WELCOME BACK, JIM THOME!

[BigEdWalsh]

I think SoxTalk has reached a new low with this post. Hahn has been our GM for a total of 8 months. That's 1 offseason and 1/2 of a real season. The lack of patience on this board is beyond incredible. Can we at least wait until after the trade deadline before we start with these empty threats?

Nonsense. We've had much lower moments than this.

Seriously though, I agree with you that the dude needs more time before we can crucify him.

[TaylorStSox]

Today the board celebrates the return of Thome.

 

Tomorrow the board cries about the Sox hiring another former player.

[Harry Chappas]

Always good to bring in good former players to be around the organization. Just do not make them the manager.

[kitekrazy]

Working with a great manager proves nothing. There have been plenty of assistants to geniuses who coach somewhere else and fail.

 

That seems to be the case with ex Patriot coaches.

 

[Harry Chappas]

That seems to be the case with ex Patriot coaches.

Geniuses control everything.

[kitekrazy]

If all you told me last offseason was that Konerko was going to implode and finally show his age, I'd have admitted the Sox wouldn't be competing for the Central this year. Hahn wasn't going to be able to replace him or trade him and no one was benching a 15 year veteran for a free agent signing.

 

If Hahn had some idea that this level of sloppy, ridiculous, unfocused play was going to happen and did nothing about it then I'd endorse his immediate resignation, but I'm hanging that on the managerial staff.

 

Didn't they send a message this off season they weren't out to win this division? Most fans feel that way. The players probably feel that way as well and it shows on the field. We know guys like Tyler Flowers suck, so I wouldn't be surprised if players fell the same way. It's not any different at our jobs when we know coworkers are incompetent.

 

[Balta1701]

Didn't they send a message this off season they weren't out to win this division? Most fans feel that way. The players probably feel that way as well and it shows on the field. We know guys like Tyler Flowers suck, so I wouldn't be surprised if players fell the same way. It's not any different at our jobs when we know coworkers are incompetent.

They upped the payroll by more than $20 million over last season.

[caulfield12]

They upped the payroll by more than $20 million over last season.

 

 

Semantics, Balta.

 

A lot of automatic salary increases kicked in, like John Danks or Alexei Ramirez, for example.

 

If you walked around the stadium and asked 1000 fans randomly did the White Sox improve themselves, what would they have said?

 

Well, we added that Jeff Keppinger fellow (he's not even really a starter, is he?) and we re-upped Jake Peavy to a fair salary (lower than before) and finally, we didn't want to pay AJ at his age and coming for the anomalous 2012 season so we finally decided it was right and fair to give Tyler Flowers a shot....

 

Well, we can go player by player and look at WHY the payroll increased, but nobody believed the talent or the ability to compete vis a vis the Tigers had increased, and that's the only thing that really matters, perception.

Edited July 3, 2013 by caulfield12

[Balta1701]

Semantics, Balta.

 

A lot of automatic salary increases kicked in, like John Danks, for example.

 

If you walked around the stadium and asked 1000 fans randomly did the White Sox improve themselves, what would they have said?

 

Well, we added that Jeff Keppinger fellow (he's not even really a starter, is he?) and we re-upped Jake Peavy to a fair salary (lower than before) and finally, we didn't want to pay AJ at his age and coming for the anomalous 2012 season so we finally decided it was right and fair to give Tyler Flowers a shot....

 

Well, we can go player by player and look at WHY the payroll increased, but nobody believed the talent or the ability to compete vis a vis the Tigers had increased, and that's the only thing that really matters, perception.

I tell you what, you give me 20% of your yearly earnings and I'll agree that $20 million+ payroll is just a semantic difference.

[caulfield12]

I tell you what, you give me 20% of your yearly earnings and I'll agree that $20 million+ payroll is just a semantic difference.

 

 

But your argument sounds like a Chris Rongey "spin" argument, not one that most Sox fans would bite on.

[witesoxfan]

He already has had one winter to piece together a winning team. Lets not forget this team was close to winning the AL Central last year. His job was to maintain talent and to give the team enough to get over that Detroit hump. All he did was sign Keppinger and let Pierzynski walk. Not a very productive winter to say the least. Especially coming off of a relatively successful 2012 campaign. Should we give Mr. Hahn some extra time before we give him a full blown evaluation? YES. However, he has been wayyy too conservative thusfar. Hopefully he can make some moves near the deadline that can help us in the future. So far, Hahn has yet to make his big statement for the team. Yes, he re-signed Peavy but that was a KW inherited player. Its time to be BOLD! Lets move on from the past and set the team up nicely for the future, while at the same time setting themselves up for more financial flexibility to perhaps make a free agent splash or two next winter.

 

He had one winter with a mediocre free agent market with two pretty important pending free agents. Not resigning either was the right move because Youkilis was overpaid, mediocre, and now hurt, and Pierzynski is older, not nearly as productive, and at some point Flowers needed a shot.

 

Beyond Keppinger and Lindstrom, there wasn't a lot Hahn could do. He was always going to go into the year with Flowers behind the plate, you aren't going to replace Konerko, Beckham, Ramirez, Viciedo, De Aza, Rios, or Dunn...soo what more did you want him to do?

 

He has not been "waaaaay too conservative" considering some of the moves people wanted him to make (BJ Upton, Josh Hamilton, whoever else) and how badly they've blown up. He's played it close to the vest because he knew this team was close to being either a division winner or completely terrible, and they've been the latter. Had he gone out and signed a ton more and tied up money through 2017, he'd have egg on his face right now.

 

The fact that anybody typed this is absurd. This is an incredibly short-sighted and narrow mindset by which to evaluate a GM. Using this mindset, Hahn was either going to

 

1) Trade a bunch of players, see the team suck, be lambasted while losing prospects in the process.

2) Sign a bunch of players, see the team suck, be lambasted while being financially f***ed till 2017.

3) Sell a bunch of pieces off, get skewered in the media for selling, see the team suck, have media say it's his fault.

4) Play it close to the vest, see team suck, be in a position that gave team to compete and now can sell off, still his fault...?

 

Honestly, tell me which of these 4 options would have been the best route for Mr. Hahn to take, and then get back to me.

 

 

I agree that most of the blame goes to the manager and staff. However, you have to admit Hahn has been a little too conservative thusfar. I will give Hahn one more full year before I truly evaluate his moves. This trade deadline will be pivotal for the organization moving forward.

 

Hahn has not been too conservative and anybody who wants to admit that is either wants to make moves just to make moves (not ever really a good idea) or doesn't understand the nuances of being a GM.

 

Oh, and BTW, the draft picks and Micker Zapata have told me enough about what Hahn wants to do that I'd say the Sox are going to be just fine. If you want to give up on a GM after a year and a half or whatever, then that's your perogative, but I'm willing to give multiple years to a guy who seemingly has an understanding of what he wants to do with this organization and where he wants to take it. Thankfully, Reinsdorf and the board feel the same as me.

[witesoxfan]

Semantics, Balta.

 

A lot of automatic salary increases kicked in, like John Danks or Alexei Ramirez, for example.

 

If you walked around the stadium and asked 1000 fans randomly did the White Sox improve themselves, what would they have said?

 

Well, we added that Jeff Keppinger fellow (he's not even really a starter, is he?) and we re-upped Jake Peavy to a fair salary (lower than before) and finally, we didn't want to pay AJ at his age and coming for the anomalous 2012 season so we finally decided it was right and fair to give Tyler Flowers a shot....

 

Well, we can go player by player and look at WHY the payroll increased, but nobody believed the talent or the ability to compete vis a vis the Tigers had increased, and that's the only thing that really matters, perception.

 

I thought the Sox were perfectly capable of competing, but they've been so damn sloppy in the field and disappointing years offensively from Flowers, Viciedo, and Konerko in particular have really put a damper on what this team has been able to do. It's just that on top of all of that, they've found ways to lose games this year as opposed to finding ways to win games.

[Balta1701]

But your argument sounds like a Chris Rongey "spin" argument, not one that most Sox fans would bite on.

Like I said, this white sox team could very readily have been competitive this year even with Flowers not putting up AJ's numbers last year.

 

They were a disaster at 3b last year. Keppinger was supposed to improve on that. Their pitching has been better than last year (same ERA with a much worse defense).

 

A lot of things have gone bad, injuries and guys not developing, but the combination of the defense/pathetically embarrasing sloppy play and Konerko finally getting old are the 2 that I point to as really killing this team. If you put those 2 things back where they were last year, IMO this team has a winning record right now and is hoping Peavy comes back to make a solid run to push them into contention.

[caulfield12]

Like I said, this white sox team could very readily have been competitive this year even with Flowers not putting up AJ's numbers last year.

 

They were a disaster at 3b last year. Keppinger was supposed to improve on that. Their pitching has been better than last year (same ERA with a much worse defense).

 

A lot of things have gone bad, injuries and guys not developing, but the combination of the defense/pathetically embarrasing sloppy play and Konerko finally getting old are the 2 that I point to as really killing this team. If you put those 2 things back where they were last year, IMO this team has a winning record right now and is hoping Peavy comes back to make a solid run to push them into contention.

 

 

And the way Conor Gillaspie has recovered and started showing some more punch, there might be a 75-100 point shift in favor of the 3B production this year overall compared to last year.

 

You have to add the fact that despite missing 2-3 weeks, Viciedo's going to come nowhere close to 25 homers. He might end up with 15-18.

 

A ton of it's not easily measured in stats or box scores but just that general category of mental/physical mistakes and extra outs given up that other teams are taking advantage of.

 

 

 

[Balta1701]

A ton of it's not easily measured in stats or box scores but just that general category of mental/physical mistakes and extra outs given up that other teams are taking advantage of.

And outside of Konerko hitting the wall, this is what has killed us this year. It's game after game after game. The pitching staff would look a ton better in the stats if the mental mistakes were happening at the same rate they happened last year, and this was something that I don't know how any GM could have predicted in the offseason. This team plays with the level of focus and discipline they had last year, this team is looking to add players in the next month and not subtract, so no, don't tell me "This team in the offseason wasn't set up to compete".

[balfanman]

"If you can give a kid a piece of advice or be around here and somebody asks you a question about hitting or about the game in general and you see them have success, ultimately, that's the biggest accomplishment of all, is giving back to the game and giving back to young players that want that input and want that advice," Thome said.[/b]

http://www.mlb.com

 

I know this is kind of a longshot, but if I had to pick one player that J. T. could help the most with hitting I would pick.........drum roll please..... Jordan Danks.

 

Again, nothing factual, just a guess.

[caulfield12]

And outside of Konerko hitting the wall, this is what has killed us this year. It's game after game after game. The pitching staff would look a ton better in the stats if the mental mistakes were happening at the same rate they happened last year, and this was something that I don't know how any GM could have predicted in the offseason. This team plays with the level of focus and discipline they had last year, this team is looking to add players in the next month and not subtract, so no, don't tell me "This team in the offseason wasn't set up to compete".

 

 

I'll concede they might be around .500, +/- 1 or 2 games, but with the caveat being that version of "within striking distance" would feel more like 1997 than 2003.

 

And you didn't take into account Ventura "regressing" as a manager instead of taking a step forward...and how much the positives were more attributable to Ozzie's absence and the end of the KW/Guillen feud than anything that Ventura was specifically doing well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[caulfield12]

I know this is kind of a longshot, but if I had to pick one player that J. T. could help the most with hitting I would pick.........drum roll please..... Jordan Danks.

 

Again, nothing factual, just a guess.

 

 

Would prefer it be Dayan...unfortunately, they have something in common, taking massive, 110% power cuts at pitches.

 

And being a lefty, perhaps he can help Conor with his power stroke, although I don't think you should mess too much with how he's approaching at-bats right now, as he has perhaps the best, most compact swing on the major league team right now.

Edited July 3, 2013 by caulfield12

[Chisoxfn]

I tell you what, you give me 20% of your yearly earnings and I'll agree that $20 million+ payroll is just a semantic difference.

The 20% didn't make the team better.

[caulfield12]

The 20% didn't make the team better.

 

 

There's a reason the offseason slogan wasn't "we're giving the injured John Danks a $13.75 million raise, keeping underachieving Gavin Floyd and giving him an extra $2.5 million, and boosting the salaries of Adam by $1 million, an aging Paulie by $1.5 million and an aging Alexei by $2 million."

 

Along with that, we're going to hand out a generous 3 year contract to the relatively unknown Jeff Keppinger and let one of the final fan favorites from 2005 in AJ Pierzynski leave for someone who's likely to hit .220 and strike out 35-40% of the time...

 

About the ONLY thing they did right was saving money on Peavy and bringing in Gillaspie.

In retrospect, the tiny $500K gamble on Lindstrom might pay off, too.

Edited July 3, 2013 by caulfield12

[witesoxfan]

There's a reason the offseason slogan wasn't "we're giving the injured John Danks a $13.75 million raise, keeping underachieving Gavin Floyd and giving him an extra $2.5 million, and boosting the salaries of Adam by $1 million, an aging Paulie by $1.5 million and an aging Alexei by $2 million."

 

Yes, because it's long and not very catchy

 

If they would go with something like "GIVING MONEY TO s***TY PLAYERS," you would have seen far better results.

[balfanman]

Would prefer it be Dayan...unfortunately, they have something in common, taking massive, 110% power cuts at pitches.

 

And being a lefty, perhaps he can help Conor with his power stroke, although I don't think you should mess too much with how he's approaching at-bats right now, as he has perhaps the best, most compact swing on the major league team right now.

 

I would prefer it be Dayan too probably, but I am thinking of Danks because he is a bigger lefthanded hitter, and if he could turn into an average, or slightly above average hitter he would be a very legit Major League centerfielder.

 

[Eminor3rd]

RICK I REALLY THINK YOU SHOULD TRADE FOR CARL

 

We really, seriously are going to need a Jim Thome talking emoticon so we can type things in all caps and have people read it in Jim Thome's voice. Can someone do this?

[GreatScott82]

He had one winter with a mediocre free agent market with two pretty important pending free agents. Not resigning either was the right move because Youkilis was overpaid, mediocre, and now hurt, and Pierzynski is older, not nearly as productive, and at some point Flowers needed a shot.

 

Beyond Keppinger and Lindstrom, there wasn't a lot Hahn could do. He was always going to go into the year with Flowers behind the plate, you aren't going to replace Konerko, Beckham, Ramirez, Viciedo, De Aza, Rios, or Dunn...soo what more did you want him to do?

 

He has not been "waaaaay too conservative" considering some of the moves people wanted him to make (BJ Upton, Josh Hamilton, whoever else) and how badly they've blown up. He's played it close to the vest because he knew this team was close to being either a division winner or completely terrible, and they've been the latter. Had he gone out and signed a ton more and tied up money through 2017, he'd have egg on his face right now.

 

The fact that anybody typed this is absurd. This is an incredibly short-sighted and narrow mindset by which to evaluate a GM. Using this mindset, Hahn was either going to

 

1) Trade a bunch of players, see the team suck, be lambasted while losing prospects in the process.

2) Sign a bunch of players, see the team suck, be lambasted while being financially f***ed till 2017.

3) Sell a bunch of pieces off, get skewered in the media for selling, see the team suck, have media say it's his fault.

4) Play it close to the vest, see team suck, be in a position that gave team to compete and now can sell off, still his fault...?

 

Honestly, tell me which of these 4 options would have been the best route for Mr. Hahn to take, and then get back to me.

 

 

 

 

Hahn has not been too conservative and anybody who wants to admit that is either wants to make moves just to make moves (not ever really a good idea) or doesn't understand the nuances of being a GM.

 

Oh, and BTW, the draft picks and Micker Zapata have told me enough about what Hahn wants to do that I'd say the Sox are going to be just fine. If you want to give up on a GM after a year and a half or whatever, then that's your perogative, but I'm willing to give multiple years to a guy who seemingly has an understanding of what he wants to do with this organization and where he wants to take it. Thankfully, Reinsdorf and the board feel the same as me.

The fact that you say my opinion about Hahn is absurd is absurd. Am i being a little impatient, absolutely. However, for the organization to truly believe they would have a chance to compete with Detroit for the division is in fact absurd. They simply overachieved last season. With them overachieving I was simply hoping for Hahn to sell high on some of the veterans during the winter.

 

"Beyond Keppinger and Lindstrom, there wasn't a lot Hahn could do. He was always going to go into the year with Flowers behind the plate, you aren't going to replace Konerko, Beckham, Ramirez, Viciedo, De Aza, Rios, or Dunn...soo what more did you want him to do?"

 

I wasn't looking for him to spend a bunch of money on free agents or in fact blow up the team. Perhaps signing a couple of free agents here and there could not hurt. They had a legitimate opportunity for selling high on Dunn and Rios this winter and saving a bunch of cash in the process to use toward other positions. Now Dunn is untradeable once again. Are you telling me Hahn and the organization evaluated Flowers and Keppinger properly? Was signing Peavy at $14 million per year the best thing to do with his injury prone history? They could have easily signed another reliable starting pitcher with that money.

 

Listen, the team has a miserable 33-47 record. And many of the guys Hahn banked on this year have sucked or have been injured. (Keppinger, Flowers, Peavy etc..) Is it all his fault? NO. A bulk of the blame should go to Robin and his staff. However, I am waiting and hoping for Hahn to commit to some sort of direction/change in philosophy. Get younger, get money in return for some of the vets, and start over

[Eminor3rd]

Does anyone else sorta wish Jim Thome could just be the GM? No one could resist the charm -- I bet he could fleece people all over the world.

 

Contract negotiations, trade discussions, you name it. He could just show up to the meeting with a bucket of chicken wings and a jolly disposition and get his way every single time.