic trance. A new set of eyes might set off the team into a new dysfunctional direction, but at some point there will be a Venn diagram overlap that may equate into a well balanced team. Temporarily.

That happened before Hahn.  I guess it's a bad habit to break.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

18 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

Oh I’m sure there are more. I’ve got Strength and Conditioning coach Allen Thomas to add.

I thought Allen Thomas was fired last year.

[wegner]

The White Sox will claim all the problems were due to a lack of communication, and fire Billy Russo.

[Balta1701]

1 minute ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

I thought Allen Thomas was fired last year.

He was. But when I Googled "White Sox strength and conditioning coach", his name popped up first so I got confused. Turns out it goes to his linkedin page, where he still has that title up. I think that's an ok way to be confused, by a guy's own Linkedin page.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

I just thought I had heard he was fired so when I googled Allen Thomas White Sox I scanned the front page and 4th thing down . The linkedin info was the 2nd thing down.

Spare Parts: Former trainer files lawsuit against White Sox

https://soxmachine.com › white-sox-news › spare-parts-...

 

May 11, 2022 — This past winter, the White Sox fired longtime strength and conditioning coach Allen Thomas. The year before, they had fired head athletic ...

[NCsoxfan]

He’s an abject failure 

[caulfield12]

Pretty incredible they turned a Top 5 job in MLB into one of the 5-7 worst two years later.

No payroll flexibility, overloaded with aging/injured veterans and under-performers, bereft of more than a couple of impact players at the minor league level to supplement the big league roster.

Stuck permanently between rebuilding, retooling and running it back out there with no better realistic options.

[Boopa1219]

12 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Pretty incredible they turned a Top 5 job in MLB into one of the 5-7 worst two years later.

No payroll flexibility, overloaded with aging/injured veterans and under-performers, bereft of more than a couple of impact players at the minor league level to supplement the big league roster.

Stuck permanently between rebuilding, retooling and running it back out there with no better realistic options.

If the Sox sell, they could fix a lot of these issues

[Dam8610]

On 7/30/2022 at 1:22 PM, kitekrazy said:

 I'm gonna do a different take.   A GM relies on scouts.  Then there is your staff in the instructional leagues,  We see the same patterns in the organization.  There are probably people we never heard of that are probably under JRs loyalty program.   There are no outsiders from consistent winning organizations.  Guys like Boston are part of the mired in mediocrity organization.

 There is no pressure on anyone in this organization.  Stone reflected that in some words about the farm system.

 I know drafting in baseball is a crapshoot but even during the KW era there are some major busts.     

There are plenty of organizations that trade that talented player for prospects and then start the cycle over again and might have a few winning seasons out of each decade.  Those big market teams seem to produce good homegrown talent and spend the money.

 When you have a not so good system that is not good at evaluating talent the "get a haul for x player" seems closer to fantasy then reality.  There's enough teams like that. At some point money has to be spent but what good is that if the scouting isn't there.   So far the Sox spend bad money and make bad trades.   

 It will be interesting to see how the Mets fare in Oct.

 With overpriced pitching the Giants got value out of Rodon so far.  Hindsight for the Sox is not good on that one.

When the fanbase can, in foresight, predict which moves will be bad for the team, and the team does them anyway, that's my bar for replacing the front office. Go back and read what everyone here said about the Rodon decision at the time.

[soxfan49]

7 hours ago, Joshua Strong said:

If the Sox sell, they could fix a lot of these issues

Who could they realistically sell that would fix the issues outlined in the post you quoted?

[Dominikk85]

I wouldn't say hahn did a bad job overall. He build a great core of star players via trade, trading sale, quintana and eaton couldn't have gone any better. 

He also did a great job with his Cuba connection 

 

There were some things which didn't go so well though. 

 

1) free agent signings. Some signings worked but quite a few busts too. Wouldn't put all the blame on hahn though as jerry simply didn't give him the money to get the "A" guys

 

2) the draft

Apart from vaughn that wasn't good at all. Montgomery and crochet might work out but overall the strategy of drafting high performance college bats with limited tools has not gone well. 

 

Hahn seems to have learned from that though, the last two years he drafted high upside HS guys and even crochet wasn't the typical "floor" signing even though he was a college player but more an upside play. 

3) international non cuba signings: this one is really bad, sox haven't developed a high profile Domenican guy they signed in like a decade. Sure they signed tatis jr but that seems almost an isolated incident. I'm not confident on the sox developing that but maybe the international draft will level the playing field and reduce the edge of teams like TB who have developed a great international scouting department

4) development of non high profile guys. The last time the sox developed a non top10 overall pick into an above average player was tim Anderson. 

Overall the record with raw guys is very bad but they didn't really get that "bit extra" out of those supposedly save college guys either. Sox did well not messing up the blue chip guys (probably by leaving them alone) but they haven't really had much success really improving flawed guys with the exception of giolito who got a private coach (who now works for the sox). 

 

So overall I would say hahn already did learn a lesson in the draft so that could be fixed already. 

Sox still need to get better in development of players and in signing non cuba international guys, also in free agent signings. 

 

Those 3 things really cut into the sox depth and caused them to be a top heavy org which lacks depth, especially SP and up the middle prospects. 

That is actually similar to the stars and scrubs sox team of the mid 2010s but instead of having 3-4 good guys they now have 9 or 10 (pitchers plus hitters) so the situation is much better. 

Still roster spots 18-25 are probably sub standard compared to other contenders and also the depth of the next 10 guys coming out of the minors. 

Edited August 1, 2022 by Dominikk85

[caulfield12]

3 hours ago, Dominikk85 said:

I wouldn't say hahn did a bad job overall. He build a great core of star players via trade, trading sale, quintana and eaton couldn't have gone any better. 

He also did a great job with his Cuba connection 

 

There were some things which didn't go so well though. 

 

1) free agent signings. Some signings worked but quite a few busts too. Wouldn't put all the blame on hahn though as jerry simply didn't give him the money to get the "A" guys

 

2) the draft

Apart from vaughn that wasn't good at all. Montgomery and crochet might work out but overall the strategy of drafting high performance college bats with limited tools has not gone well. 

 

Hahn seems to have learned from that though, the last two years he drafted high upside HS guys and even crochet wasn't the typical "floor" signing even though he was a college player but more an upside play. 

3) international non cuba signings: this one is really bad, sox haven't developed a high profile Domenican guy they signed in like a decade. Sure they signed tatis jr but that seems almost an isolated incident. I'm not confident on the sox developing that but maybe the international draft will level the playing field and reduce the edge of teams like TB who have developed a great international scouting department

4) development of non high profile guys. The last time the sox developed a non top10 overall pick into an above average player was tim Anderson. 

Overall the record with raw guys is very bad but they didn't really get that "bit extra" out of those supposedly save college guys either. Sox did well not messing up the blue chip guys (probably by leaving them alone) but they haven't really had much success really improving flawed guys with the exception of giolito who got a private coach (who now works for the sox). 

 

So overall I would say hahn already did learn a lesson in the draft so that could be fixed already. 

Sox still need to get better in development of players and in signing non cuba international guys, also in free agent signings. 

 

Those 3 things really cut into the sox depth and caused them to be a top heavy org which lacks depth, especially SP and up the middle prospects. 

That is actually similar to the stars and scrubs sox team of the mid 2010s but instead of having 3-4 good guys they now have 9 or 10 (pitchers plus hitters) so the situation is much better. 

Still roster spots 18-25 are probably sub standard compared to other contenders and also the depth of the next 10 guys coming out of the minors. 

You are still with a budget more than 3X the Guardians and behind them.

The Guardians and Twins can afford Jose Ramirez, Buxton and Correa at super/star salaries.

The reason we can't afford anyone now payroll-wise is dubious contracts trending downwards for about eight different players, not including Keuchel.

If TLR made the Pollock and Leury and Kelly moves, what does Hahn actually do now?  Hahn knew to go after Cueto?

Pollock has been a disaster in LF. Sheets in RF.  Vaughn hardly ever plays 1B, where he could at least not a 2-3 fWAR performer.

Is Abreu also more powerful than Hahn?  Maybe!

Carlos Rodon QO disaster?

Cuban Connection was 85-90% KW and Paddy...what has Hahn done?  Was he really the one who convinced JR to get out the bank book for Robert?

He Who Shall Not Be Named.

Traded Semien.

Can hardly develop his own relievers despite draft focus years to save his life and not blow up the payroll with external signings...along with Leury/Harrison.  We can't even produce cheap utility/bench players. Without the Leury contract now on the books we could at least add a veteran reliever, for example.

 

If the Twins and Guardians had Sox budget or we played in any other division, the Sox would be toast.

The only worse GM in the AL right now is arguably Perry Minasian of the Angels.  That's pretty much it.  Maybe Avila in Detroit, although they have been decimated by injuries and other bizarre factors even more so than the Sox this year.

Edited August 1, 2022 by caulfield12

[soxfan49]

5 hours ago, Dominikk85 said:

I wouldn't say hahn did a bad job overall. He build a great core of star players via trade, trading sale, quintana and eaton couldn't have gone any better. 

He also did a great job with his Cuba connection 

 

There were some things which didn't go so well though. 

 

1) free agent signings. Some signings worked but quite a few busts too. Wouldn't put all the blame on hahn though as jerry simply didn't give him the money to get the "A" guys

 

2) the draft

Apart from vaughn that wasn't good at all. Montgomery and crochet might work out but overall the strategy of drafting high performance college bats with limited tools has not gone well. 

 

Hahn seems to have learned from that though, the last two years he drafted high upside HS guys and even crochet wasn't the typical "floor" signing even though he was a college player but more an upside play. 

3) international non cuba signings: this one is really bad, sox haven't developed a high profile Domenican guy they signed in like a decade. Sure they signed tatis jr but that seems almost an isolated incident. I'm not confident on the sox developing that but maybe the international draft will level the playing field and reduce the edge of teams like TB who have developed a great international scouting department

4) development of non high profile guys. The last time the sox developed a non top10 overall pick into an above average player was tim Anderson. 

Overall the record with raw guys is very bad but they didn't really get that "bit extra" out of those supposedly save college guys either. Sox did well not messing up the blue chip guys (probably by leaving them alone) but they haven't really had much success really improving flawed guys with the exception of giolito who got a private coach (who now works for the sox). 

 

So overall I would say hahn already did learn a lesson in the draft so that could be fixed already. 

Sox still need to get better in development of players and in signing non cuba international guys, also in free agent signings. 

 

Those 3 things really cut into the sox depth and caused them to be a top heavy org which lacks depth, especially SP and up the middle prospects. 

That is actually similar to the stars and scrubs sox team of the mid 2010s but instead of having 3-4 good guys they now have 9 or 10 (pitchers plus hitters) so the situation is much better. 

Still roster spots 18-25 are probably sub standard compared to other contenders and also the depth of the next 10 guys coming out of the minors. 

Aside from the draft, player development, free agency, and the international draft, Hahn has been awesome!

[oldsox]

32 minutes ago, soxfan49 said:

Aside from the draft, player development, free agency, and the international draft, Hahn has been awesome!

He interviews well.

[Chicago White Sox]

27 minutes ago, soxfan49 said:

Aside from the draft, player development, free agency, and the international draft, Hahn has been awesome!

What I find funny is even his bread & butter, which was extending young talent, has dried up in recent years.  Not a single home grown starter has been signed long-term, which means we’ve got three years of control left for Cease & Kopech and one year for Giolito.  And because of the awesome decision to burn a year of service time in exchange for four April games, Vaughn is only controllable for four years after this one.  I get it takes two to tango, but just shocking not one of these guys was interested in locking up money after so many guys before them did.

[Chicago White Sox]

Just now, oldsox said:

He lawyer speaks well.

FIFY

[caulfield12]

38 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

What I find funny is even his bread & butter, which was extending young talent, has dried up in recent years.  Not a single home grown starter has been signed long-term, which means we’ve got three years of control left for Cease & Kopech and one year for Giolito.  And because of the awesome decision to burn a year of service time in exchange for four April games, Vaughn is only controllable for four years after this one.  I get it takes two to tango, but just shocking not one of these guys was interested in locking up money after so many guys before them did.

That was his supposed niche advantage, which really isn't as the Twins and especially Guardians are much better at it.  The only call they blew was Straw, but he can at least defend CF and play everyday.  They have a tricky decision now with Rosario a FA after next year.

At any rate, Moncada Jimenez and Robert have major questions hanging over each of them and the clock is now ticking on Anderson, Giolito, Cease, Kopech and Vaughn.

And way too many longer term deals for older veteran players now as well...yet yhey will undoubtedly give Abreu a two year extension.

Jerry's gonna Jerry.

Edited August 1, 2022 by caulfield12

[asindc]

On 7/23/2022 at 4:39 PM, CentralChamps21 said:

Firing Hahn won't help until after JR is gone.

This in a nutshell.

[The Kids Can Play]

On 7/23/2022 at 3:39 PM, CentralChamps21 said:

Firing Hahn won't help until after JR is gone.

At the end of the season Hahn needs to be fired. However so does Kenny Williams. Jerry then needs to get some consultation from some retired, knowledgeable and successful baseball executive, or maybe his son Michael, who can assist him to find the next President of baseball operations. 

Jerry needs to learn from an organization like the Dodgers. The Dodgers fired their Pres of Baseball ops and decided to go after one of the best GM's in baseball at the time in Andrew Freidman from Tampa back in 2015. He won an Executive of the year award while there and had one of the winningest teams in baseball during his 10 years with TB. The Dodgers took Friedman and gave him a huge promotion and massive salary raise to move him from TB GM to Pres of the Dodgers. This was brilliant thinking, because they took a GM who was in a small market and didn't have the money to spend on free agents or even keeping their top players when they hit free agency. The Sox need to go get that type of successful and hungry GM like the Dodgers did. Ideally we need someone from a smaller market team, who has been successful because he didn't rely on spending money, as opposed to relying on having an excellent scouting system, great managers and coaches, solid medical and training staffs and most importantly, is a smart and excellent judge of player talent, that can make sound trades through savvy negotiations. Then this new Pres can then go hire his own GM and manager/coaches. 

I know Jerry is too clueless and stubborn to make this happen, but this is what is needed ideally for this team to be successful on consistent basis!

[shago]

4 hours ago, oldsox said:

He interviews well.

Meh, not even giving him a pass on that -- Harvard mouth, full of shit

[NCsoxfan]

Every other organization in MLB hopes Hahn continues as GM. 

[South Side Hit Men]

4 hours ago, The Kids Can Play said:

At the end of the season Hahn needs to be fired. However so does Kenny Williams. Jerry then needs to get some consultation from some retired, knowledgeable and successful baseball executive, or maybe his son Michael, who can assist him to find the next President of baseball operations. 

Jerry needs to learn from an organization like the Dodgers. 

I know Jerry is too clueless and stubborn to make this happen, but this is what is needed ideally for this team to be successful on consistent basis!

Who did the Bears turn to for help? The Arizona Cardinals

Who would Jerry turn to for help? Tony La Russa.

Who would be the first President, GM and Manager/Head Coach in any sport since George Halas? Arizona Diamondbacks' Tony La Russa

 

[The Kids Can Play]

16 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

Who did the Bears turn to for help? The Arizona Cardinals

Who would Jerry turn to for help? Tony La Russa.

Who would be the first President, GM and Manager/Head Coach in any sport since George Halas? Arizona Diamondbacks' Tony La Russa

 

Actually this last time the Bears actually turned to Bill Polian, the Ex GM of Buffalo that went to four straight super bowls in the 80's and the Colts, where he won a super bowl and is in the hall of fame. The verdict is still out on Ryan Poles, but at least the loser George McCaskey admitted he needed help again and didn't rely on his own stupidity or that of the even dumber Ted Phillips.

I know you and many others feel Jerry will stay loyal to TLR, but if this second half implodes even worse and we miss the playoffs badly, I think as stubborn and clueless as Jerry is, he will have to make a change. Hopefully maybe his son Michael will give him a hint! Btw, there is no way in hell Tony will ever be a GM of this team. He failed miserably at Arizona. He is too old and senile to manage now and that is a much easier job than being a GM and/or president. As dumb as Jerry is, he must already know how the fans and media disrespect his buddy, so why in the world would Jerry be ridiculed even more and add the GM title to Tony. 

As I said, maybe this never happens, but until Jerry dies, or gets a stud GM from another club to be the pres, this team will never be a super consistent winner like the Dodgers Astros and Yankees.

 

 

[Big Hurtin]

1 hour ago, South Side Hit Men said:

Who did the Bears turn to for help? The Arizona Cardinals

Who would Jerry turn to for help? Tony La Russa.

Who would be the first President, GM and Manager/Head Coach in any sport since George Halas? Arizona Diamondbacks' Tony La Russa

 

Too bad it doesn't Feel Good.