The White Sox Looming Decision

[flavum]

Ventura was bold in a way, in that he was a part-time high school coach.

 

Ventura was also a safe choice for Reinsdorf, because he knew Ventura wouldn't embarrass the franchise with his words and actions.

 

In the end, they Sox will probably need to go in a different direction. If Gardenhire is a re-tread on an interim basis, give me Ron Gardenhire. It's not like he'd be demanding a 3-4 year deal...and if he was, then pass on Ron Gardenhire. Simple as that.

[GreenSox]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-white-s...oming-decision/

I basically agree with the article. It was way premature to trade for rents.

[LDF]

I basically agree with the article. It was way premature to trade for rents.

Ventura was a very good baby sitter until he learned on the fly or drastic measures need to be done.

[fathom]

I basically agree with the article. It was way premature to trade for rents.

 

Thankfully they only traded one player (Semien) that I think could be an average starting player in the majors. They also traded him from the only position of depth within in the system. Hahn did a very good job this past offseason of not trading away potential core players.

[fathom]

Ventura was the anti-Ozzie

[TaylorStSox]

i disagree, the sox needed another pitcher. many have said that, even with the wonder kid developing. they, the sox management and fans thought he would come in and take a spot. some disagree so what did they do, went out and got penny and drabek.

 

how much was that hahn and how much was that upper management.

A team that's rebuilding really shouldn't trade one of the better prospects for a rent a pitcher. This team wasn't going to compete this year. They could have pursued Shark as a free agent and hung onto Semien.

[LDF]

A team that's rebuilding really shouldn't trade one of the better prospects for a rent a pitcher. This team wasn't going to compete this year. They could have pursued Shark as a free agent and hung onto Semien.

 

all this is hindsight, and i meant no offense.

[chitownsportsfan]

This start just really magnifies how awful the ORG's talent base was when Hahn took over. Nobody ready in the upper minors, no young promising position players and for the most part not many "surplus value" contracts.

 

Now, the Sox have some great pieces but they still have huge holes obviously. Personally I'd put my faith in Hahn over anyone else in the ORG at this point. I don't think you can emphasize enough how awful the roster was he inherited from KW.

 

KW is a cancer IMO. The Micah over Sanchez decision has KW written all the f*** over it.

[TaylorStSox]

all this is hindsight, and i meant no offense.

Nobody picked us to win anything, including most fans. This team isn't good on paper or the field. I thought some of the movesHahn made this off-season were head scratchers and said as much. He hasn't committed one way or the other. We aren't winning or rebuilding. We're just treading water. It was a strange off-season IMO.

[caulfield12]

If you look at the Cardinals hiring Matheny or the Tigers hiring Ausmus, two guys without experience being expected to IMPROVE playoff-contending teams (or even expecting to make or win the World Series instantly), those are BOLD moves.

 

For the White Sox, Ventura was 90% not being Ozzie.

 

It might as well have been Jim Thome or Paul Konerko as player manager for all the difference it would have made. Someone who wouldn't bring undue attention to himself, fight for control with KW...basically create daily PR nightmares/drama for the organization on a weekly basis.

 

If they wanted to be REALLY bold, it would have been guys like Aaron Rowand or Carl Everett, who we STILL keep hearing over and over again were the critical leadership elements of that 2005 World Series team, and have been thrown out there as reasons why the post-2005 run teams underachieved their talent or skill level.

 

 

Or the Astros taking Larry Dierker out of the broadcasting booth, etc.

 

Don Cooper would be a bold choice, for example. Not sure it would be a good one because of his pricky/surly personality, but we'd definitely see a different product IMO. (Some would argue he's simply gotten too comfortable in his 27 years with one organization and the modern game has passed him by, but guys like Ned Yost and Clint Hurdle have adjusted, Showalter, etc.)

 

 

I'm surprised we haven't seen Bobby Valentine or Davey Johnson (is he still alive) mentioned, lol.

Whitey Herzog, haha.

 

 

Edited May 4, 2015 by caulfield12

[flavum]

You know who would be Reinsdorf-y and White Sox-y?

 

Joey Cora

[southsider2k5]

This start just really magnifies how awful the ORG's talent base was when Hahn took over. Nobody ready in the upper minors, no young promising position players and for the most part not many "surplus value" contracts.

 

Now, the Sox have some great pieces but they still have huge holes obviously. Personally I'd put my faith in Hahn over anyone else in the ORG at this point. I don't think you can emphasize enough how awful the roster was he inherited from KW.

 

KW is a cancer IMO. The Micah over Sanchez decision has KW written all the f*** over it.

 

Of all of the things to point a finger at in 2015, Johnson is so far down the list it isn't even funny. How about we start with the guys making actual money on this team? How about those two top three pitchers in the rotation? how about the fact that every single hitter in the line up has an OPS that is lower than last years, except for one (Avi).

 

Personally I think if anyone gets fired soon, it will be Todd Steverson, and not Ventura.

[fathom]

Please explain this. You have no reason to think this. You usually don't respond when someone calls you out, but if you do, please respond to the bolded with your reason to think that.

 

I just love this board's rationale. All winter I was saying KW is more involved than you guys are acknowledging. I was told this was Hahn's team and I was wrong. Now, with the players underperforming, KW made all of these moves. Everyone's making assumptions that decision X (at this point in time) was a bad one, and since it hasn't worked out in the twenty-whatever games, it has KW all over it.

 

We have no idea who suggested/executed the majority of the moves. Some moves, however, have leaked out to the public. For instance, KW spearheaded the Abreu signing and Hahn worked exclusively with David Forst to get Samardzija (a move attributed to KW by the fickle SoxTalk masses).

 

Most of you can save yourselves the time with long posts and just be succinct and say RV/KW suck and Hahn's still the GOAT so the rest of the rational posters who can handle the team's skid can skip right over it.

 

If this was KW's team, he would have brought in a veteran to start at 2nd base as opposed to handing it over to Johnson/Sanchez. Like you said, I don't get the KW bashing at all, as it seems like a coping mechanism for people to not lose faith in Hahn.

[caulfield12]

Nobody picked us to win anything, including most fans. This team isn't good on paper or the field. I thought some of the movesHahn made this off-season were head scratchers and said as much. He hasn't committed one way or the other. We aren't winning or rebuilding. We're just treading water. It was a strange off-season IMO.

 

 

Looking back, Melky Cabrera statistically LOOKED good (albeit erratic/inconsistent), but most of us had a number of concerns going forward.

 

It's not that he was blocking anyone in particular in the minors...and it's easy to say we should have pursued Nelson Cruz (another famous PED's case) if we were REALLY interested in putting together a "win now" type of team.

 

Colby Rasmus was another option. Aoki. Yasmani Tomas. Rios. Nick Markakis. Obviously we weren't going to spend on Hanley Ramirez for 3B/LF/DH, but that would have been a bolder move (adding just Ramirez/Samardzija and Robertson) than what they ended up doing, which was trying to stretch their budget over too many players without really getting a true impact guy (too expensive).

 

In hindsight, they also could have gone after someone like Jake Marisnick who would have brought them affordability, enthusiasm and premium defense to offset all the damage Avisail Garcia was going to do defensively to your outfield.

 

In the end, Viciedo/DeAza clearly wasn't working, but I'm sure two or three years now we'll probably all feel Cabrera was an over-reach and misallocation of resources unless he just puts on a shocking power display when the weather heats up again.

[GreenSox]

Thankfully they only traded one player (Semien) that I think could be an average starting player in the majors. They also traded him from the only position of depth within in the system. Hahn did a very good job this past offseason of not trading away potential core players.

Perhaps true, but the point is that forcing "going for it" in 2015 was silly coming off of a 73 win season. It also caused the Sox to do other things like putting together a poor bench...AGAIN so as not to risk young players, etc.

[caulfield12]

If this was KW's team, he would have brought in a veteran to start at 2nd base as opposed to handing it over to Johnson/Sanchez. Like you said, I don't get the KW bashing at all, as it seems like a coping mechanism for people to not lose faith in Hahn.

 

Or traded for over the hill versions of Utley and perhaps Cole Hamels to make a typical "bold" move with little long-term payoff (see Manny Ramirez addition).

 

Or, more likely, Utley for 2B and Ryan Howard for 1B/DH (subsidized heavily, like Thome)....or Josh Hamilton to make another big splash PR-wise.

Edited May 4, 2015 by caulfield12

[chitownsportsfan]

Please explain this. You have no reason to think this. You usually don't respond when someone calls you out, but if you do, please respond to the bolded with your reason to think that.

 

I just love this board's rationale. All winter I was saying KW is more involved than you guys are acknowledging. I was told this was Hahn's team and I was wrong. Now, with the players underperforming, KW made all of these moves. Everyone's making assumptions that decision X (at this point in time) was a bad one, and since it hasn't worked out in the twenty-whatever games, it has KW all over it.

 

We have no idea who suggested/executed the majority of the moves. Some moves, however, have leaked out to the public. For instance, KW spearheaded the Abreu signing and Hahn worked exclusively with David Forst to get Samardzija (a move attributed to KW by the fickle SoxTalk masses).

 

Most of you can save yourselves the time with long posts and just be succinct and say RV/KW suck and Hahn's still the GOAT so the rest of the rational posters who can handle the team's skid can skip right over it.

 

Micah or Sanchez is a symbol for everything that is wrong with how this org develops position players. They value athletes over ball players. They value some nebulous thing like "speed" over repeatable, real skills like above average defense up the middle, they rush guys before they've even proven they can tear it up in the upper minors.

 

They talk out of both sides of their mouth. According to Buddy Bell the gap between AAA and MLB has never been higher. So what do they do with Micah? We'll just skip a full season in AAA! We'll hire Vince Coleman and just skip the natural maturation process that happens and try and have him learn how to read pitchers at the MLB level!

 

Micah is currently below replacement in fWAR so yea, he's not part of the solution. I keep bringing him up because on a team that is awful defensively they decided to keep arguably their best defensive infielder on AAA.

 

Ramirez is looking pretty toasty as well. I guess their scouts just missed that or assumed he could play SS until he turns 40.

 

And what else, they sign La Roche and talk about letting him play 1st base 2-3 times a week? How often is he playing 1B? Once a week?

 

They talk about getting better defensively but then you look at their decisions and you realize it's all hot air. If you want to talk about "calling me out" go ahead but I have articulated my position on Sanchez and Micah over and over and over again on this forum. You're free to go through my post history. So far, pretty much every single thing I predicted has come to pass with the two. Micah is struggling, making little to no impact, and the defense has been bottom 5 in MLB. Meanwhile, Sanchez proved in the spring and so far in AAA that he's MLB ready.

Edited May 4, 2015 by chitownsportsfan

[southsider2k5]

That's a good way of putting it. A lot of guys on here are coming out of the woodwork, making assumptions and losing their cool just looking for scapegoats to protect their golden boy.

 

The blame should go where it belongs.

 

The top of our rotation has gotten off to an awful start. Quintana, Sale, and Samardjiza have a combined ERA of over 15.00. The entire starting line up except one guy is underperforming last year. The bullpen has been the one area of the team that hasn't be horrible, and that was where a lot of the biggest changes happened.

 

The players have been awful this year.

[caulfield12]

What's amazing to me is how much better Billy Beane has gotten at this rebuilding on the fly thing with his everyday line-up.

 

I still think trading Josh Donaldson was insane, and statistics would continue to back that up....but probably they just had a personality conflict and BB wasn't going to be the one leaving, hard to say what actually happened out there. If you look at how players like Vogt and Reddick have stepped up, it just seems like every year they have all these guys (Canha would be another) like Sam Fuld or CoCo Crisp that overachieve and outperform expectations when they put on that A's uniform.

 

AJ Preller deserves a lot of credit, too, in SD, for really going almost crazy with all the acquisitions...but they have worked out well because he has a good coaching staff IMO. We kept wondering how all those pieces would fit together, but they have....trading Maybin and Seth Smith, Quentin retiring, everything has seemingly fallen into place. And Shields was a bargain in the end as we all had a feeling in the NL West he was going to outpitch his 2014 peripherals and especially his woeful playoff performance.

[Balta1701]

The blame should go where it belongs.

 

The top of our rotation has gotten off to an awful start. Quintana, Sale, and Samardjiza have a combined ERA of over 15.00. The entire starting line up except one guy is underperforming last year. The bullpen has been the one area of the team that hasn't be horrible, and that was where a lot of the biggest changes happened.

 

The players have been awful this year.

Well we can be sure of one thing. There was nothing that could have been done differently to prepare for the start of the season.

[Eminor3rd]

I know I said this once before already (and ss2k5 is saying it, too), but I think it needs to be reiterated: This team's abject failure (so far) is NOT due to poor roster construction/spending on the bullpen/Melky Cabrera, it's due to ALL the players playing poorly. The issue isn't whether or not we could handle carrying Micah Johnson and Connor Gillaspie, it's that we could NOT handle disappointing/mediocre/bad versions of Abreu, Sale, Samardzija, Quintana, Eaton, etc. The whole thing was only ever going to work out if we assumed those guys' star performances were in the bank.

 

I don't blame Rick Hahn for those guys being bad. And since those guys HAVE been bad, I can't form an intelligent opinion on whether or not carrying Tyler Flowers was a significant transgression in the end.

[fathom]

Micah or Sanchez is a symbol for everything that is wrong with how this org develops position players. They value athletes over ball players. They value some nebulous thing like "speed" over repeatable, real skills like above average defense up the middle, they rush guys before they've even proven they can tear it up in the upper minors.

 

I have no idea why they were in such a rush to get Micah Johnson into the majors. Since last July or so, it was very apparent they thought he was going to be starting for the Sox this year. The problem was he was very ordinary in Charlotte last year, and definitely needed more seasoning in the minors this season. He had two good weeks in ST, and the rest is history despite him really struggling the last few weeks of ST. I know I say this too much in the game threads, but he seems overpowered by 91 mph fastballs at this level (a common theme from hitting prospects in the Sox system when they get called up).

[GreenSox]

That's a good way of putting it. A lot of guys on here are coming out of the woodwork, making assumptions and losing their cool just looking for scapegoats to protect their golden boy.

KW's fingerprints were all over the offseason moves. They look like Williams' philosophy, executed by Hahn, to me. ( how many times, how many times, has Williams loaded the Wagon for his "Ace" starter? ).

The only really productive trade Williams made as GM since 2008 was for Youkalis.

The only really top defensive team we've had was 2005; and then we gutted the defense.

I don't know what Hahn can or can't do because I don't think we've seen it, other than the execution of the trades, which has been fine.

[Soxfest]

The idea that the White Sox will hire outside of the organization is 100% laughable to me. Anyone who is counting on Ron Gardenhire to be brought in is fooling themselves. I'd say the odds that the replacement manager is already drawing a White Sox paycheck are somewhere around a 2nd standard deviation level of confidence for me.

That is also why the Sox are in shape they are in. JR is becoming a detriment to the team every year that goes by.

Edited May 4, 2015 by Soxfest

[fathom]

AJ Preller deserves a lot of credit, too, in SD, for really going almost crazy with all the acquisitions...but they have worked out well because he has a good coaching staff IMO. We kept wondering how all those pieces would fit together, but they have....trading Maybin and Seth Smith, Quentin retiring, everything has seemingly fallen into place. And Shields was a bargain in the end as we all had a feeling in the NL West he was going to outpitch his 2014 peripherals and especially his woeful playoff performance.

 

Justin Upton and Matt Kemp >>>>>>> anyone the Sox acquired