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You would think that it would always have been in Managements best interests to make sure at the very least their investments had basic housing. You would think. thank you for doing the bare minimum, MLB. I look forward to finding out later that you fucked this up too

Cause he’s injured a lot, can’t block pitches in the dirt, calls a mediocre game (partially due to his inability to block in the dirt), and his framing is overrated. I don’t think anyone hates on his ability on the offensive side of things.

For a minute there I actually thought you had insider information as if you were a member of the Sox front office, but sorry you lost me when you stated "namely Keuchel and some of the Spanish guys".

Craig Kimbrel and Matthew Thompson for Gavin Lux

Billy Hamilton played every day in games 2-7. He then went on the injured list. He then played in 4 of the next 5 games after returning. So your stat…doesn’t tell that story. Nick Williams was your number 5 hitter in a division game with Bieber on the mound. Is that not a key role?

It is more like cronyism that nepotism. TLR is not related to JR, but he is his crony, good ole boy buddy.

It's his 9th anniversary after all. He's probably getting a vasectomy. Win win for both of them.

I would have a lot more respect for Hahn if he told JR "GFY" and went elsewhere

Looking towards the offseason though, Balta is making a decent point. We should probably bring in Joc Pederson and Andrelton Simmons for Charlotte in case of injury. Clearly they would prefer that to MLB deals where they have regular roles.

How many times had Engel, Robert, Lopez and Keuchel been on the IL in their MLB careers prior to 2021? How many teams needed less starters than the White Sox in 2021? How many games have you actually watched? How many IL trips had the Sox 4th outfielder (Adam Engel) and 5th outfielder (Leury Garcia) had coming into 2021?

Jansen is probably gone next year.

Spend extra on your 4th and 5th OFs to make sure they are players who are regularly healthy and capable of playing starting roles for you for several months or in the playoffs.

To say it again, when your top OFs include Eloy, Engle, Eaton, Robert, and Hamilton - you cannot go "how on Earth did we wind up playing our 8th outfielder batting 5th against our key division foe no one could ever have foreseen this". If you are stocking your lineup with guys who are injury prone, you must overspend on depth. It is not an accident when all these guys get hurt altogether. Same exact statement in the rotation. If Carlos Rodon, Reynaldo Lopez, Dallas Keuchel, and Michael Kopech are guys you're counting on in your top 7 starters, you can't come to me in August and say "How did we wind up needing our 9th starter this is impossible no team could overcome this".

I was very nervous about conforto but I think that is a no brainer addition. Realistically, cesar or leury are the most sensible 2b for us. They are good defensively. Cesar actually doesn't chase. He was so bad it was painful, but we really should have a switch hitter here, and he has the benefit over leury of not swinging at everything. This solves problems without shooting us in the foot in another place.

While I'll add my voice to those who said this was a well-thought post, I don't think it was the bottom line. I agree with Balta, in that this was a multi-system failure: 1. The FO measurably made the 2021 team worse, while reducing financial flexibility for 2022, while erasing the future opportunity to either use Madrigal/Heuer/Pilkington for this team, or for future trades. In sum, they fucked up the short term, mid term, and long term. Even if Kimbrel was "lights out," he BY HIMSELF wasn't going to be enough to close the gap between our SOX and the other contenders, IMO. 2. The coaching staff fucked up the overall season strategy WRT HFA/getting the team hot for the playoffs. They fucked up the strategy WRT setting the rotation for the series, and they fucked up virtually every tactical decision in the series. The bench coach and pitching coach HAVE TO up their "in game" games, because TLR ain't getting younger/better; this is akin to Penn State having Paterno as "head coach" in title, but the assistants did all the work in his final seasons there. 3. And yes, the players didn't perform, in part because of #s 1 & 2. If it was "just" the players, then better players solve the issues, but I don't see this as being the only problem right now. So yeah, the players didn't play. But, the "adults in the room" (FO/Coaches) shit their pants as well. And this is concerning, as we look to the future. Here's hoping that some of this gets unfucked.

So he’s getting non tendered.

Back on topic folks. We're talking about Abreu's upcoming demise and how it will be handled.

Once again, last 2-3 years. I mean, we'd also love to have 2014-15 Jose Abreu back, right? Or Adam Eaton? I mean, if we go back another 5 years, we'd have HoFer Albert Pujols and not the broken down versions of him or Miguel Cabrera.

Yeah, assessing much further back than a 2-3 year time frame of statistics (just because 2020 was truncated) makes almost no sense, especially for a catcher closing in on his mid 30's and leaving the early 30's in the rearview mirror. The only ones who seemingly beat that prior trendline were Sal Perez and Buster Posey.

If posters like you were GM we'd be 0-162 every season. I mean wow, what a terrible take

This is the first time they've been over .500 since March 2, 2017.

Guess being the key word. All you can do is guess as to whether they're really that good or still cheating.

There is no doubt in my mind they are. They are just more selective when they do it now. It's electronic, not a primitive trash can. And why wouldn't they? Nothing happened to the cucks last time they did it. The players stole a World Series and nothing happened to them.

No one said Abreu is all washed up. He has produced very well overall. Three rbi's in four games of playoff baseball is not all that impressive IMO. His rbi totals are a result of the high OBP guys in front of him as well as his personal abilities. Age will slowly lessen his abilities as it did Konerko and the fourth or fifth spot in the lineup is better suited IMO.

this coming from teh same guy that was bitching about abreu hitting with RISP in the playoffs... when he was batting .500 with RISP

Have to wonder how his knee affected his defense this year, because his defense was not pretty. Sox really need a good defensive backup catcher next season to keep Grandal fresh.

Unfortunately for us, former 70 FV prospects don’t get traded for that type of package.

Sheets is only 3 years younger than Conforto. Conforto already had an all-star season when he was Gavin's age. Gavin isn't a "young kid". It took him awhile to get to the majors because he wasn't very good in the minors.

Really? How do you know? A young kid growing into his power that has a great approach at the plate. I'm not included in the "all" that would trade him as a third piece in a trade.

Lol. Lineup balance is incredibility important. The Sox lineup balance fucking sucks right now, and was on full display in the playoffs. All things being equal, of course I'd prefer a great right handed hitter over a left handed hitter that can't hit righties or lefties. But generally speaking, most good left handed hitters hit righties very well. This lineup DESPERATELY needs that from RF and 2B additions this offseason.

So, since this is a safe space. You know...say I win one of these big billion dollar power balls and am charitable and am like "Jerry Reinsdorf, you deserve this money" and all that. Like the dude's defense has dropped off since his tommy john surgery...a bit bizarrely. He realistically is either pushed to 3b now, or make 2b work. He is left handed. He doesn't strike out. He is an on base machine. So like, well actually corey seager is the perfect addition, and maybe his health the past few years (2018...this year) and his defensive decline...JK but seriously if I an elderly billionaire with a sports team I'd say "buy me the tall boy"

I would tell Hahn GFY and get anther GM, Then let that GM hire a new Manager subject to owbership approval. As far as Hunch he can GFH as well. RaBBit: Yes, in fact, Hinch absolutely knew about the cheating. That was the finding of the Commissioner. "Hinch attempted to signal his disapproval of the scheme by physically damaging the monitor on two occasions, necessitating its replacement. However, Hinch admits he did not stop it and he did not notify players or Cora that he disapproved of it, even after the Red Sox were disciplined in September 2017. Similarly, he knew of and did not stop the communication of sign information from the replay review room, although he disagreed with this practice as well and specifically voiced his concerns on at least one occasion about the use of the replay phone for this purpose. As the person with responsibility for managing his players and coaches, there simply is no justification for Hinch’s failure to act. If Hinch was unsure about how to handle the situation, it was his responsibility to bring the issue to the attention of Luhnow. Hinch expressed much contrition both to me and my investigators for allowing the conduct to continue. Although I appreciate Hinch’s remorsefulness, I must hold him accountable for the conduct of his team, particularly since he had full knowledge of the conduct and chose to allow it to continue throughout the 2017 Postseason." Manfred considered banning Hinch from baseball, and IMO he should have. The conduct that he knew about was on par or perhaps worse than what the 1919 WSox did. https://www.crawfishboxes.com/2020/1/13/21064270/mlb-commissioner-rob-manfreds-full-statement-on-the-houston-astros-sign-stealing-investigation a

At this point the players and coaches and FO completed year-end organizational meetings. Unless something big is in the works, can only speculate why Hahn hasn't hosted this discussion. Chicago N.L.: Jed Hoyer - October 9th Teams eliminated in the Division Series Year End Press Conferences: Tampa Bay: Erik Neander - October 12th Milwaukee: David Stearns - October 15th San Francisco: Farhan Zaidi - October 18th Chicago A.L.: Rick Hahn ??? - Date ??? The FO stonewalled last winter after Tony's latest publicly known DUI arrest was known a few days after his hire. Tony was not available at the Managers meetings in December. Hahn made no comments or took no questions on it through the winter, and refused to answer Danny Parkins' question about it at Hahn's Spring Training Press Conference, still very relevant with the news below breaking earlier in the day from Reinsdorf's leak receptacle.

I'm a huge Conforto fan. He is a perfect fit.

Agreed. I think Madrigal is a ~2-ish WAR "just a guy" type. In a vacuum, he's not much. But, to THIS lineup, at the league minimum salary, he was ideal. IOW, he was more valuable to our SOX than he would be to other MLB teams. And yes, we get frustrated seeing them scrimp and save and ID/acquire/extend core pieces during the rebuild. Then we get frustrated when they stoopidly trade for a guy who fucks your financial flexibility and who wouldn't (BY HIMSELF) get this team past the trashstros, even if he was lights out. Yes, they can recover, but they made their own lives harder, for no good fucking reason.

Yep. Madrigal was a great fit in this lineup. Stupid fucking trade. But he's not a world beater and he's a Cub now. Time to move on. ITs a trade the Sox can recover from if they stop making stupid fucking trades. Trading Eloy or Andrew Vaughn at this moment would qualify as stupid fucking trades.

Plus its all just not fair to the fans (of course why should they matter in all this /sarc). I used to have a buddy growing up. We would play wiffle ball in the back yard. I was a Sox fan; he was a Cards fan. Each of us would mimic the lineup of our team and it we knew our lineups by rote because that's what the teams put out every day. We could have probably recited each other's lineups at the end of the summer. Those days are gone.

I think you're right. The team never seemed to peak except at the start of the season when it had all the injuries. But I recall other division-winning seasons, and you could see when a team was getting it together. I felt that especially in 1983 and 1993. But not in 2021. Injuries had to have something to do with it, The constant juggling of lineups prevents a team from getting into a real groove. Hopefully in 2022, the team will be relatively healthy. But there are still issues with club, healthy or not.

The right answer continues to be “the field”. There are hundreds of bench coaches, pitching coaches, position coaches, minor league coaches in this sport. You can’t interview them all, but there is no reason you can’t interview over a dozen. You will probably get better at the interview each time too! You do that and you find the right balance of attitude, intelligence, experience, and a philosophy that fits with the front office. They shouldn’t agree on everything, but they should come to a fit after a second or third interview. Brian Snitker worked his way up through the Braves organization for decades. Kevin Cash retired as a catcher then caught on as Francona’s bullpen coach in Cleveland. AJ Hinch was going to managers meetings before he retired, took over Arizona’s minor league system afterwards (and was there for the Chris Young time), managed the DBacks, was fired, and the Astros found his philosophy to mesh with what they were trying to build a few years later. Alex Cora was a Houston bench coach and now he’s unbeatable in the playoffs. Dave Martinez was a bench coach for so long we wondered why he couldn’t get a job and he finally got one and won the 2019 title. There is no single answer on how to do this correctly. A White Sox retread with no interview was the only wrong answer. If Hinch came out of an interview process, fine. But ruling out hundreds of people because they aren’t former white Sox managers was and is silly.

He is not a problem now IMO. I do think it's time to move him down in the batting order, however.

3 war first baseman is the least of our problems.

Ron this is just sad.

Abreu (and TA) will retire here, these threads are dumb Guys I would look at possibly moving would be Grandal (I didn't know he was this bad defensively) and possibly Eloy or Vaughn, use them to upgrade at spots like RF and SP I'm not saying trade all 3 guys, but I would definitely look at moving one of them if the return was decent

and throw in Collins or Seby to sweeten the deal.

Get the GM really really high and have him agree to Ohtani and Fletcher for Kimbrel and Keuchel.

Of course Keuchel is better at holding runners. Look at how much practice he got.

TL;DR RH: Something something obviously disappointed something something something nobody is more disappointed than Jerry, Kenny, and myself something something our window is just starting to open blah blah blah take the next step