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Yeah, I call major bullshit on this one. If this team was headed to the World Series right now, you think they aren't having a 2023 Soxfest, because of "lack of space?" Come on

Ozzie or Thome will not be the next White Sox manager.

Let’s just hope if it is Getz, Beckham doesn’t say anything stupid when he’s announcing.

https://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/2022/9/28/23377048/cubs-convention-return-2023 The Cubs announced on Sept 28 of this year...less than a month ago. Again, I'm calling bullshit. There is ZERO evidence to support anything other than they don't want to face a group of angry fans. They didn't even cite an actual reason for cancelling.

This is the most insecure and judgemental take on Soxfest I have ever seen. Why worry so much about what Sox fans find entertainment in?

No

I don't understand? What is not hard rock about this?.....

Couldn't they just use a game console of some kind? Just plug in the parameters of the situation before every pitch. It does the math and spews out managerial instructions kinda ticker tape style? Then everybody can argue with a stupid fucking machine.

This is where I agree. We all know the sox aren't going to hire the best guy for the job. But at least getz will remove some of Hahn's obfuscation on whether the team would be performing better if it followed more of his offices edicts. That's helpful! I think hahn is absolute trash as a GM, but many are convinced TLR caused many of the teams faults last year and was at odds with Hahn. Well, Getz would remove that obstacle and align more of the player dev instructs to the major league level, and has a better rapport with Hahn. If they succeed, Hahn can say I told you so. If they fail, there is one less mirror he can use. I guess what I'm saying is we're already dying and this may get us to peace faster.

With only 30 of these jobs in the world, and baseball not being splitting the atom difficult, you would think they could hire a pretty spectacular manager by accident.

Heavens to murgatroid!

I don't think there's anything wrong with Willie Harris. He's put in his dues managing, a couple of orgs thought highly of him now. Relative to their timidity to hiring outside voices, he's an outsider.

Why? Discouraging preemptive unfounded outrage would basically be the end of Soxtalk.

I mean, JT Realmuto is both their best player and the highest paid catcher in all of baseball. They also traded a ton get him, although he has been worth every penny. Not trying to discredit your point, but probably important to point out. That being said, Hahn’s ability to supplement this roster via free agency has been disastrous. IMO, there are two reasons for this. First, was several big misses in free agency that resulted in dollars being allocated differently than originally planned. Second, was the absolute failure to develop cheap pre-arb talent to provide above replacement level production at certain spots. Regarding the first point, everything probably changes if Jerry nuts up and signs Machado to the deal the Padres offered. Additionally, let’s not forgot that Hahn actually prioritized a Wheeler signing and made a higher offer than the Phillies, but lost out due to geographical considerations. Can’t blame Hahn for the miss there, but can blame him for panic signing Dallas Keuchel. Yes, he delivered in a COVID shortened 2020 season, but was basically useless 18 months into that deal and was never going to be a true TOR starter for us. So instead of having a cornerstone 3B & SP to build around for ~$55M/year in payroll commitments, those funds went elsewhere. Grandal is currently the largest free agency acquisition in franchise history at 4/$73M. I was a huge fan of the signing and won’t rip it now, especially when we needed a LH bat and the alternative was overpaying for James McCann. The problem was that was our only true high impact move in free agency. Maybe you can argue the Hendriks signing being one given how elite he is, but at the end of the day he is a reliever and that limits his potential impact to some extent. But that doesn’t explain where all the money went. Let’s lay this all out. The core pieces that Hahn acquired during the rebuild accounted for ~$50M in salary this year (Moncada, Anderson, Robert, Eloy, Vaughn, Giolito, Cease, Kopech, Lopez, & Bummer). Beyond Grandal, Keuchel, & Hendriks (who made a combined ~$49M this year), the other two expensive core pieces were Lynn ($18.5M) & Abreu ($14M). That’s ~$132M in total payroll for seven everyday positional guys, four starters, and three high leverage relievers. That gave Hahn ~$54M to finish offer the roster. And that’s where the second problem comes in. Because Hahn failed to build a steady pipeline of talent during the rebuild years, the Sox didn’t have cheap options from within to fill their remaining holes. Hostetler’s focus early on in low ceiling college bats with little to no defensive utility (Collins, Burger, Sheets, etc) created a system that lacked athleticism. The Robert signing limited what Paddy could do in subsequent years, which hurt our up-the-middle depth (just starting to see the fruits of his labor here with Sosa & Popeye). Getz & staff could not develop the few fringe prospects we had like Rutherford, Adolfo, Basabe, & Gonzalez into legitimate major league options (although SF did with the latter). And our pitching depth in the upper minors became a complete joke. Despite all the investments that we made into relief prospects, we struggled to develop a critical mass of major league caliber bullpen arms. Quite frankly, the prospect cupboard was quickly empty after the first few waves and organizational depth became non-existent. So coming full circle, where did that other ~$54M go? Hahn spent $11.5M on Pollock to solve “RF” for a year (despite not being a RF) because all our minor league options had failed and Colas & Cespedes weren’t ready yet. He spent a combined $9.5M on Leury & Harrison to fill 2B for a year and provide some up-the-middle depth that he thought the system couldn’t. Rick spent $18M on two high-leverage relievers and a shitty swingman because the farm literally had nothing to offer. For that same $39M, we could have Bryce Harper playing RF ($26M) right now with Eduardo Escobar at 2B ($10M). All it took was for Hahn’s staff to develop four pre-arb guys to fill out a major league bench and bullpen, but unfortunately that was too much to ask for after a multi-year rebuild TLDR - So yes, Hahn’s ability to supplement this roster via free agency has been a complete & utter disaster, but beyond just the poor resource allocation is an organization wide incompetence that lead him to prioritize depth over impact talent in free agency. And it’s those core failings in draft strategy and player development that should prevent from ever being a major league GM again.

Looking at the Phillies further reveals how stupid Hahn is with his budget. The Phillies use minimum salary players at C, SS, CF, 3B, none of whom produced particularly well. They didn't spend much on the pen. But they spent their money on 2 good hitters (Schwarber and Castellanos), on "premium talent" in Wheeler and esp. Bryce Harper. The Sox signed no "premium talent", and poured money into the bullpen, 2B, UI and C. Most of those players figured to be nothing but hole-fillers anyway; the only compelling signees were Lynn, Grandal and Hendriks. Sox had a stronger base to start than the Phillies, and should be able to do what they did while spending less.

Yeah, it’s very clear to me that Jerry is the root of most of our problems. I do think we see a transformation once he finally sells the team (assuming it’s not to his son). To me, this franchise should be a powerhouse and it has operated so unlike how good businesses do for so many years. Invest in a consistent, quality product and people will want to consume it in droves. Unfortunately, Jerry is a “can’t spend a dollar if I only have 50 cents” type guy and will never budge from that sort of operating principle. Just got to hope Mellody Hobson & George Lucas or whoever ends up buying the team will let its employees run without too much interference while also holding them accountable. And yeah, plenty to be excited for back in Chicago beyond just the Sox. Just wish the Sox would do me some favors as I work to get my sons interested in the team and professional baseball in general.

Why do other franchises...even historically bad ones, have zero problems putting together entertaining offseason events?

I'd just like to point out that Soxfest sucks. There is no reason to subject our players to this. They don't need to fly kids from the DR into hell on earth (Chicago in January) to sign autographs for fat guys in fake Paul Konerko jerseys. It isn't good for business and is super awkward. Those great Q&A sessions where we get footage of a season ticket holder from Orland mispronouncing prospect names while yelling at Rick have like 50 people in attendance, 25 of which are lost. 99.8% of sox fest is weird people buying old bobbleheads and waiting 45 minutes for their third Harold Baines autograph because the Chicago winters are boring. I wish the Sox would have just said "Soxfest sucks, so do we, and we aren't doing it anymore".

That was the way. It was blindingly obvious. We were in the perfect position to complete our core with a generational superstar at a position of historic need for a comparative bargain and we just said....nah.

A marketable young superstar available with limited other suiters...I thought Harper was always the way to go....plus he didn't have friends and family to sign before pursuing him. Memories of that offseason also bug me.

Can we just manage by committee from Soxtalk? Soxtalk California branch can handle the West coast games, the guy who lives in Seattle can handle when they play in Seattle, the guy who lives in/near Minneapolis can manage when they are in to play the Twins, Soxtalk Chicagoland area gets home games/when they play the Cubs, and naturally, Greg gets to manage when they are in KC.

The day this team is sold and we get a new owner will be the greatest day in my Sox lifetime fandom, other than the 2005 World Series championship.

I wonder what it feels like to be a fan of a team that conducts real, serious managerial searches.

Why does Getz working with the Royals after everything fell apart at the seams with that organization make him uniquely qualified for anything beyond Wal Mart greeter? Are we attempting to recreate another Dayton Moore type regime? Why would that make even the least amount of sense with his lack of experience as a manager at any level. Kenny Williams would make just as much if not more sense, it's so improbable. Why not add Marco Paddy and Hector Mendoza into the mix too, lol? Does anyone really believe a Getz or Beckham have the swag/cultural cache to get anything more out of Moncada, Grandal and Robert, for example? Why/how? By some of the arguments, we would be better off sneaking the Cuban National/WHBC manager into the US and installing him as manager. It makes about as much sense.

My guy would be Alomar Jr. JR,and KW love him, and he knows what is wrong with the White Sox.

Not gonna lie - I had a mini heart attack when I misread "TL;DR" as "TLR."

Then Ken Williams Jr can take over the minor leagues!!!!!

No he doesn't. Although I'd take the field over Espada at this point.

He kinda did actually. They clearly weren't willing to coach Marcus Semien on any position and labeled him as a crappy failed utility guy the moment he got to the big leagues since he couldn't hit that well and hadn't figured out how to field in the infield on his own. Teaching him would have been too much work, and quitting is easier than working hard, so he was dumped on the As as another sweet deal where we didn't have to send out too much.

Hiring Getz and cancelling Soxfest to avoid the fans shows they don’t give a f*** about the fans or what they think. What a bunch of cowards.

It is possible that Espada has seen how our Sox operate and is not interested.

Hiring Chris Getz for manager would be the equivalent of flipping the bird to the fan base. Robin Ventura 2.0. So much for the rebuild and the competitive window.

To me, the biggest organizational failure going back to the KW era is in its inability to draft and develop.

Rick Hahn is full of s%*#.

I agree, this organization is very very bad at making decisions. Getz doesn’t even match the criteria that Hahn was laying out. Leads me to believe that they don’t know what the f*** they are doing.

Maybe we should let them make the decision first.

Makes sense since they cancelled Soxfest. They don’t want to be boo’d or have to answer any questions. Pathetic honestly. This organization can’t get out of its own way.

https://www.mlb.com/news/bryce-harper-deal-boosts-phillies-ticket-sales

Aaron Rowand, Joe Crede, and Steve Perry

I do think somehow, even at current levels, it is underrated how bad Hahn is here at soxtalk.

If Washington were the guy, they would’ve announced it by now.

That rebuild was popular. This one would not be.

They deserve any and all criticism for what amounts to pure cowardice.

Spineless bunch of ass ?, that want no part of facing the fans for 2022 debacle. Jerry F’N sell, any last bit of respect fans had is gone!

Guys: We all know the reason why this gutless, inept, dysfunctional, incompetent organization isn't having a fan convention. The last thing they wanted to do was have to answer questions from the fan base as to why this rebuild/contention window has gone right down the toilet.

1) f*** the Astros 2) Validates spending big on a superstar free agent Yeah, go Phillies.

Probably another old man.

This is not a second guess Please don’t think it is But I have been against preller from the get go for his tactics He mortgaged the future for a spin on the roulette wheel The most egregious move was the Soto trade I was hoping the pads would not make playoffs so he would get fired already But now he will be around for a few years so he can make more desperate moves to hurt the long term future more than he did already reply In reply to chipperstein Yup, I have called Preller a degenerate gambler on here and been properly slapped down for it. The degenerate part isn't a statement about his character, but a description of a compulsive type GM style. With those type people the action is more important than getting long term results. They just have to get those dopamine highs on a regular basis. His idea on how to build a team has changed about 4 times in 8 years with a giant juggling of players with each move. An organization has to have some healthy mix of young controllable talent mixed in with a few quality veterans to lead the way. Preller keeps prepping good young players all the way to MLB ready before shipping them off in huge numbers, often with a whole group of talented top prospects going for only one veteran player on a short contract. gaslampball.com game thread comments

These two quotes show you how his attitude has changed over the years: “Eddie and I never discussed how to talk to reporters. We’ve just been ourselves. I always though Jack Kennedy was the kind of person I looked up to in that regard. He always gave the media a fair shake and understood you guys have a job to do. Without responsible people willing to divulge some accurate information, it’s hard to do it right. It was a much better approach then Nixon, who figured the media, was his enemy. Doing it Kennedy’s way just makes a lot more sense to me. After all, nobody can buy the kind of advertising Chicago teams get. What other line of work finds newspapers assigning people to follow you around and write about how the business is doing every day? At Balcor, we have to hire a public relations firm to get our names in the paper. When baseball teams get that for free, it makes sense to cooperate.” – Jerry Reinsdorf to Bob Logan. From the book ‘Miracle On 35th Street.’ Pg. 154. Published 1983. “The idea that I must talk to the media in order to know what is going on with our fans or the public is ludicrous. I communicate with fans on an almost daily basis and often hear comments from people on the street and in the ballpark. We have committed a lot of resources to market research each year, whether it is telephone or internet polling, mall intercepts, focus groups or in-park surveys. We believe these surveys are the most impartial way to hear from our fans. I don't think a media interview gives me the same type of insight into what our fans think and feel. Believe me, our fans tell us. They care and they are passionate. I like that about sports. The fact is that I do speak publicly when there is an issue of importance to our fans and to the franchises. I owe that to our fans. But again, I don't really think people want to hear from me or go to the game to see me. I hope not.” – Jerry Reinsdorf quoted on the “official” White Sox web site, www.whitesox.com, August 16, 2004.

Why would any Sox player even be considered?... they looked buffoonish in the field.