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Ohmigod...run for cover Hawk. There is a LOUD faction of Hahn haters here. With free agency please try to place all your focus on the 2016-2019 period when the White Sox were actively trying to keep payroll low and not to compete...and ignore Free agent signings like Abreau, Robert, McCann, Kuechel, Grandal as that does not fit the narrative. With trade talk the only discussion point is that we traded a guy universally thought of as the future best player in baseball for a broken down pitcher who everyone knew was terrible. When discussing Hahn's first round drafting...focus on Carson Fulmer and Jake Burger and steer away from Tim Anderson, Madrigal, Vaughan and Crochett. And when discussing managers, point out how stupid Renteria and Cooper are and that Hahn will never get rid of them because he's weak and stupid. The beast cannot be killed...so try to appease.

Shifting is just the playing smart defense. It has always been that way. With power hitters OF ers move back with singles hitters they moved in . You don't think the Of ers shifted on Babe Ruth to the right ? Basically shifting less is just dumb baseball. You have reams of data telling you where hitters hit the ball. Of course you are going to shift. It would be like telling a pitcher he cannot pitch away from a pull hitter. You play the game according to the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent . It's called strategy. That is inherent in any sport . Deal with it .

I feel compelled to reply to this. ? That's one of those calls very close, you could totally justify it going either way. Very happy with the outcome, and though I was texting my friends the offense wasn't ready to go for 2 etc., kudos to Allen for going for it.

If shifting is such a big deal then the hitters should adjust.

Well by your logic his rookie Gm years don’t count so we can’t give him credit for Abreu. Or does that only work for his bad signings?

There's a big difference between a loss of revenue and a loss. Mlb TV revenue alone is greater than mlb payroll.

Manfred is such a giant bag of shit. I'm not going to rant on about this but I can't stand these damned rule changes that eliminate portions of the game which have evolved naturally within the proper context and spirit of the game. Example, the 3 batters rule. You give a manager 25 players to roster and he is likely going to pick 2 specialists, a lefty and a righty. If you give him 5 or 6 less players then he won't, but with 25 or 26, you allow him to specialize and devote specialist players to specialized roles that are important enough to designate as being so special and worthwhile. The lefty and righty specialist evolved naturally out of good competitive spirit. But of course everything about being a commissioner is about revenue and specifically appealing to a seemingly increasingly idiotic generation of people with constantly decreasing attention spans. So of course the desire is to cater to these people because they have money. But I don't give a shit about these people. They're bandwagoners anyway, and for hardcore fans like me, I think the long length of the game and the long length of the season has a lot of appeal. I like to work while having the games on, or put the game on the radio in the car. It's a nice chunk of my day that is made more enjoyable by baseball, and I'm not going to b**** about the length of it. I think a lot of people are like that. Eliminating the shift or trying to is trying again to eliminate another element that evolved naturally within the spirit of the game. Put a bunt down you stupid oaf if you don't like it. Oh you can't bunt? Ok fuck you then, hit the ball on the ground to the 3B playing SS. Grab some bench. That's excellent baseball and IMO isn't doing anything different than before. People just record more information now and use it better but they could have spent all of the 1940s shifting if they wanted to. Eliminating cheating is great. Improving accuracy of the umps by replacing them is great. Making the game more fair for all teams is great. A pitch clock is a great thing. I would love for technology to be added that allowed the pitcher and catcher to communicate wirelessly by their own signals, but ONLY the pitcher and catcher, because adding the dugout into the game allows for micromanaging of everything and really ruins the spirit of the game of pitcher and catcher vs. hitter. But adding tech to the game to make it more fair is great. A pitch clock is great, but must be reasonable. The pitch clock should be longer during the AB. E.g. for the first 5 pitches it is X seconds between pitches, then for pitches 5-8 it is X+2 seconds allowance, and pitches 9-11 it is X+4, and pitches 12+ it is X+6 or something, to allow for extra thought to exist in moments of greater need for strategic thought. But simply b****ing about the length of the game just because a bunch of dumb bandwagoner fans don't like and a bunch of people generally with the attention span of a fly can't handle it is really ruining the game for pitiful benefits. Think about these Yankees vs. Red Sox games that take like 4 hours because the lineups are stacked and every hitter is a tough out and every pitcher has to make a great pitch in like every AB. When you stack a lineup full of great hitters then you are doing a great job as a FO. And as a hitter, if you can survive deep into counts routinely, that makes you a great hitter. As a P, it is one thing to fiddle with your hat and your ass for about half a minute off the rubber before getting back on it but also in the spirit of the game, the P should have the ability to set himself up mentally to make a tough pitch in a tough situation. Really, these long games are often the result of some of the best of the best of the game playing each other. This is a good thing. I wish Manfred was a fly on the wall and I could just swat him. He doesn't care about the game at all. As far as the man on second rule, I actually don't hate it as much as I thought it would, but I would prefer a normal 10th, a man on 1st in the 11th, 2nd in the 12th, and a man on 3rd in 13th and beyond, or something like that, if the rule is going to stick. And in this case I do not believe it harms the spirit of the game because it's about keeping players healthy and members of the pitching staff available for future games. And I believe it should only apply in the regular season and should not apply in any game 163 or playoff game situations. But anyway fuck Manfred with a rusty flag pole.

Manfred's job should be endangered.

why? Theres already 11k fans at the world series games. There is no justifiable reason not to let fans in the stands next year other than hysteria. Anything less than half capacity at the start of the year is stupid, and they really should just allow full capacity from the onset. Im starting to come around to this. It cease and lopez could be counted on at all then bauer would be the guy they should target. Not sure if i like stroman/Q though. I think if klubers club option is declined they need to go after him. If not, then i think id prefer stroman/gausman as the #3&4 next year.

Same, he sucks

After what Stras got last year yeah that’s a pretty dramatic market drop.

Not many. I'm real curious about this for Cespedes. Enrique Rojas says A's and Tampa are front runners for Pino with $1 million plus. Let's say the Sox sign sign Colas for like $2.2 million. Where the hell does Cespedes go?

Ironically there might have been a path to competing. Developing guys like Semien, Bassitt, and then eventually Tatis would have filled in some of those gaps, but we traded all those guys away (while saying we didn’t give up much in the trades). We would have had to find some extra contributors and get lucky a couple times, but we had talent there we just didn’t want to work hard enough to develop it. People weren’t kidding when they said Rick Hahn had 3 teams in the playoffs this year. Quintana falling apart, Rodon flopping, and a coach who was completely checked out probably, in the end, would have prevented that, but patience and development in 2015 and 2016 had a shot, rather than going all in and busting on those foolish gambles which prevented any of that.

They didn’t their 2nd round pick for him expecting to be the same replacement level guy he had been with the Rangers. They thought they were getting a guy with untapped potential. That didn’t materialize last season, Mazara is now in the last year of team control, and the team is ready to win. The time to take a chance on a project like Nomar was last year or honestly two seasons ago. There really is no logic in bringing him back as things stand.

Trying to solve a non-existent problem and by doing so, you just greatly incentivize one-dimensional hitters that the same sort of people can't stand. I don't know how many times I have to say it, there's been a significant change in the game in the past 10 years and that's the size of the strike zone. It's gotten a lot bigger, especially on the bottom of the zone, because the umpires have gotten better at calling it according to the rulebook. They should switch the rulebook strike zone back to what it was before mid-90s, which defines the bottom of the zone as at the top of the knee. The reason the rule was changed was because umpires weren't calling the low strike properly so changing the definition made them call it as if the rule was the top of the knee. But now they call it correctly and the zone has expanded downwards. Make pitchers attack hitters more and you'll see a significant reduction in strikeouts and a more exciting game. Unlike the 3-batter rule, also a fairly significant change to the rules IMO, there is really no justification for banning the shift besides a very specific opinion about the aesthetics of the game. And unlike the 3-batter rule, banning the shift helps promote more specialized/less well-rounded players. And banning the shift of course won't shorten games; it will probably lengthen them by making it easier to hammer a grounder through the infield. Allowing shifts adds an advantage for hitters who use all parts of the field and further incentivizes teams to have well-rounded defenders who can be shifted around the field.

I was late on the rebuild wagon. I always thought there was a WS path like the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks (Shilling, Randy Johnson, Luis Gonzalez with a combined 27 WAR...rest of the team garbage). We stumbled into Abreu and Quintana and with Sale becoming a superstar it seemed you should be able to cobble together a playoff team. The Shields trade was the Sox gambling, needing a 4 to complete their inside straight and ended up getting a 9 which meant they had nothing. When that blew up which obviously in retrospect it did, I gave up and wanted the rebuild. Playing for an inside straight again and again is a losers path. I'm very happy with the way Hahn has played the game after that failure. Kenny always wanted the White Sox to go for it every season and made us just good enough to not get top talent in the draft. I agree the most valuable thing in any organization (in any sport) is the ability to judge talent and it sure seems like Hahn is good at that...the trades, the drafts and the free agent signings sure seem to have us on the cusp.

The difference is, Mazara was already at a point of his team giving up on him before COVID hit him and his performance slipped. The Sox need to find something better.

Robert, Jimenez, Moncada were all on the White Sox radar very early on. When they had a chance to harvest them, they took advantage of it. Abreu is one of the best Latin players ever plucked from Latin America. No question that their drafting has been over-all bad in the last decade but they have done, I believe much better ever since the dismantling of the late 2010s including the latest additions of a bunch of young pitchers and Vaughn, Madrigal,

Shifts don't really need to be fixed IMO, even as boring as it can be watching certain players predictably hit into them. Terrible balls & strike calls, blatantly inconsistent strike zones, and lengthy replay reviews do. I'd rather see that addressed before any tweaks to shifting.

He's not getting a free pass. There are three periods I think it fair to judge him on...2013-2015 The Sale years where he was trying to put together a winner when we had Sale/Quintana. Hahn was basically a rookie GM and the "go for it" swings sure seem like KW was the back seat driver. This was also the period where the vast amount of the '$188 million non Abreu money' was spent. I'm not sure you can give him worse than a C in free agency in that time as Abreu was a great signing...and Melky, Robertson, Duke were ok. Sox just overall talent at that point of time in majors and minors just wasn't good enough to push them into contention. Period two is the "trying to lose" phase 2016-2019 and how can you fairly not give him at least a B. He signed Luis Robert in 2017 which might be one of the greatest signings ever. Now you have the "all-in" stage 2020-beyond. I'd say incomplete...but i think Keuchel was really a good pickup. I had doubts about that signing and was very disappointed we had swung and missed on Wheeler and might even have preferred Madison Bumgartner...but seems like it was the right choice. I also think Grandal was exactly what we paid for. I'd still like to see our "Bryce Harper" deal...but really, Phillies seemed a year ahead of us at the time and they've gone nowhere with Harper. Maybe the idea of spending the $300 million contract across the young core is a better move. Clearly Hahn is not perfect....Lynn would have been a great addition...Herrera HAS been terrible. But all Gm's swing and miss. I just hate the narrative that he has been a disaster because I just don't think the evidence backs that up.

You can’t sign guys to guaranteed contracted and have them sit in Charlotte. So adding these extra arms means some other guys who have proven themselves won’t be with the major league club. IMO, Bummer, Marshall, Heuer, Foster, & Fry are 100% locks for bullpen spots. Given his lack of innings, I really think that Hahn is going to have Crochet pitch out of the bullpen next year and then stretch him out in 2022. That’s six spots already accounted for. To me you add one back-end guy and then just let López battle whoever for the long-man role. I’m all for adding some guys via trade or waiver pick-up that can sit in AAA and serve as depth, but I don’t think it’s realistic to expect a lot of additions to the major league pen.

Fair enough - I agree with that.

Yeah poor lefties; it must be physically impossible to hit the ball the other way ?. Instead we should reward players who sell out to the pull side and aren't as complete of players.

Staggering the amount of money spent on bad free agents??? I just looked at worst free agent signings of last decade and of the 15 shown the White Sox have zero of them. The four years 2016-2019 we averaged $15 million per year signing bad players...but while that is staggering amount of money for me...pretty much chump change for a baseball team. During that same period the Cubs were paying Jason Heyward about $25 million per year to get them 1.5 WAR.

There is zero chance Mazara gets tendered. I’d say there is a tiny chance he’s brought back at like $3M to be a depth piece, but no way they pay him $6M after the year he just had. Also, the comparison to Moncada is laughable as Yoan has a well above-average track record while Nomar has been replacement level over his career.

Relegate infielders to their side of the field. You can still do shifts, but at a cost. Teams will have to bring a CF in to play short outfield behind short or second, while the infielder takes a deeper part of their side of the field covering CF basically. So for lefties, bring the CF in to play a Right CF trajectory, but at the or around the grass, and the second baseman can play a deeper second base. This allows for shifts still, but your risking it with moving positions of the opposite infielder and CF. I might be able to compromise it to that position.

No offense guys - but the world would be a better place if we stopped just blanketly calling people with different political viewpoints idiots. Makes no one better & not productive. Unless you literally think we should live in a world where you can't be friends with someone who has different viewpoints. Personally - I think that is a boring world and I don't believe things are black and white. Different people have different views and I need to respect that - as long as those views aren't fundamental extremist type of positions. And no - I don't think every person who voted for Trump is an extremist - some certainly are, but many had there reasons and the fact that they voted for that individual does not make them a horrible person. We will never get ourselves back as a country if we continue to have so many people who have basically put themselves in an echo chamber (it is literally the exact opposite of diversity and is scary). Tony - I am not saying that is you - but this country is way too polarized and I hate absolute statements like this. The reality is, there were a lot of people who voted for Trump back in 2016 because well, they figured they had been stuck in their situation forever and maybe that situation had gotten worse and over decades they never saw it get better (Democrat, Republican...didn't matter). So you know what - they decided they wanted to take a shot and go anti-establishment, because you know what, why not, nothing else had helped them (in their own perceived world). I don't get why people can't empathize and respect that and instead just assume every single person who voted for Trump is a steaming pile of dog, poop. Some absolutely are - but that is the human race and those people exist on both sides of the voting spectrum.

I'm against changing the rules of the game because the players won't adapt. Adapt or be replaced by someone who will adapt. Shifts have been done in baseball before throughout history. To me this may be the unions talking because they are afraid that the player performance is suffering. Well, to me that is tough. Anyone ask the pitchers what they think about changing the rules regarding defensive positioning? What is next? Maybe if a hitter has two strikes on him, they bring a tee out and let the batter hit off of a tee?

I just don't think that we need to add a right fielder. They have plenty of offensive talent on this team. They need pitching and that should be without a doubt the focus for winning the entire thing next season.

The "just bunt or hit the opposite way against the shift" argument reminds me a lot of people saying that certain big men need to just practice free throws more or shoot them underhanded in order to improve their free throw percentage. It is much easier said than done. I don't think these players are willfully not trying to beat the shift via bunting or shortening their swing to hit it throw the shift. That is just really freaking hard to do consistently.

I could easily bunt to beat the shift 99/100 times. It's simple.

You guys ever tried to bunt a ball coming in at over 90MPH? Maybe go crank up the pitching machine at the batting cages see how consistently you can place one about 15 feet at a particular angle out in front of you. If it was easy, they'd already be doing it. You can count the amount of times a bunt beat the shift this year on one hand. Some possible rules changes I would like to see that would encourage more balls in play: changing drag on the ball via the seams (increase drag), moving mound back (or lowering it) slightly, raising fences or moving fences back. All things that are way less radical than banning defensive positioning.

"Not positive" = "less offense" apparently.

I used to be anti “ban the shift”, but I think it’s undeniable that the game has changed in the last 10 years for the worse. It’s smarter- can’t deny that- but it’s also more boring and harder to watch games outside of rooting for your own laundry. I’d like to see defensive restrictions that lead to more athleticism of infielders and are more fair to left handed hitters. We thought hitters would adjust to the shift. It didn’t happen. It’s time to consider defensive rules.

The Sox kept claiming that all the cash they had from the dirt low payrolls during the rebuild days would be used in the future. It will be disappointing if they cry poor and completely flop this free agency. I get that it was hard on everybody this year, but they were raking in cash during the rebuild.

Yea he's supposedly fluent in Spanish, which is a pretty big point in his favor. That said, he's not my preferred choice. I'd prefer Jirsch as it would mean the Sox are basically doing what TB does and employ a manager that is good with the guys and will execute the analytics department's strategy in game and with the lineups. Cash took over when he was 37, still young enough to be "one of the guys". Same thing with Jirsch. edit: shit he's only 30. Might be a bit young still. Maybe they appoint La Russa the manager with the idea of grooming Jirsch into the job within a couple years. I'd be alright with that plan.

Why are you guys so worried about age? Tony can speak Spanish which is pivotal and he's in the Hall of Fame. Nothing wrong with having a grumpy manager once in a while. I still say it's fate. He wins 2 WS with the Sox then bows out and all is right in the world. He never should have been fired by Hawk.

With the shortened season, spotrac shows the league average payroll at $59 million. That means total player salary for 30 teams comes to $1.8 billion. When they didn’t have to pay staff to open ballparks, does that claimed loss make any sense? It still does not to me. The White Sox’s payroll this year was $43 million. If revenue was 0, that means everyone else would have to blow through $57 million, without having to pay any ballpark employees. Revenue of course is not zero, so all the other staff have to blow what, $100 million to believe that number?

I think this is a fair topic. I think Stroman makes sense for the following reasons: 1. This link suggests that there will be some sort of budget, which will preclude spending on top targets in FA. 2. The system still has talent, but is shallow. When you look at it, of the top 10 there will be a lot of graduations, leaving scant reserves from which to trade to improve the 26 man roster. [Seriously, it'll be Kopech, a handful of former prep SPs, and Adolfo atop the prospect lists, once Vaughn arrives here next season.] 3. This guy sucked this year. I mean, he really, really really sucked. Seriously, he sucked out loud at baseball this season. He had the worst BB/9 among SPs in MLB. In a competitive window, this team can't count on him, until he can get his shit sorted. He needs to start 2021 in Charlotte or Schaumburg, and fvkcing get his BB/9 down to a level that won't make you dry heave. 4. This guy is yet another SP who is on his way to bustville. Maybe he's a reason for Coop no longer being here, but he sucked even more than the guy in #3. 5. Over 162, this team will not even make it to the post season if it attempts to start the season with the guys under #3 &#4 in the starting rotation. Back in 2000, the SOX failed to make the postseason, due to an unreliable #5 SP. As currently comprised [Giolito-Keuchel-Dunning-Cease-Lopez], there's no prayer of making the postseason in a regular 162 game grind. Even if the SOX added Bauer, he can't pitch 3 times a week, and you'd have to hold your heaves for Cease and Lopez starts. 6. The payroll will require creativity to maintain future flexibility, when you consider that RF and a closer and an additional BP arm or two are needs, in addition to the gaping holes in the starting rotation. This is particularly important, if this team wants to retain the ability to add throughout the competitive window, and not just blow the entire payroll load in one offseason. 7. This list of FA SPs shows one or two top-end options, and then a cavalcade of geezing geezers, and other vets with their share of questions. If they propose Odorizzi having a market value of $17MM, I'd much rather have Stroman at ~half of that or less, PLUS Q at ~half of that as well. 8. He's had a strong GB rate rate over the course of his career, which could help him provide a good amount of IP, and lessen the burden on the BP over 162. TL/DR: Bauer can help in a playoff series, but he can't pitch more than once every five days. Just to be able to GET TO the playoffs, and to enable Cease re-find the strike zone, I'd rather sign 2 veteran SPs [Stroman/Q], and only have to gamble on Dunning as the #5.

He really should pitch for Houston just because of his name.

Keuchel deal or less I like him. anything more than 3/55 or so and I’d pass.

I’d rather not have Stroman. Just the classic White Sox “middle of the road and affordable” free agent signing that rarely works out on the southside. I really wish Bauer didn’t have baggage. (get Scherzer on a Covid-related discount)