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There are no good answers here. The organizational rot goes all the way to the top. A new GM, VP baseball ops, whatever, still has to work for JR. The farm is barren, the FO can't identify talent, draft, and or develop, an the chairman likely wants to cut costs. I can't remember a time when fan apathy has been at this level, at least not since the White Flag trade. Attendance will be down, as well as eyeballs watching on tv. They did this all to themselves, and of course they have no clue how to fix it, but even if they did, how would they? I foresee trading of rentals & short term assets for near ready "prospects", signing of stopgaps, and a whole lot of hot air from the FO about the window still being open, and liking what they have, and their ability to compete for the division. All while they struggle to win 60 games next season and still face zero accountability. It is going to be ugly.

Every attempt to bury Grifol is just an excuse to not bury Hahn ( or above). Lame.

Tanking is definitely an option and probably a likely option now, not sure why it’s being dismissed. Doesn’t matter if you intended to rebuild it if you have to rebuild it

Kenny’s inability to do anything with anything he built resulted in them kicking him upstairs and putting Hahn in his place and creating this fog of confusion where nobody can pinpoint who has been completely responsible for anything. Was it KW getting his guy? No it was Hahn getting someone he wanted 4 years ago in the draft. neither of them should handle July. Neither have earned it. They both probably will and we will watch them dictate the future of the team they already fucked up

Meh. Grifol is the obvious scapegoat and the company men probably know he’s fair game. Wake me up when they take JR to task for the state of this org…

Maybe they can get a guy like Dane Dunning for Giolito.

Do you remember last year when they called up Sosa from AA and sat on the bench and had 7 pretty nothing at bats? They had Remillard in AAA, who can play multiple positions. Would have been much more trusted from Tony too and they needed a body. Just horrendous scouting of their own players consistently. He's not a future starter, but he is a guy that can plug in and play competently - which sosa was not at that point. edit: and the people who follow the minors (like myself) pointed this out, that if they were going to call up someone and barely play them Remillard was a good choice.

Sounds like you made the correct pitch to Jerry

but anyway, this is nihilist soxtalk now. I will cheer when Hahn leaves. But there is like zero date to true resolution. The McCaskeys are terrible owners, but at least they cycle thru people that show themselves terrible, and even though they will hire likely bad choices, we still have hope. We entered this year and only one thing could happen - they needed to win. ANd they are one of the worst teams in baseball and in an org that refuses to judge success by anything other than congeniality in the executive ranks.

yes, though will always stress that the CBA changes in 2012 moved sharply in hahn's favor. OTOH Kenny oversaw someone who was siphoning money from his operation and was federally convicted and also wasn't delivering good players so weird how he kept the job so long.

They all need to go. It’s not Pedro’s fault they suck, but he’s done nothing to show he is a capable major league manager. The team needs to cut its losses.

Yawn boring. Grifol may be a s%*# stain on the carpet, but Rick/Jerry/Kenny are the huge pile in the middle of the room.

Giolito is one of the best SP available at a deadline in a big sellers market, he is going to return something or things of value on paper. Doesn't matter who the GM is, the names coming back will be good ones. If they work out or not, that's another story. The other option is to let him walk with a rejected QO and get a pick in the 3rd round range. Bleck, I would rather roll the dice on some players we already have seen professionally.

"What do you mean zero playoff wins? We won that game in Oakland and we beat Houston at home when Leury Garcia hit that magical home run. But I guess you want to run with your negative narrative."

I'm guessing Balta is comparing the Sox injury situation to other teams and from that perspective he's probably right. But.......... Given the Sox have ZERO depth, as you said ANY injury kills them and the fact that the "core" group, the players they were building around, can't seem to go a month without something happening makes your point valid. This has been the situation for years going back to the start of the rebuild in 2016 when they had trouble keeping people healthy at all levels.

I think a better question is how does the fan base move forward? The answer to me and I'm not being facetious is to take care of yourself...watch what you eat/drink, see your doctor, exercise and hope to be around when new ownership takes over as it must at some point in time. Seriously because nothing is really going to significantly change until ownership does. This organization is so incompetent, dysfunctional and inept that whatever they do will probably be half-assed and blow up in their faces. When you have as many serious issues as this franchise has in so many different areas...from talent, depth, unwillingness to take risks, poor development at all levels, "baseball-stupid" players and self-imposed financial limitations in the name of "fiscal responsibility" I don't see any way out with the current individuals running things.

You nailed it. This is exactly what will happen. The Sox ownership and front office live in an alternate reality. They will go back to the hope everything goes right and catch lighting in a bottle approach. No one is getting fired. No one will be held accountable. There will be no more Sox Fests. These guys will simply go back into their shells and hide for a few years.

Unless I'm really fucking up at reading the CBA rules (possible) and have been spamming them across the board incorrectly, if the Sox get a top 6 pick this year, they can't get higher than 10 next year. Tanking next year would only save Jerry money and nothing else.

My guess is they told him they don't want him anymore.

How do you quantify "quite healthy" when Moncada, Eloy, TA, Clevinger, Kelly, Crochet, Liam, and Romy have all missed significant time, and AV is in a walking boot with no word on how long he will be out? I know you love to argue and to correct people, but my point about injuries being an issue still stands. This org never values depth, which only exacerbates the injury issues. It was as predictable as anything.

Remember JR said that finishing third could mean a good season ?

They would need to go 29-32. Seems unattainable.

Why would we expect these clowns to win games when they still have the same poor plate approach and discipline. 13 K's 0 BB, 11 groundball outs. This is a seriously flawed offensive team with a really dumb baseball IQ. That was Graveman's 4th blown save and 2nd in his last three attempts. When is Grifol going to make a note to himself, that it's not a good idea to let Graveman close games. Not only does Grifol need to be fired, but also Katz as he doesn't bring anything to this staff. Great job from Hahn in building a reliable bullpen, as well as having plenty of good arms to bring up from AAA. ?

Then make him hire Getz as the new NW baseball coach. Sweet dreams are made of this. Who am I to disagree…

Has Soxfest been cancelled yet? These friggin cowards don't want to face the music. Get some balls and answer questions from the fans who you bamboozled with your championship window debacle.

The hate for Grifol is misplaced because the other cowards are all hiding Kenny (i have always liked Kenny but he has hidden) Hahn Reinsdorf The real cowards! They are leading the slaughter of Grifol while they hide.

Agree but he’s not the primary issue. If he managed Tampa they’d still be in the playoffs. If Kevin Cash was our manager we’d still be a pile of crap.

I get Giolito is going to be traded. That doesn't mean it's the right decision. Plus you and nobody else here can assure me that the Sox will be better off for trading Gio. Hahn sucks at negotiating and making trades. Why of all of sudden well he be brilliant and start playing chess when he is only a checkers player. Again you need starters. You make it sound like they just fall right off trees. If Hahn was so good at finding starters, then why do we have the worst pitching in the minors of probably all 30 ML teams? Let's see who we get back on the Giolito trade. It will be fun tracking the prospects and see of any of them amount to anything. My bet is doesn't make us any better in the long run. In the meantime Giolito will go to a good team like the Rays for example and they will make him an all-star.

David Stearns has had a year to live a normal life and didn't yet go running to the mets. Granted, his contract ends after this year and he probably runs to the mets. But on the other hand, by all accounts (a quick google search) he has a beautiful home on Milwaukee's east side. You can't just buy that in new york, no way. So I'd point out that Hawk Harrelson probably commuted farther while calling games as an 80 something year old who couldn't see. Those are things I'd do if I was a rich person who owned a baseball team that wanted it to be a winning team more than I wanted to pay people a salary to be my friend. That's what butlers are for.

I think in general the sentiment is correct that fans aren't smarter than GMs but white sox or at least soxtalk hivemind is the exception to the rule. We are absolutely better at this than Rick Hahn. I know I"d embarrass myself at a lot of setting up a complex organization, but on the other hand with a lot less data than Rick hahn this board makes a lot better decisions. Either Rick can't read or the data his team creates is bad, and he's never decided to correct it.

Trade Giolito, Lynn, Kelly, Lopez, Middleton and Yaz to the highest bidders the next week. Fire the entire front office this offseason. Hire completely un-White Sox related individuals. Let them decide if Pedro deserves another chance, and let them try to reshape the roster for 2024. That's about the only way forward. The 2nd line is never happening though - even if they fire Hahn (I will believe it when I see it), its going to be the same dudes running this mess until JR moves on.

Also if the new GM is Getz there’s a good chance he’s worse than the old GM.

I tried the first option about 1000 times. never lasted an entire 3 game series.

Pain.

Yeah and they can't even pick top 6 in consecutive years, which would functionally mean they're unable to pick top 10. They're going to have to draft, internationally sign and develop their way out of this and there's not a lot of hope on that front. Even though Montgomery and Schultz look really promising, Hernandez and Reyes (top international signings) look like a disaster. They also really did a 180 in the draft department, which makes no sense after seeing the early success of Montgomery/Schultz.

They’ve been quite healthy this season, among the healthier teams in the league. It only looks like injury matters because anyone getting hurt at all is an instant disaster since the only MLB level backup in the whole organization is Burger.

The other thing about it is generally the only GM jobs available are the least attractive ones. The good ones are already filled with competent people.

I honestly don't think it's an attractive job at all and the types of people it would be attractive too are the kind that will be awful GMs. You generally don't want to attract talent in a role like this which has a key selling point of "we won't fire you even after it's proven you are bad!" It is extremely unclear what are true Reinsdorf rules and what are decisions his incompetent executives have made. I think it's fair to say the "big contract" stuff is a Reinsdorf rule. He will never, ever set the market. The avoidance of top international talent seems to be a reinsdorf rule, but it's unclear whether that is truly the case. It has seemed - as seen by the draft - that when a set budget is placed in it seems like sox operate more freely. Was Reinsdorf against prep draft picks or where his deputies just constantly on the treadmill of trying to use the draft for immediate roster infusion - and thus college players. Who to blame for the lack of investment in the minors and player dev? If it is reinsdorf, there is really no way you can build a winner. We don't get awarded extra draft picks, so if we can't try to overwhelm other teams that do with superior PD, then it really does funnel straight to "we need to use ourslightly better major league roster salary budgets to gain an advantage over our division". But that comes back to we can't spend big numbers on top talent, only mid. It's really hard to know what makes this group mid all the way down.

This team is 24th in ERA and 25th in pitching WAR. They had a month long streak where they looked better thanks to the best BABIP in baseball by far, but that just means they’ve been streaky by chance. They’ve even been generally healthy, 4 of their opening day starters are here and no pitcher has been lost for the season. Their pitching isnt even ok. If they were an average offense and had this pitching in a normal division, they still wouldn’t be good.

It was fun going into the season with an open mind and optimism this year but man, that was short-lived.

The two primary differences between Kenny and Hahn are Kenny could assess baseball talent and was successful flipping his poor prospects for veteran talent. Hahn cannot assess talent, including in his own system, dealt his best prospects for bad end of line veterans, and hangs onto the bad ones until the point nothing can be salvaged. Hahn needed solid baseball people around him to help with player evaluation, but he instead hired Michigan cronies equally inept at talent evaluation.

Northwestern wouldn't even consider this loser on a list for first interviews.

I would be surprised if there is a majority that thinks about this right now

As is the reason for everyone, everywhere, it would be presumably money

He also was unable to do anything significant the winter before or the winter after, yet this guy is still in place. What a joke.

Hard to argue with any of what you propose. That said, remembering who owns this team, I'm 80% sure that Getz is the next GM. Only in Jerryland can all these incompetents keep getting promoted or kicked upstairs.

KW is taking over? We can narrow down who he’s targeting. Who is 38 and going to be a future hall of famer?

Would love to see attendance below 10k per game rest of season. Just to make a statement

Must be nice to drop a column every once in a while of the most obvious observations and get paid for it as your full time gig.