Grade Rick Hahn's Trade Deadline Performance

[caulfield12]

39 minutes ago, CentralChamps21 said:

I'm not going to downgrade him for not trading Cease because he can still be traded after the season and they could get a better return. For a guy with that much control you set a high bar and if nobody meets it, you keep him rather than letting him go to the highest bidder.

Much higher risk with a pitcher with a previous TJ and 1.2 mph velocity drop this year.

Obviously he has been the most durable Sox starter ... along with Giolito.

Until he isn't.

[GreatScott82]

If this was like the 2007 type bad season and the Sox still had pieces to compete the following year (like they did in 2008), I’d say, he would get an C+ for restocking a thin farm system a bit. 
But the reality is this main roster is beyond flawed. They have holes all over the place, the rotation is bare, the bullpen is now one big question mark and the highly touted pieces down in the farm likely won’t be ready until 2025 at the earliest. 
When Hahn said they have every intention of competing in 2024, I literally laughed out loud. Either Hahn and his front office are delusional or they are being dishonest with the fanbase (no shock there!). I’m not terribly upset that they didn’t deal TA when he’s having a horrible season overall and his value is down. However, I was hoping Hahn would finally be creative and swap a guy like Eloy for a unique return. I was also hoping he would be able to net 3 to 4 top prospects for Cease. 
I suppose he can still do as such this winter? Maybe it will take the Orioles getting bounced in the first round this year to finally be more willing to trade their awesome prospects? 
Hahn only seems to make the obvious deals. (Outside of the recent Burger trade or the deal for Kimbrel in ‘21)  He’s been burned multiple times, now is too cautious to take risks.
Trading expiring contracts on a bad team is GMing 101. By all means Hahn should not get a B or higher for doing this. My Grandma knows that this is the right thing to do and she’s been in Heaven since 2006. 
Honestly, I just hope that a miracle can occur and Hahn resigns this October. We need a new voice in the GM seat. I cringe anytime Hahn talks his lawyer jargon and smugly drinks his water bottle and gives this reporters snarky responses. 

[Highland]

I really can't grade this since I don't know anything about these first hand. I do know we are in the beginning of a new rebuild, and it will be a while before this team is winning again.

[The Kids Can Play]

17 hours ago, Dick Allen said:

Obviously it depends how these players turn out. A lot of people in the industry think they are future contributors, so that’s good for free agents to be on a non contending team. The Burger trade, for me was bad because I like watching him play. The guy they got for him could be good, and we all know they need pitching. One thing I find worrying is every pitcher they acquired seems to have issues with walks. 

That is a great point and guess what, the AAA Knights are 19th of 20 teams in most walks given up. There is a good reason the Sox have the worst AAA pitching staff ERA at 6.48. The coaches down there obviously are not very good at developing pitchers. The best of luck to these new pitching prospects who need some tweaking on their control problems. 

Edited August 2, 2023 by The Kids Can Play

[The Kids Can Play]

I gave it a C+ but really it's an incomplete. Time will tell and if these prospects all make I to the majors and are productive then Hahn will get an A, but if these prospects fail or only a few make it, then the grade will obviously be much worse. 

My only hope is when these prospects do make it, Rick Hahn is long gone! 

[bighurt4life]

I love the trades he made. We got some really interesting prospects for mostly guys who were not coming back next year. We have no shot of competing this year or next so let’s move on from those players. As far as the burger trade, he’s obviously the type of guy you root for and cost controlled for several years, but he is also a highly flawed player and we have a glut of 1b/DH types.  Eder has top line starter potential and I don’t think you can say the same about JB so im Pleased with that move. 
 

the trades we didn’t make, who knows what we were offered so I can’t comment on that. 
 

The overall direction of the team??? I don’t think anyone actually knows what that is. Hahn has shown that he’s not the guy to build a roster or an organization for that matter, but looked at in a vacuum, I really think he did well to restock the minors with some exciting prospects while only giving up guys who would have been gone next year anyways. I can’t fault the work he did moving players I consider to be spare parts at this point in a lost season. 

[CWSpalehoseCWS]

I’ll give him a B. I still think he should be fired, but the value brought back was very good IMO. Would have been nice if he could have taken advantage of BAL in a Cease deal but the important pieces that needed to go, went and got back good value. Selling high on Burger was a good move.

[Vote4Pedro]

Hahn did zero to break up the core of TA, Moncada, Grandal and Eloy. THESE PLAYERS are the ISSUE, sure he sold off the pitching and bullpen but did zero to shake things up on offense outside of getting rid of the one player who was producing offensively for you. So for that Hahn or whoever is in charge right now gets an F. 

[fathom]

Just now, Vote4Pedro said:

Hahn did zero to break up the core of TA, Moncada, Grandal and Eloy. THESE PLAYERS are the ISSUE, sure he sold off the pitching and bullpen but did zero to shake things up on offense outside of getting rid of the one player who was producing offensively for you. So for that Hahn or whoever is in charge right now gets an F. 

All but Eloy will be gone after ‘24

[Vote4Pedro]

1 minute ago, fathom said:

All but Eloy will be gone after ‘24

Oh for sure. Grandal should by DFAd yesterday. You should have gotten whatever you could have for TA and Eloy and well unfortunately you are stuck with Moncada. But these core players are your issue. You can blame the manager, blame the front office, blame ownership, yes every single one of those I just named is a problem but your main issue of the rotting apple core that is the Whitesox offense is still in tact as of now. I’d much rather see a second half of new faces than this same ol group who just do not care.

[Balta1701]

1 minute ago, Vote4Pedro said:

Oh for sure. Grandal should by DFAd yesterday. You should have gotten whatever you could have for TA and Eloy and well unfortunately you are stuck with Moncada. But these core players are your issue. You can blame the manager, blame the front office, blame ownership, yes every single one of those I just named is a problem but your main issue of the rotting apple core that is the Whitesox offense is still in tact as of now. I’d much rather see a second half of new faces than this same ol group who just do not care.

Anderson clearly wasn't bringing anything of value at all back. If you want out of his contract, you can do so at the end of the year with no costs. 

[fathom]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Anderson clearly wasn't bringing anything of value at all back. If you want out of his contract, you can do so at the end of the year with no costs. 

Yeah no reason to give him away.  At this point, hope he has a strong start to 2024 and trade him.  

[fathom]

The biggest concern with the trades I have, and someone else mentioned them, is almost everyone they acquired was having an average year, or worse, compared to their previous season. 

[The Kids Can Play]

2 minutes ago, fathom said:

The biggest concern with the trades I have, and someone else mentioned them, is almost everyone they acquired was having an average year, or worse, compared to their previous season. 

Which is a huge problem based on the Sox track record of developing players in the minors.

[Timmy U]

10 minutes ago, fathom said:

The biggest concern with the trades I have, and someone else mentioned them, is almost everyone they acquired was having an average year, or worse, compared to their previous season. 

I think this is par for the course. People don't trade their ascending players due to recency bias.  Paul Konerko was a mega-prospect with the Dodgers who had a down year, so they dumped him on the Reds, where he struggled, which is how the Sox got him... for a struggling Mike Cameron.  If Quero had a .950 OPS in AA, he would not have been available.  Sox betting that he splits the difference between struggling as a 20 year-old in AA who was facing the pre-tacked ball for most of the year and excelling in an offensive-inflated Cal League as a 19 year old.

[Y2Jimmy0]

I don’t think giving a letter grade makes sense and I’m not sure who actually is in charge. The organization is in a significantly better spot right now than they were a month ago though. Very solid trade deadline 

[Capn12]

For the moves that WERE made: Hahn nailed it. I hate to ever give him credit, but I love all of them. You can question the timing on the Burger move, but...otherwise, the returns were good. Look at some of the crap other teams got back in trades.

For the moves that WERE NOT made: I'm frustrated. This was the time to admit your (Hahn) build had failed, and you were willing to do what it took to get in position for another. Instead, the middle of the road organization decided to........go middle of the road, and sell of the pieces folks knew were being sold (sans Burger), but not be aggressive about moving other pieces that would have really set up the future.

[Y2Jimmy0]

1 minute ago, Capn12 said:

For the moves that WERE made: Hahn nailed it. I hate to ever give him credit, but I love all of them. You can question the timing on the Burger move, but...otherwise, the returns were good. Look at some of the crap other teams got back in trades.

For the moves that WERE NOT made: I'm frustrated. This was the time to admit your (Hahn) build had failed, and you were willing to do what it took to get in position for another. Instead, the middle of the road organization decided to........go middle of the road, and sell of the pieces folks knew were being sold (sans Burger), but not be aggressive about moving other pieces that would have really set up the future.

I don’t agree with this second part. They would’ve traded anyone but Robert. Asking prices weren’t met. It’s tough to take much issue with that. 

[RG23SoxFan]

Looking good today after Giolito got hammered lol

[The Grinder]

Can we re-visit this in a few years?

[Balta1701]

14 minutes ago, The Grinder said:

Can we re-visit this in a few years?

Of course. Whether they did a good job in the trades at the time and whether things turned out well in the long run are distinct questions but important to assess both.

[Dominikk85]

I think he did a good job. Ob course it was an ideal sellers market with so few teams selling but he still did a pretty good job, especially the Burger and the giolito trade.

I feel selling trades are a strong point of Hahn, he did pretty well in the first rebuild too (unfortunately player dev, free agent signings, some injury bad luck and a Lack of good buying trades hurt the outcome).

[Polar Bear]

Definitely a solid A for Hahn.  Got rid of trash and got some big time talent and upside back, while keeping the competitive window in striking distance. 

[pcq]

In November Rick will trade Eder for Palka while Merkin raves about a playoff roster.