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I just don’t understand what the folks are watching that are already calling the guy a bust. I cannot pretend as though his stubborn approach at times doesn’t frustrate me. However, when he does square up a pitch he likes, do you not see how the ball comes off his bat? Do you not see how f’ing fast he is? Even when he is down 0-2, do you see how he pisses on pitches out of the zone? Did you see that in July, his RH PAs have taken a large step forward? I don’t know how else to say it, as so many other folks have said it, but Yoan already HAS the most difficult to acquire tools/skills he needs to be a superstar player. The ones he has to improve upon are those that come far more easy. He learn that he simply cannot be so selective. He will understand how much damage he can do on pitches in the zone, even if they are not precisely to his liking. This will come with more PAs, and with continued study. When it does...watch out

We have heard murmurs for almost a decade now about KW and Hahn allegedly telling Reinsdorf they thought the best course of action was to tear it down to some degree and instead having the owner encourage/demand they push for nearer-term victories. Who knows for sure about these things, it's impossible to verify. I do believe starting around 2012/2013, Hahn and/or KW did not want to push for a playoff run any longer because they thought it would be futile but Reinsdorf didn't have the appetite yet for anything that looked like intentional losing. 2012: The 2012 season really screwed things up. That team wasn't good, didn't deserve to make the playoffs, but came very close to making it. You could tell what they thought of the team's chances by the way they sought to improve it mid-season: acquiring Orlando Hudson, Kevin Youkilis, Brett Myers, and Francisco Liriano. Even those moves ended up costing us some talent, especially Eduardo Escobar (hindsight is 20/20 of course), but there was a deliberate effort to appear to be trying once that team started winning but also avoiding a real earnest push to improve them. In the end, the team missed the playoffs due mostly to the fact the team was very lucky for much of the season and ultimately the lack of talent caught up with them. 2013: But 2012 put the team in a position in which they could not tear down over that offseason. But they wisely invested nothing important in improving the team, either, ultimately doing nothing but making a half-assed effort at patching the gaping hole at 3B. We flushed $12M down the drain for him, but while I'm sure Reinsdorf still misses the money it had no real impact on the franchise because it wasn't as if Keppinger was supplanting some important young talent at 3B — we even decided to let Conor Gillaspie take a big portion of the reps there back when he looked like he might become a solid MLB regular. We see the writing on the wall and trade Peavy, Rios, and Thornton and in return get some familiar and less familiar faces. post-2013: In the offseason, we traded Hector Santiago and Brandon Jacobs (from the Thornton deal) for Adam Eaton. This is a fantastic trade, in my opinion. The Sox saw that fielding independent metrics for Santiago and sold high. Ultimately, I think Santiago showed that he was one of the rare birds who could consistently out-perform those metrics but he burned out relatively quickly anyway. Eaton made the team better both right away and in the future. We then traded Addison Reed for Matt Davidson. Reed ended up taking some lumps right away with the DBacks but recovered somewhat and then got very good again with the Mets. We lost this deal, but the limited value of a setup guy and the potential upside of Davidson makes me not upset about the deal — not every acquisition pans out. We also sign Jose Abreu, who was old for a prospect but just entering his prime and that deal showed us aggressively trying to infuse this team with young talent. That deal worked out very well too (even if you're disappointed that Abreu isn't "the best hitter on the planet" as some projected). I don't fault the Sox for signing a guy who was going to be good for at least 5 years and probably longer. 2014: I have no complaints up to this point, really. Then...the 2014 season happens and we just don't do anything. The team sucks, we don't really make any trades, it just isn't clear what direction the team is going. There weren't really valuable veterans to trade so it wasn't like the lack of big action was a definitive sign of what we were doing. We had Sale/Quintana in the rotation and were still wishing on Danks. We had Abreu, Eaton, Avi (who gets hurt), Semien, Sanchez, and the last dance of Dayan. We had drafted Rodon and knew he'd be up soon. So we're doing okay but there wasn't really enough talent yet in the system to get us through the rebuild without some other moves. Our best options were to make some bold trades to really tear it down, stand pat and play the waiver wire game while we figure out what we have, or start signing some veteran free agents to try to cobble together a team that could back into the playoffs. post-2014: We went mostly with the signing veterans route: We bring in David Robertson, Zach Duke, Adam LaRoche, Melky Cabrera, Emilio Bonifacio, Matt Albers, and Geo Soto via free agency. Dan Jennings comes in via a nice little trade for Andre Rienzo. I'm of the opinion that sinking your MLB product solely for draft position is a stupid path so I don't care that we spent money on free agents since it didn't cost us any talent (and none of these deals had the potential to really harm the franchise long term if better players were needed). We then made a very stupid trade that I hated the instant it happened: We get Jeff Samardzija in exchange for Marcus Semien, Chris Bassitt, and Josh Phegley. Samardzija had just one season before he would be a free agent while Semien and Bassitt were young players ready to start playing in MLB even if they were likely to need some time to develop (I never liked Phegley so I never cared that we dumped him). In Samardzija we got the league leader in hits, HR, and ER given up. Semien hasn't become a star but instantly became a 2-3 WAR player and someone who would have made that team better right away at any of 3 positions in the infield where we were abysmal all around. Hard to know what to think of losing Bassitt as he was good that year in MLB but also suffered a major arm injury that we may not have been able to prevent. 2015: Bonifacio instantly flopped and we did not have the young talent prepared to take the infield reps we thought we'd get from him (we traded the MLB-ready talent away). Melky was always overrated and was just okay. LaRoche was terrible, almost surely worse than Dunn would have been if we had asked him out of retirement. Relievers were all fine. Soto was fine, though we probably had a little higher hopes. We also learned once and for all that one-time cornerstones Alexei and Danks were no longer MLB players. This team was like the 2005 team except where instead of everything from the offseason going right, everything goes wrong. Our ability to compete was a mirage from the start as our good veteran acquisitions all had better reputations than their production warranted (Melky and Samardzija especially). But again, that I don't care about. The free agents were just money and I don't mind trying to win via some veteran free agent acquisitions; wasting money is a victimless crime. But the net loss associated with getting Samardzija pisses me off to this day. And while I don't mind getting the free agents, the total failures of Bonifacio and LaRoche are not positive signs. post-2015: What's a team to do at this point? We still didn't have much talent in the minors, especially as all of our young infielders (Sanchez, Micah Johnson, and Saladino) who played the previous year had done equally poorly. We had to let Samardzija walk because he played so badly and apparently clashed with our coaches/management. Our tradeable vets were few, but this was a time where you could have considered trading Abreu (but it would have been tough — this was following what we now know to be his worst season, but looked at the time could have been the start of a downward spiral) or Sale, who was a bona fide star. Quintana could have been traded but he was still so young and I think teams were still skeptical of his production. Nobody was going to trade talent for Melky or LaRoche. We just spin the wheels, mostly. We sign Avila and Navarro at catcher. Navarro will suck but it's not the end of the world. We get Brett Lawrie in what I think was actually a pretty good deal (sending Zack Erwin and JB Wendelken). He was under team control and pretty good. He then played adequately for us, especially considering the performances of the players he was replacing. I don't blame the Sox for the kid going nuts in the offseason. The Todd Frazier trade is emblematic of the approach I didn't like with Samardzija, though he wasn't a pending free agent and I wasn't a believer in either Trayce or Micah Johnson. Hindsight tells us we did sell high on those two (Trayce's value would peak about mid-season 2016 with the Dodgers). We knew then that the prize of that trade was Montas and we lucked out that he ended up getting hurt and not really producing up to this point. Perhaps we knew he would get hurt, but I don't know. Ultimately we didn't lose much here but it probably wasn't the right thing to do. In a move not many paid attention to at the time, we'd also get Tommy Kahnle for Yency Almonte in a prospect-for-prospect deal. 2016: I won't say much about this season other than our bargain-basement free agents didn't pan out and we had a major screw-up by trading Fernando Tatis, Jr. for James Shields. It irks me but I also know that most saw him as the second piece in that deal. Time will tell if Tatis Jr. becomes the star that many project, but we gained nothing by having Shields around so there's no way to say that this was smart or good even if it was reasonable to think at the time that Tatis wouldn't pan out like this. This, paired with losing Eduardo Escobar and Chris Devenski in the 2012 midseason deals, shows the perils of making "low risk" trades for veterans when you're trying to half-assedly build up the MLB club. post-2016: The fireworks begin. I don't have serious criticisms of these times. Taking a deeper dive into the previous years makes me feel pretty strongly that the key assets traded at this time were never worth as much in previous years and we basically never wasted an asset of similar value by letting him play out his deal/allowing him to decline and trading him later in those times. The front office had several failures in their attempt to do the impossible thing of brute-forcing those early 2013-2016 teams into contention, but the only important ones were losing Semien/Bassitt/Montas/Tatis in trades. The only one of those guys currently producing in MLB is Semien, so it could be worse. The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether we would have been much better off now had we gone full-bore into a rebuild in 2013. We probably would have traded Sale for less, probably wouldn't have tried to go for a player MLB-ready like Eaton, and traded Quintana for much less. In the span of time post-2013 or so, we also got a number of players/prospects in the draft and international FA and we generally did not trade them away, part of the reason for the depth we have in the system now.

I am in no way affiliated with southsidesox but they put out a story on Melendez today if anyone is interested. Also, I know it shouldn't matter but please get my votes off of 13, it creeps me out. Tristadecaphobia! https://www.southsidesox.com/2018/8/4/17649910/under-the-radar-cristofer-melendez-dsl-former-astros

Lol...Moncada, even when he was #1 on MilB prospect lists was a 65 FV...same as Giolito (who was ranked 3rd). It is unlikely either would still be rated as high based on their MLB performances. Your example of Urias for Moncada is not as obvious as you portray. Swap Tatis for Urias and SD would definitely decline, as would Toronto if you swapped Bichette for Vlad Jr. You, along with many others on this board have bought in on the hype which was largely based upon his tools as he progressed through the minor leagues. He has never been more than a tooled up prospect. If you want to see what its supposed to look like, check out Acuna, Soto and Torres to name a few 65-70 FV prospects whose performances befit their tools.

I'm absolutely incredulous that anyone could have the 4 year run Rick Hahn had as GM from 2013-2016 and still have a job and I will absolutely stand by the statement that those are the worst 4 years we will ever see from any GM ever, as you've seen above. What he has done since then has been impressive but it does not absolve him of the previous run until there is a complete and successful turnaround. When people ask how I rank his performance, which is what started this conversation, I'm going to reply that we will never see a GM have that bad of a 4 year run again because every other GM in the league would have been fired multiple times and burned in effigy by the end, and until proven otherwise that should color our opinion of his tenure. And that...is how we got here :).

The entire premise is simply ridiculous. First of all, it presumes all kinds of things in regards to what has happened over the last 6-7 years, which is speculative, in most cases likely flat-out wrong, ignores Hahn’s history with the organization, and because of that, is a very weak foundation upon which to base the entire argument. Secondly, how are we going to judge the guy in a role he didn’t have? Balta wants to suggest Hahn would have been fired by every other team for this performance, and yet, Hahn wasn’t working for the 29 other teams. He was working for the White Sox, whom he has worked for since November of 2000. Since then, he’s been entrusted with a number of high-profile negotiations, including Mark Buehrle and Paul Konerko several times each, Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Adam Eaton, Jose Abreu, etc. While it is true that Rick has been GM since November of 2012, and we can only speculate in regards to the decision making process our FO utilizes, I think it’s a fair guess to suggest JR, KW and RH collaborate with a lot of direction coming from JR. Given the relative strength of the Central division, the starting rotation the FO was able to assemble, the state of the Cubs at the time, and some of the transactions Hahn and Co were able to make, I think a fairly strong defense can be levied for continuing to make a run at being competitive between 2013-2016. It is very easy to criticize now in hindsight, particularly with the success of the Astros’ and Cubs’ rebuilds, but in those years it was still very unclear as to whether those tear downs were going to be successful. I remember quite a bit of mocking of the Cubs and Astros around these parts as we cheered on our own failed attempts to supplement our roster through trades and FA signings (remember the excitement around here as the White Sox were hailed as being FA “winners” in 2014?). Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Thirdly, Balta assumes that the fact that some GMs are fired because they didn’t win is a wise reason to fire them. Again, there are 29 other teams. Not every team can win. I understand the arguments about the playoff drought. I do. But in my view, neither KW, nor RH have ever made a move that one would call a “fireable offense.” While their moves have not always worked out well (Adam Dunn, trading for James Shields, etc), I challenge you to track the transactional history of whomever you believe to be the top 5-10 GMs in baseball, and I guarantee you they have moves on their resumes that look entirely foolish with the benefit of hindsight. Ultimately, KW and RH have provided a very good balance of aggressiveness and forward-thinking responsible behavior. The result of this blend of perspectives has been an opportunity to try to compete when competing made sense, with the ability to entirely pivot and reposition the organization towards a more modern, sustainable approach within a very short timeframe. If you are of the opinion that talented people with a good thought process should be fired simply because the results don’t always bear out those talents, then you are going to be firing a lot of good people. From my perspective, the FO should only be fired because their thought process was entirely wrong, or they lacked the ability to execute on that thought process. I feel that neither of these is the case with our FO. The team simply didn’t win. And that is indeed partially their fault. But the more important measure of their work during this time period, tbh, is that they did not make any moves to seriously handcuff the organization moving forward. Say what you will about the efficacy of some of their efforts, but a seldom mentioned one is their ability to retain future flexibility as a result of avoiding the really crippling moves. Fourthly, if you’ve witnessed the transactions which we’ve made since the decision was made to rebuild, and you think RH is the worst GM in the League...well, I simply cannot understand that logic. The trades of Sale, Eaton and Quintana, while perhaps not perfect in every respect, are fairly difficult to really criticize in my opinion. Those are all strong returns, particularly the first and the last. The Yankees move I was not enthralled with, but to be frank, that isn’t looking too bad the further we get away from it, and to be fair, in reading the reports of how that trade came to fruition, I suspect that may have been a transaction which was negotiated more so by KW than RH, due to KW and Cashman’s longstanding history. But this FO, whomever is doing the actual negotiations, took a handful of assets with surplus value (whom they acquired, signed, etc) and turned a bottom third farm system into a top 3 system in all of baseball, the headliners of which, should all be on the mlb team within 18 months or so. The execution of these latest transactions, including the Robert deal, are incredibly undersold around here. The ability to get the return for Sale they did (despite the fact that he is a HoF pitcher), is to be commended. In the 12 months leading up to that trade, the VAST majority of folks here thought Sale was untradable (Balta, yourself included) because no organization would pay the necessary return. WRONG. The Eaton deal was widely praised everywhere (with the exception of ss2k, who was furious we didn’t get a few bats...was he wrong, in retrospect?), and still is likely to end up a big winner for the organization. The Quintana deal needs no explanation. The discipline to wait and wait and wait, while Quintana made lukewarm start after lukewarm start, to finally POUNCE on an aggressive GM caught up in the moment was BRILLIANT, and will likely provide this Organization with two extremely critical pieces moving forward, each of which could very easily provide more value individually than the player which was traded. So in conclusion...is this FO the best FO in basebal? Is RH the sharpest mind in baseball? Likely not. There are some incredibly taklented folks in this business. However, is he the worst? Absolutely not. Not even close.

Sure — and Moncada would have been the #1 if he were in the draft at Madrigal's age. He then went on to hit minor league pitching than I expect Madrigal to ever do with a bunch more upside than Madrigal has. The idea that we should imminently start prepping Moncada so that he's ready to move to a new position to make way for Madrigal is crazy to me. The burden of proof is on Madrigal and it'll take him a while to satisfy that standard even if things go as well for him as they possibly could. I don't mean to say that a person shouldn't have optimism for Madrigal at all. But the same approach to young players that would make someone envision Madrigal on the 2019/early 2020 White Sox should also be able to envision an All-Star version of Moncada. It's like people can't bear to see a guy play just adequately with their own eyes, it ruins their ability to project anything better.

Based on the entirety of his tenure I would rank Rick Hahn's performance as GM as the worst in baseball and I don't think it's even close. We will never again see a GM do what he did - insist for 3 years that he has a competitive roster, spend lots of money, sacrifice future seasons, and fail so spectacularly again and again and again, because 28 or 29 other franchises would have fired him at least 3 times, and the majority would have fired him 4 or more. The only reason I'm not putting him below Hawk Harrelson as the worst in franchise history is getting those 3 extensions done. He has one last shot to turn around his reputation and that's for the talent he acquired using those players he extended to break out and carry this team to multiple pennant races and a trophy. If we're looking at a bunch of busts in 2020 and 2021 then I will call rick Hahn the worst GM baseball will ever see.

I am going to go out on a limb and give this as an answer to Moncada's trade value. In the next 5 years at least, Yoan will never have a smaller trade value than he has today. Once he clicks, and it will happen, Yoan will be a perpetual all star level player.

Right on cue, here's Tom to derail a civil, productive discussion, all the while being guilty of the very thing he's accusing me of doing. It's shameless trolling at this point, and it's quite unfortunate that one poster has singlehandedly lowered the bar for quality of discourse throughout the entire site.

Welcome to the golden age of analytics in baseball where you can pretty much just cherry pick stats to make your case. Moncada's wRC+ is currently below 100. Heavy hitters like Alen Hansen are outperforming him in that metric. His advanced fielding stats like DRS and UZR are also terrible. Pick and choose...

I attended the winston salem game tonight in Kinston, NC. Got to see Madrigal. Madrigal is small, but he is so quick with the bat. Nobody stuck out tonight, Gavin Sheets is a big boy and was fun to talk to. Had box seats right at the on deck circle. My buddy said Wake Forest sucks and Gavin turned around and said, "You couldnt get in there could you." He was a good sport. Didnt hit worth a darn. Has a slow swing in my opinion. Robert, Adolpho not playing. Rutherford looks like he is getting bigger compared to last year when I saw him. Has 6 HRs now and you could possibly see some power coming from him with his body type. Lincoln Henzman pitched well but must have been on a pitch count or something. Seems to throw 3 innings per game and Pulled in the 3rd despite only letting up 1 run.

You'd give them until 2022, a full 6 seasons of a rebuild, before you evaluate its quality? We ought to be seeing dramatic progress well before then. That's what thin ice and a ticking clock should mean. If we're talking about anything other than Rick Hahn's remarkable rebuilding success and the multiple years of pennant races by the time 2022 rolls around, then that means my fears were well founded.

I’m sorry, but making good trades “on paper” is the primary function of the FO. RH is not General Fortune Teller, or General Crystal Baller, or even Head of Player Development. He went out and got the players his scouts told him he should be getting, and now he has turned them over the the folks who are in charge of developing those players. I concede that ultimately, the responsibility is his to ensure all facets of the organization are working to create players that ultimately produce for the ml team, but you’re admitting his primary function was done well. As for these points about these guys not contributing yet...I fail to understand how you can hold it against th FO that these assets are still on their expected development track. The FO is being responsible in allowing them to get the repetitions necessary to succeed in the major leagues. This is precisely what they should be doing. Your conclusion of being on thin ice is your own, and one I don’t come anywhere close to agreeing with. Whether you think they should have been fired after 2016 or not, that does not somehow place them under some other framework from which to be evaluated once they were not fired. This organization went down a certain path when Chris Sale was traded, and it remains on a trajectory which is perfectly acceptable for that path. How that should result in thin ice or a sinister ticking clock is beyond my understanding. If this was not 2018, but instead, 2022, I could fully understand, but it simply isn’t.

So @flippedoutpunk and @Goober this thread seems pretty confusing to you guys?

The trades are good on paper, I believe that is obvious. December 2016 was only the 2nd time I thought Rick Hahn handled his franchise correctly, the other being before 2014 where they acquired some assets intelligently in what should have been the start of a 3-ish year rebuilding program. As I said above, the Quintana deal really is impressive because Rick played poker, held his cards, and waited for another team to blink. However, as of right now we have 0 solid big league players from them (ok fine maybe 1 Moncada as a 3 WAR player). Until they actually have a record of these guys becoming strong big leaguers, we have no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt and many reasons to be skeptical. Those players are being fed into the same development system that has failed us so far, with many of the same actors there. The GM who extended Robin Ventura after the worst coached season I've ever seen now has a head coach who won't sit Anderson even though his knee hurts enough that he's getting thrown out at the plate because he can't run fast enough. The same GM who pulled the trigger on Fulmer and then called him up from AA to save his failing bullpen in 2016 when he had an ERA of 5+ is still making draft picks. In a development I didn't expect, we have a huge rash of minor league injuries this year - is that a one season thing, or is there another systematic problem we haven't addressed yet? Are we systematically acquiring players who have injury risks that we're not evaluating properly? Are we making sure these guys are conditioned appropriately in the minors prior to the start of the season? If we see guys with incorrect techniques, are we actually correcting them or are we treating them like Marcus Semien and telling them they're on their own, possibly contributing to the rash of injuries in the process? If the same people who established a 4 year record of awful decision making are still making decisions, there could be other awful moves that they've made that would not show up as failures yet. I don't know how many metaphors I can give on this. They should be on the thinnest ice in history. The clock should be ticking. The ice hasn't cracked yet and the alarm hasn't gone off yet, but no, until I see the big league roster actually break out as is happening right now with the Phillies and Braves, they have earned no trust from me. They should have been fired, tarred, and feathered after 2016, but nothing I can do to make that happen. If I am going to turn around from that point of view and trust them, they have to prove it. I will grant them time based on the quality of those trades...but that time has limits, and I'm going to sit around being nervous and imagining all the other things that they could have screwed up, as you see above.

And I'm gonna hit back on the bolded and say that in my eyes, this group has absolutely earned no trust with their decision making. Hence why I'm still so frustrated over the last 5 years, I believe that the people who made decisions that I find to be terrible are still there. They absolutely nailed a tear down, but they are still the same people who put together 4th place rosters and convinced themselves they would be right there at the end. So, at the very least, I'm nervous, and as this season goes on I'm seeing more ways that this could flop, with the free agent signings as part of that.

Here we are, back at point number 1. You have absolutely no idea what the owner of the team wanted. Have you ever read actual accounts from GMs about how operating an MLB team actually works, in real life? Most GMs are simply doing their best to carry out the orders of their Owner. Sometimes, their owner is not being entirely reasonable. You should read Ned Coletti’s book to get an idea about that. Not everyone gets to come in and make the decision whether to compete or not simply because they are the GM. See Jake’s post below. And before someone says it, NO, IF YOU WERE RICK HAHN AND JR INSISTED YOU TO TRY AND COMPETE IN 2014, YOU WOULD NOT QUIT YOUR JOB. That is a downright ridiculous, disingenuous notion that couldn’t be further from actual truth. I suspect there is some truth to what Jake is saying, and it very well may have taken the futility of 2013-16 to convince JR to allow them to rebuild. The Cubs winning in 2016 also has a huge influence on JR, and this is fairly well-documented. You admit that it was basically impossible for the White Sox to win between 2013-2016. While I have been watching baseball long enough to disagree with that, you are correct in stating it was an incredibly difficult task. In the end, I don’t lay much fault at their feet for not succeeding in a such a task, particularly since it was very likely not a choice they had in the first place.

Then take a look at what actually happened. You say that there was a strong defense to trying to continue remaining competitive in 2013-2016. First and foremost, by 2015 I strongly disagreed with that at the time, and by 2016 I took a break from this site after I got tired of people being angry at me for saying that it wasn't going to work. So if you're talking hindsight, you're talking to the wrong person. Here's a key line you say above: This is the absolute summation of 2015 and 2016. Their thought process was entirely wrong and they lacked the ability to execute on it. They believed they could vault a 72 win team in 2014 into a competitive roster through trades from a weak system and free agent signings. This model will not work for the White Sox. It only works for a team that weak if you can hit on every free agent acquisition and have them actually overperform - if they paid fair market value, the $60 million they spent in the 2015 offseason would still have left them a below .500 team. The idea that they could take a low 70s win team and turn it around overnight was fundamentally flawed and frankly impossible. And you want evidence of that? Take a look at the end results, 4th place, 4th place, 4th place. They tried the absolute best they could, they made moves that you folks thought were good, and that was the end result...BECAUSE THEIR THOUGHT PROCESS WAS ENTIRELY WRONG. A team built on a foundation of low level free agent signings is going to be a 4th place team, that's where they belonged. You say that they should have continued with their strong rotation - by 2016 that strong rotation involved Mat Latos, signed for $3 million, as one of their 5 starters. That rotation had 2 strong pitchers in it, and that was it. It was not a strong rotation, it was an average rotation with a strong front half and a back half of Latos and Danks. Yes, the Sale, Eaton, and Quintana trades are done well on paper. As of right now that's the only reason why you can see me saying that it's ok to give Rick Hahn and company time to see how these deals work out. The Quintana one is, to my eyes, easily the most impressive, because that's the one where there was some gamesmanship and waiting on offers involved. But now I want to see results. There should be a ticking clock behind them right now. It isn't going to ring this year...but the ticking should be getting louder day by day. Rick Hahn has the fewest wins in baseball since he became general manager. They are so far behind every other team in baseball that they could have kept Sale, Eaton, Robertson, and Quintana, and there's a good chance they'd still have that title. Teams above him, including the Phillies, started from a similarly weak foundation, with more bad contracts, and now they are competitive. Because Rick Hahn's thought process was entirely wrong, the White Sox sacrificed the latter part of the 2010s for 2015 and 2016, with a thought process that was guaranteed to fail. It only seemed reasonable if the people making decisions failed to understand that there is risk involved in free agent signings and that free agent signings are not guaranteed to overperform. Rick having the fewest wins in major league baseball since taking over is not an accident, it is a direct result of the "very good balance of aggressiveness and forward-thinking responsible behavior" you credit them with. The 3, minimum, fireable offenses, were believing the 2015 patchwork team would work, believing the 2016 patchwork team would work, and the pre-2016 trade deadline scrambling that brought us the Shields deal. Completely misunderstanding the 2013 team is a 4th one. They did exactly what you said, they executed a thought process that would not work, and they did a poor job of it.

I'm approaching Robin esque levels of loathing with Ricky.

Dude, don't you know that wins and losses is an archaic baseball stat just like batting average. It is not fair to judge Hahn on wins and losses anymore. What was the Sox run differential, pythagorean win-loss percentage, and inverted baseline theory ratio during the last 6 years compared to other bottom feeders like Cincy, San Diego, and Miami?

And they also brought him to the big leagues as a 3B.

Madrigal was the 4th pick in the draft...there should be optimism. He also has an elite eye- the dude doesn’t strike out. And he has plus/plus makeup. Moncada is just tools right now, which are great and could make him a superstar someday, but he has to cut back on the Ks and show more focus day-to-day.

Hahn has been the GM for 6 years and the team hasn't had one winning season. This lovefest for Hahn by White Sox fans baffles me. He has made so many bad moves but yet he still has his job. He would have been fired years ago if he was working for most other MLB teams.

This post pulls no punches and comes out swinging! Rick Hahn has been in over his head as a GM since day one. The only thing he can really hang his hat on at this point is a few contract extensions with players who no longer play in Chicago. If this Sox team isn't fighting for a playoff spot two years from now then he needs to go. Also, the Yoan Moncada Cheerleading Squad may call me a troll, but I would argue that Jerry Reinsdorf is pulling the ultimate troll job on all of us. Both his professional sports franchises are absolutely floundering while his wallet is doing the exact opposite.

Wow I am shocked and frankly appalled at these accusations.

Tim and Jose

I think we get a little too hung up on the emoji's. Sure its great to get recognition from a well thought out post . On the other hand some of the posts that get the most trophies or likes that I've seen are ones that insult other posters. I only noticed this when on a rare occasion I questioned a certain posters intelligence and I got some of the good emoji's and I started paying attention to it. I don't think I've ever given a "confused" emoji since if I'm confused as to what a person means I ask them what they meant . Just let that stuff roll off your back and make sure you give out the "thanks" and "like" emoji's more often to negate the "confused" ones. Just have to let it roll of your back especially when if you say something about it you'll probably end up getting some "confused" ones from the smart asses or grudge motivated posters. Not everyone has the knowledge or writing ability to convey their thoughts in a meaningful way.

And that is my point. There is quite a chasm as to how this board views his value. I hope he lives up to the hype but I wouldn't rule out a trade. Would have to believe Hahn is better calibrated to his market value than this crowd.

Who in the hell is Tom? Everyone on this board is guilty of cherry picking facts to suit their narrative. Myself included. That was my main point. Moncada had a nice hit late in the game from the right side. Let's hope that continues.

No they would most certainly not. Not even Moncada and Kopech would be enough to get Vladdy JR. Moncada alone couldn't even net you Tatis JR at this point but in Hahn we trust lol.

I really didn't mean it to be loaded. I mean I understand his range and base running skills walks etc contribute to it or else I wouldn't have mentioned them.I suppose you are extrapolating a full season from where his current WAR is ? I just wanted you to tell me if you might agree that a WAR based on those skills is really not that impressive when you throw in the other negative things about him . Plus there's also a big difference between a 2 and a 3 WAR player so there's that also.

Do you think Toronto would trade Vlad Guerrero Jr. for Moncada? Stop and think for a minute before responding.

Where exactly is he/you getting that WAR from ? Batting average low, strikeouts extremely high OPS hovering around .700, errors very high. Is it all coming from walks , his range , base running skills ? You would think a team full of Moncada's at this point in his career wouldn't be a very good team/ lineup but on the other hand you'd think a team lineup filled with all 2-3 WAR guys would be pretty decent . I understand sticking up for the guy, I do. Choke full of potential but the constant using of WAR to defend him seems out of place when at the moment he isn't a very good baseball player. WAR seems to have some inherent flaws if this is what a 2-3 WAR guy looks like.

I just wanted all of you to know. That I really, REALLY like all of you guys and gals.

Then you got yourself a good old fashioned bidding war. If you wanna be a big dog, then you gotta spend like a big dog.

Jose Altuve - international free agent signing in 2007 Dallas Keuchel - drafted 7th round in 2009 Marwin Gonzalez - acquired via trade in December 2011 George Springer - drafted 11th overall in 2011 Carlos Correa - drafted 1st overall in 2012 Lance McCullers Jr. - drafted 41st overall in 2012 Max Stassi - acquired via trade in February 2013 Tony Kemp - drafted 5th round in 2013 J.D. Davis - drafted 75th overall in 2014 Evan Gattis - acquired via trade in January 2015 Alex Bregman - drafted 2nd overall in 2015 Kyle Tucker - drafted 5th overall in 2015 Yulieski Gurriel - international free agent signing in 2016 Justin Verlander - acquired via trade in July 2017 Gerrit Cole - acquired via trade in January 2018 I didn't really look at the bullpen, but that's most of the Astros starting position players and rotation. All were acquired either through or as a result of internal development. In the cases of guys like Verlander and Cole, they had to have the prospects to trade to get them. This is also with at least 2 notable massive screwups along the way (letting J.D. Martinez go for nothing, drafting Mark Appel over Kris Bryant). They just won the World Series and are among the favorites to win this year. Trust. The. Process. We're in year 2. They're in year 7.

https://www.mlb.com/whitesox/prospects/stats/affiliates http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.jsp?cid=&lid=&org=145&sc=&sid=milb&t=affiliate&ymd=20180804 Good slate with Rodon, Guerrero, Cease, and Henzman DSL wins 1-0! Check out the line Name IP H R ER BB SO HRA Outs BF NP ERA Cristofer Melendez 6.0 4 0 0 0 11 0 18 20 43 1.65 He is 20 so kinda old but looks to have really turned a corner this year. To late to bring stateside?

After seeing how things have gone this year, I don't quite draw the line at 2019, although it would be really nice to see some improvement from those guys you list. Young players can struggle for a couple years and still break out (see Carlos Rodon let's hope?), so I will give one more pass next offseason, but things need to be turning positive by 2020 because otherwise that will mean multiple guys are actually busting and things aren't getting better. By 2021 we should be talking about a legit world series contender. That's somewhat disappointing already to me, because that's a year behind what it looked like we should be at last year to me, but I will give that one last pass since player development does take time.

I think at least since 2012, you have to hold them equally responsible. To say he is just KWs lackey, isn’t exactly a glowing endorsement of the man. He had opportunities to go elsewhere, but he stayed. I think he did interview with St. Louis but pulled out. He had other opportunities but declined. That doesn’t sound like a guy with all of his degrees and education, and training being a glorified coffee boy. Rick Hahn’s name is on what has been going on with this team for a long time.

I have no idea what you’re even talking about at this point as you continue to move the goalposts from post to post. But this idea that Moncada didn’t put up great statistics in the minors is nothing more than a false narrative you’ve constructed to aid in your pessimism towards him. Let’s actually look at some numbers to put an end to this bullshit. Yoan put up wRC+ of 156 & 152 at A+ & AA respectively as a 21 year old. Those ranked were amongst the leaders in both leagues and were very comparable to the numbers fellow uber prospect Andrew Benintendi put up despite Yoan being a year younger. He then put up a wRC+ of 130 in AAA as a 22 year old & actually had much better numbers before he got banged up. Point is, there is a reason almost every single publication had him as a top 1 or 2 overall prospect: he combined elite tools with high end production. The hype was and still is warranted no matter how hard you try to spit it.

QFT

Agree, and if he is ready next year, that is a good problem to have.

Whether it is or not, its not cause for the irrational exuberance that has people making assinine claims about his trade value.

Please direct me to 'the amount of information we have' that leads you to make such a claim? Anything in his past performance that you can point out? Minor league career?

My question pertained to his trade value. You have no way of determining what makes 'baseball sense' without knowing the return. By the way, I can come up with multiple trade scenarios that make perfect baseball sense.

The Sox can't be a mid-level organization anymore. They don't receive the same perks in the draft, internationally and in free agency that mid-level organizations are afforded. The White Sox need to become the big market behemoth that major league baseball classifies them as.

Data shows a surprising campus free speech problem: left-wingers being fired for their opinions Where are all the free speech warriors who go out of their way to defend Nazi and white supremacists? Something tells me they were never really about free speech.