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It's so frustrating that we can't dream like this. He'll probably replace stearns in milwaukee or something.

Gotta swing around at some point. I do get so annoyed thinking about teams like the Grizzlies who are exciting as hell and drafted well, but were also rewarded with the excellent draft position for their few poor years. WHile the bulls miserable years net us terrible draft position. The bulls could have done a lot better, but they had a run of luck similar to the Magic. It makes it extremely difficult to turn it around.

was just going to come in here and say it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if we faced some tough injuries this year in a harder east. So many decent west teams were rewarded by just having much worse records in a better league. Time for that to happen to ze bulls.

I would definitely take like 50:1 odds on it being Thome.

Managing the clubhouse is 1000x more important to me than lineup construction.

I'm going to guess soxmachine, i'll take a look.

Not thrilled with zombies but Al Lopez does have a strong resume. No to Colas. Still would be pro Jim Thome don't care.

I do think I would be most interested in Beltran. But, I have a huge, wide group I'd be happy with. Would I be unhappy with Jirschele promotion? not really.

It's a shame it is so hard to track free agent acquisitions, really hard given they are tracked at an org level and trying to sift through ST invites, etc. Would love to have kept track of Hahn's total acquired WAR through FA vs. money spent and compare to other teams.

It is crazy how unhelpful the traffic mgmt cops are. One particularly tough game last year I got off at 90/94 and was going to the cash lots, suddenly they kept sending us south on Wentworth and not letting us turn on Pershing. I thought they were doing this in a thoughtful way and would swing us back around down like Princeton. Nope. Turns out they got annoyed that Pershing was so backed up at the light they “solved” it by just forcing the game traffic south. It was so dumb. Obviously it’s very hard to turn on a non light on Pershing, ended up grabbing a side street and carrying my son for ages. Missed 3 innings.

Just in continuing to build the case that Hahn is bad, I will keep drilling comparisons to the Atlanta Braves. For those new to my series, titled "Rick Hahn is bad", I've chosen the Braves because they to me are the most similar franchise to the White Sox. If that sounds odd, I'm referring to: - They are in same market group designations as the White Sox, so they do not get extra first round picks or international money (in fact, they've been crushed in international since the Coppy fiasco) - Have a strong but fickle fan base with a not great tv market that has put their budget in a lower stratosphere than the big market Dodgers/Giants/Red Sox/Cubs/Yankees/Mets/Phillies that are also teams who lack the additional team building boosts. For example, the estimated final payroll (I really can't find a site I like for this, but this comes from fangraphs roster resource) has the 2022 payroll of the Braves (post WORLD SERIES) at 188 million, less than the final 2022 payroll for the white sox of $196M. Both were also at similar payrolls. My thing with just firing Hahn for a new GM that, while likely being hand tied at how much can be done to revolutionize the MLB roster, could get a head start in trying to improve the organizations scouting and player development to be among the best in the game...which ANY franchise can achieve regardless of market size as the Tampa Rays and Guardians have shown. The Braves you may have noticed also had some underperforming stars this year. Albies and Acuna were injured for much of the year and not great in terms of production. Rosario's playoff magic did not translate at all, and Marcell Ozuna was awful in more ways than one. Matt Olson was good but not up to typical Matt Olson standards. Ian Anderson took a big step back, Odorizzi was a bad pickup, and Will Smith regressed in the bullpen. That is not the depths of struggles of the White Sox, as some guys had career years (Swanson and Riley). But the sox also had some of that of their own. Anyway this is a long way to get to the big difference between the franchises is while Hahn's minor leagues were completely tapped out by the time our team arrived in 2020, the Braves has not stopped. The modern braves arrived in 2018 when Acuna and Albies flew thru the ranks and added to longtime vets (Freeman) and smart trades (Inciarte and Swanson). Their starting pitching that year consisted of Julio Teheran, Folty, Sean Newcomb, Anibal Sanchez, and Brandon McCarthy. They still had one of the top farms in baseball. In 2019, they added from their farm Austin Riley, Mike Soroka and Max Fried join the rotation. In 2020, they added from their farm Ian Anderson, Touki Toussaint, and Kyle Wright. In 2021, they added from their farm William Contreras and Kyle Muller. In 2022, they added from their farm Michael Harris and Vaughn Grissom. Harris hits a 135 OPS+, Grissom a 118 OPS+ playing dynamic CF and 2b. They added Spencer Strider who was one of the best pitchers in baseball in the second half. They were able to replace Freddie Freeman with Matt Olson by trading out top prospect Christian Pache and Shea Langeliers. Look at their SP compared to 2018. Look at their bullpen. Look at their position players. You cannot have sustained excellence merely on the backs of your core being strong every year. You have to add and add and add and add and add and add. The pipeline can't stop. Michael Harris was a 3rd round pick in 2019, 20th overall. The Braves paid him 500k. 17 picks earlier the white sox took Andrew Dalquist and paid him 2 million. Did I mention he's a lefty? Vaughn Grissom is an 11th rounder from 2019. Shea Langeliers was picked 9th overall in 2019 which led to Olson. In 2020, they selected Spencer Strider in the 4th round for 500k. Because of the Jared Kelly bonus, the white sox selected a 10k signing who I don't know has played in baseball yet. They entered the year 22nd in org rankings for their farm. But that still allowed them to acquire Matt Olson, and introduce the possible NL rookie of year with either Strider or Harris. a 4th round pick and a 3rd. We will focus on the signings and ML budget. But it is all so much harder for the sox because they cannot sustainably bring talent in from draft and intl, and develop it.

I’d just start colas in RF right away unless he looks awful in ST. Guy lost way too much time in signing and his control benefits will be minimal.

Would have been a poor time to trade him imo.

He’s a 115 wRC+ first baseman. Not exactly the rarest profile out there.

Why are we acting like other teams think Vaughn is super valuable?

I like Abreu but 2014 Konerko was not fun or enjoyable. I wish we were like the Guardians and had a bunch of athletic, young, defensively sound players and getting a corner infielder in helps with the offense. But we’re a team with a bunch of 15 home run hitting DHs. You only have so many resources to go around.

I suppose at this point I shouldn't assume Tom Brady getting injured this year means he doesn't play next year since he is now unleashed.

season long IR. I am also done with musty. I hope Leatherwood gets better from mono soon, or Zach Thomas has improved, because it is seriously hard to believe that the dropoff from patrick at LG is going to be worse than still having Mustipher get bulldozed.

I believe hahn should go after players he thinks should improve the team and pay them money to do so, and manage internal politics effectively like a President position should be able to do. What pre-TLR solutions did Hahn bring in that led you to believe it was TLR sabotage? There was no player he signed that did not fit Hahn's previous patterns of outfielder acquisitions, gleeful spending on bullpen, or "flyer" pitchers to round out the rotation. The only player that has ever surprised me from Hahn was Yasmani Grandal (good signing imo).

No, that's not fair. The biggest impact a new GM would have is bringing someone in who can strive to get us to be a top player development organization and maximize our avenues to cost-controlled talent. That is the first line. The new GM would not do things like ignore getting an easy top 50 pick in the draft because you may be stuck with a top 5 cy young candidate. The new GM would not trade out our international money when we get fewer resources to sign young players than the other teams in the division. The new GM would stop paying for utility players like Bonifacio and Leury Garcia. If Hahn had any idea how to to any of that stuff he wouldn't be bitching about payroll. He's the one who has relied on free agency so much for his team building. He can't trade because he ignored the developing of talent needed to supplement the ML level in both trades and call-ups. He had to buy bullpen because you can just look at our AA and AAA squads right now. And yes, I traded Giolito, who has 1 year left and is going to make $10 million and I get a nice LH outfield prospect and a strong defensive infield prospect who are major league ready. I trade hendriks because we cannot have $500 million in our bullpen and we already have a closer in Graveman. I get back a prove-it second baseman in a contract year with the potential to be a contract year pop-up player that we could get a comp pick back for since he's an offseason trade, and the yankees have been lukewarm on and likely will go after Turner. I sign pitchers that are reasonable to sign under JR because they are older and less likely to sign long term deals. But I have more confidence in Bassitt to be good next year than Giolito so I make the trade-off, especially since I do not like any of the free agent outfielders as a likely fit for JR and as a productive fit for our needs.

I'm assuming a quality GM has an actual ability to use information not available to me. But I don't quibble with the idea the roster largely needs to move forward, I put forward my "eat s%*# and deal with it" roster that I do think gets them to the playoffs because I still cannot imagine Grandal and Moncada being this bad, but it is deeper, and I don't have the benefit of all the salary amounts yet but I figured this was about the same salary range as this year. I appreciate that you acknowledge that Hahn's decisions are of the same level as a fan with only an ability to search fangraphs and baseball savant, but despite me actually being a big Canha fan, I'd have chosen neither. Last offseason I set a number of things the sox needed to balance to compete with the Astros, and acquiring a right-handed hitting LFer just did not fit on the list. I point out that there were a number of outfielders that moved teams last year and he chose among the worst one (he didn't go after Castellanos! Yay). I didn't even bring up a Starling Marte, whom WAS someone he couldn't get with Jerry as an owner.

Rick Hahn built the most expensive bullpen in baseball and it ended up 20th in ERA. His committed money is still $50 million in the bullpen for next year. Schwarber signed for 4 years, $79 million, not $100 million. That's $7 million more than Yasmani Grandal 3 years ago. He couldn't afford it because Rick started the offseason at $180 million with a $16 million closer he needed to unload. I don't just b**** and moan about the players he doesn't get, I b**** and moan about the players he does get. They are both bad. Rick held on to a $16 million contract so he could trade it for a 2 year $30 million outfielder who ranked 40th out of 49 outfielders in fWAR. The Mets paid Mark Canha 2 years $26 million and got 2.5 WAR and a 126 wRC+. That's not $100 million. That's just deciding to not pick up the option on Kimbrel and going after Mark Canha. What's that? But Mark Canha's a LFer...oh no. The Royals got Benintendi and cash for a RFer for Franchy Cordero whom they acquired for a middle reliever. No prospects needed. Benintendi finished 18th out of 49 qualified outfielders and was paid $4.5 million. The Phillies took on Schwarber for $20 million, that would have cost the white sox not getting AJ Pollock AND Josh Harrison, but they would have gotten 20 more HRs from the left side. Tony Kemp, soxtalk soup de jour in the offseason to replace our 2b, was only barely outhit by pollock and his superior defense actually put him ahead of Pollock by 1 WAR. He made $10 million less. The fun thing about baseball is we have 29 other orgs that we can look at with similar circumstances and info and say, hey how are they doing compared to our org. The answer, unless you are the Rockies or Tigers...is better.

Counterpoint - You can't get fired - One of the easier divisions to play in - Clear regression upside and one playoff series leads you to super double protective status

I don't buy this at all. Regression is bound to happen, but what are we regressing to? A world series champion? Hahn has shown the only pieces he is capable of putting money behind is an atrociously overpriced bullpen and 35 year old veterans. Another GM may be able to reconfigure the roster for better cohesion between offensive power and defensive production, without even bursting through 200 million. I know you will say the phillies new GM just spent through it and we can't, but they took over an operation that Dombrowski could have spent through as well. They hired the best hitting instructor in baseball, brought in big bats, and moved from 16th to 9th in wRC+ this year despite missing Harper for half of it and not getting 2nd half harper from last year. Some was regression, some wasn't. There are plenty of people that could have taken Hahns constraints and still thrived. We've said it before, but if you would have told us in 2019 we'd have a 180 million budget in 2022 we'd have been through the moon. And then if you'd have showed us what that roster looked like we would have looked bewildered. This roster just needs some tweaks but the only playbook hahn has will be more bullpen and sub $10 million flyers in RF/2b/SP

It's actually astounding how bad that WR class is. But FA WRs are always a bit of fools gold. You basically have to slot a first round WR in, which...good. At this rate it's the new edge rusher. But my dream available WRs keep getting more and more far fetched. Now it's basically that Brady gets hurt, the Bucs realize they aren't near a contender without him and need to start over for the following year, so they trade Evans with a year left. ...yeah... But Other than that maybe Michael thomas is available? But saints always seem like they'll have to make hard decisions and never seem to.