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Lol people just love to hate Kenny. I am one of them, but I see nothing wrong with this quote.

I would like to state though that despite the many people against rendon because it moves moncada around again...I think getting Rendon would be so clearly a net positive that you go for it. He's so good. I just also get some Adrian Beltre "he'l be good forever" vibes from him.

He doesn’t care unless it happens to him. What do you think he’s going to charge the field and tackle them?

Let's hope so.

But they cant spend too much future money cause they have to lock up current player at some point lol

If they aren't going to be in on Cole/Stras/Wheeler hypothetically, I'd want them to make a run at Ryu. Keuchel is a fat No from me on a multi year deal.

The problem is, eventually the Sox will be at their 2014-2016 level and will need to make additions to see it through. It didn't work then, it hasn't worked since 2005, except in 2008. With basically the same guys making the decisions, what do we have to hang our collective hats on? Money-wise, when they "went for it" in 2015, Sale, Q, and Eaton, combined, made less than Abreu will make even if he signs for less than the QO. Hey, maybe they can have a good season, and make the playoffs once. OK, I can see that. But sustained winning? They have never done it. Did they just need 15-20 years of seasoning? This period of hurt is supposed to pay off with winning. So much winning that the Sox wanted no part of giving a 10 year contract last year because it would make it tough in years 9 and 10.

The widely-held misconception that the GM is primarily responsible for all the things listed in the OP is fascinating to me, because it leads fans to spend a lot of time and energy forming very strong opinions about these people as if they can actually know them — which, since no one actually can, on either side of the argument, leads almost to the creation of a fictional universe inside a fans mind where being the GM of a team is actually just like playing OOTP. Where people actually think that each decision is made by a single person, inside the near vacuum of how a fan views the game — virtually ignoring all the context of running a business, such as satisfying ownerships demands, balancing a budget that achieves revenue and profit goals, professional development of employees who have been delegated important tasks, etc. There’s no doubt that this franchise has been a joke the last ten or fifteen years, from top to bottom — certainly in terms of performance on the field and, from all outward appearances, as a brand and promotional entity as well. But the line of thought that connects a poster talking about Rick Hahn as an intelligent person based on his education and mannerisms and another poster arguing the opposite using evidence such as the White Sox’ lack of success acquiring amateur talent in Latin America is bizarre.

If we traded the best college hitter in years for Benintendi straight up we should be calling for hahns job. Horrible trade idea.

That would be a horrible move. Three years of Benintendi coming of a fairly ordinary year is not worth a top 20 prospect plus taking on a albatross contract.

This is a vast over simplification that is only considering top 100 status. There could be teams that are high on Stiever & Walker for example, whether Baseball America or Pipeline have them ranked as top 100 prospects. Also, the Dodgers nearly traded us two years of Pederson for a pair of interesting arms, neither of which were top 100 guys. Your view on prospect value is very much outdated, as even guys in the 101 to 200 range are commanding quite a bit of value today.

I agree it won’t cripple the franchise. But why pay the guy 3/$45M when his market value is 1/$15M max and you already basically have 1/$17.8M in hand. I don’t mind Jose sticking around. We need above average bats and he is that. 2/$28-30M seems fair for both sides if he really wants to go beyond 1 year. I just feel like a deal similar to that has probably been on the table for some time.

As the poster who called Rick Hahn "a very smart guy" and expressed optimism in his abilities to take us to the next level...I will again express my opinion on this subject. Most fair minded people would agree that a BA from the University Michigan, a Harvard Law School degree and a MBA from Kellogg School of Management would require a fair amount of intelligence. Several years of work in the role of being a sports agent and 17 years in FO roles is an impressive background for the position of GM. The reality of the FO is that our owner is one of the most hands on owners in all of baseball and that owner has a great deal of confidence in KW. Therefore any GM for this organization has to deal with that 3 headed monster. I believe that the last 4 seasons have given RH a bigger voice in the decisions we are discussing...how the rebuild is accomplished, trades, extensions, drafts and free agent decisions. Hahn's negotiated extensions on Eaton, Anderson, Sale and Q where excellent. The subsequent trades for top talent form the backbone of our period of contention. Top baseball people sing the praises of that group. I think the recent drafts of Madrigal & Vaughn are excellent with the Jury still out on Collins. The acquiring of Robert & Abreu are also great but perhaps less clear if all credit for those goes to Hahn or the 3 headed monster. RH is being held accountable for results as it should be but he operates under guidelines set by ownership of budget and many personnel decisions such as Cooper and maybe even Ricky. Although I understand the frustration of chasing top end free agent talent last offseason...I don't blame RH for making what they felt was their best effort and coming in second. It happens. I also try to remember that hindsight is 20/20. In hindsight Alonso was a disaster but none of us saw his performance coming when he was signed. Lastly I would like to say that many posters have pithy remarks of what other posters have to say. Try posting your own ideas of what should be done rather than shooting holes in others posts.

I struggled to see why we should skip out on a very good hitter because of his handedness. He plays RF, albeit not very good. But then again, neither does Castellanos and people seem to like him enough.

This. Hahns hand will forever be tied to sitting at a Marshall’s clearance rack vs being able to spend like a major league team needs to do

College:

Does he want to play 2B? Otherwise it’s a non starter for me, and likely the Sox. They aren’t going to jerk Moncada around again. Moncada is an elite defensive 3B. Leave him alone.

I cant wait to hear random twitter inside stories on this one for months on end. Who's with me?!

Bingo!

All he said is we're going to be active. Theres nothing wrong with that.

I do not want to sign Odorizzi with a QO.

I don't see any way he doesn't get 5/100. That is just the reality of it. He had setbacks after TJ and has been healthy for 2 years. I'm not that concerned about his arm.

A guy at the Athletic who apparently gets a lot of signings correct over the years, thinks thinks the Sox are going to sign Puig for 3/$30 million. Just speculation right now. Caulfield might have to move back. Is there a tariff?

Something to consider for an outfielder.

Lies

Yeah, the player dev angle is the one I’m most disappointed with. It isn’t that difficult to poach secrets from successful orgs — in fact I’ve been told it’s one of the things that those orgs worry about the most. All their hiring are public, you can physically see the facilities easily, and if you want, you can pretty much get any guy you want from the Astros/Yankees/etc. if you’re willing to give the person a big raise or promotion. The fact that the White Sox have objectively been one of the absolute worst at PD in an age where information is more freely available than ever speaks to some real troubling issues, whether it’s incompetence or a lack of willingness to invest.

I think it's reasonable to say that JR does not think there is good return on a lot of the player dev investments or international spending. But that is still part of Hahns job to sell that vision to the owner. And that is a skill. The sox position themselves publicly as a team that doesn't need to be Tampa or the Oakland As or the Twins, but where they choose to spend that additional money just adds so little value. They just seem to be in denial on what kind of organization they are.

I can't believe there are people like you out there that actually believe that he said that

Said poster expressed optimism that Rick could take us to the next level due to his "intelligence" and I summarized the track record of the organization under Hahn's watch to serve as a counterpoint. What in the fucking world is bizarre about that? Are all smart people automatically good at their jobs? His track record suggests that's not the case, which is the point I was trying to make. I get you work in baseball in some capacity (minor league team?) and apparently know far more about how major league front offices work than the rest of us, so please enlighten on what Hahn is not responsible for in the OP? Is he not responsible for shaping the strategic direction of the organization with Jerry & KW? Is he not one of the most essential voices when it comes to free agents & trades? Does he not have direct oversight of the player development and scouting functions? No one said he's the only one responsible for our mess over the last years, but he's certainly one of the primary players and should no doubt be held accountable for our recent struggles.

It's not. Whether the ultimate goal is winning or not, he is signing free agents and trading for players he thinks can play. So many of these were just pissing away money. Jon Jay? Please. Alonso wasn't techinically a free agent, I guess that makes it even worse, but Yonder Alonso for $9 million? Really? Another trade, Nova, why $9 million on him? They spent $22 million on those 3. Why? What did they add to the rebuild? Why not spend it on 16 year old international guys and a bunch of lottery tickets? McCann was good for a losing team. Hopefully he can keep it up, and we can put him in Rick's win column. But If he snaps back to being what he was in 2020, not saying he will, and hoping he will not, is that a win when you are paying someone to be good on a bad team? Even with Abreu, he has spent over $250 million on free agents only to lose, lose, and lose some more. When he was "going for it", LaRoche? Trading for Samardijza? It's one colossal blunder after another. Even Robertson and Frazier, he salary dumped with Kahnle a guy they could still use, and got back a poor man's Ryan Sweeney who may never play in the major leagues.

If he continues his trend of his first 7 years, do you really think he can build a perennial contender?

White Sox should want no part of a 3/50 million reported deal that Jose is seeking. This is the modern MLB, not fifteen years ago where a deal like that would regularly happen. Sox tactically cratered Abreu's market with the qualifying offer, and would be smart to sit back and wait. No other club is going to give up the compensation and offer enough years and dollars that the Sox would not match if needed. Ideally we go year to year with Abreu moving forward. Anything beyond 2/30 would be a mistake.

I think this is a case where the only honest way is to say it both ways in any comment on the matter. Abreu was a really good signing, but it's also a signing with a caveat because it was an international deal. Credit goes to them for taking the risk on that deal which paid off solidly, but outside of one international success the record is incredibly bad. It is not disingenuous to note that as long as both parts are included; it's basically equally disingenuous to give $250/23.5 if you're also not noting that literally all of the positive performance comes out of one intenrational signing and $180 million of it went completely to waste.

Sox three biggest needs for RF: - A good, or at worst, average defensive OF - An above average hitter -Ideally left handed Castellanos fits 1 of 3 needs.

Will post a great quote from James vegan along that line: “Big signings — and certainly Machado’s and Bryce Harper’s deals — often get scrutinized for whether the production can strictly live up to the dollar value. But there’s far less discussion of the accumulated cost of mid- or low-tier signings and their potential to completely flop, from even a dollar standpoint, let alone a competitive one.“

Abreu accepts QO - 1 yr 18 million. Wheeler - 5 years 110 million Grandal - 3 years 58 million Encanacion - 1 year 12 million Hill - 1 year 8 million (incentives to 12 mil) Betances - 2 years 16 million TRADE: Reynaldo Lopez for Nomar Mazara Sign another RP for 5 million I think this is realistic and I'd actually like it, in its totality. I think the most controversial will be the trade but I think that's about all you'd get for Lopez. It would be a change of scenery trade for both.

2013-2016 were very, very different approaches than 2017-present. They didn’t fire the GM but they went in a completely different direction. I appreciate all the work that went into the original post, but adding up all the raw numbers from two completely different approaches (and two different cultures) feels wildly disingenuous to me. Tim Anderson, Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito, James McCann, Eloy Jimenez, and Luis Robert appear to be excellent acquisitions. The jury is out on Nick Madrigal, Zach Collins, and Andrew Vaughn. The 2017-present era feels much more like the 2011-2014 Astros to me. No it’s not a perfect analog, but the White Sox have been largely intentionally signing stopgap players waiting for key pieces to develop. I don’t think RH is a great GM but I do think based on the line we chose in late 2016 we need to see this through, and it still looks very promising to me based on the 6-7 really good young core pieces we have.

We'll know his answer on the QO if a deal isn't reached prior (I believe we will hear prior that he signs a 2 year deal, 3rd year option), however.

I wish we had a real manager and real coaches because we do have some amazing raw talent. We also have holes that can bury us. it'd be nice to have some great manager figuring things out a bit.

Hey all, good to see this place has continued to be busy since ive been gone. Been a long year, got hit by a drunk driver on my bike that probably should have been the end of me, but the rehab has been long but productive and here I am checking in on you idiots. Sox take the central next year and Ill be there to watch it. Hope everyone is good. Word of advice to anyone who gets seriously injured, take the rehab seriously with tunnel vision. Just this morning I ran 3 miles sub 9 min on a leg that was shattered earlier this year. Attack that shit

Clearly this guy is a visionary genius.

I put it in another thread, but Pirates’ Gregory Polanco.

I mean, if his bats fall off a bit, that third year is going to be pretty painful. $15M is quite a bit of flexibility down the drain.

Never heard of this guy but he said something good so I rate him as highly trustworthy in predictions

The difference is those teams all had to start their rebuilds with primarily Top 10 draft picks. The Cubs were an exception. They already know had Baez, Rizzo and jump-started with Lester and Contreras lurking as a stealth future MVP candidate at catcher (who nobody knew much about.) But the Astros and Royals until the finishing touches like Cueto, Shields, Zobrist and Chapman were 70-80% constructed out of draft picks. If you take away having those three immensely-valuable contracts to trade (not to mention Frazier/Kahnle), the rebuild is basically Anderson, Rodon, Robert, Madrigal, Abreu and Vaughn...and is closer to being torn down and gutted than supplemented with free agents. Somehow, we’ve managed to turn one of the worst records in baseball over the past decade into a #21-24 farm system by mid season of 2020. And it’s certainly not because we’ve graduated multiple players from each draft class stretching from 2015-2018 into the major leagues.

He's been a dreadful GM at building up a team. He failed the first time, and, if we consider last year as the first year of the build up, he's off to another poor start. The problem is that a)he doesn't know talent; b) instead of assembling an ambitious staff of quality baseball minds and one that would balance out his weaknesses, he surrounds himself with yes-men; and c)takes the lazy way out when available.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Fuck yeah!

We’ve reached peak offseason on SoxTalk. Pages and pages of mindless drivel for no real reason