35thstreetswarm

Fair enough—replace “majority” with “large part.” The point stands, though—it would be odd to have an opinion of Hahn so rigid it would not be changed by the success of a rebuild that will define his career.

But to be fair the majority of his tenure has been defined by a strip-down rebuild (after a couple years trying to contend on the fly against his apparent wishes). The rebuild was designed to produce godawful, losing seasons. The ultimate success or failure of that project can’t be measured yet. If the Sox win the pennant in 2021 I think any reasonable fan would say “good job Rick Hahn.”

I defined it (for me) in my first paragraph. They start making playoff runs (plural) in 2020-2021; a genuine contending team starting next season. But you are kind of missing my point. Define it however you want: my point is that some here seem to have formed an opinion of Hahn’s efforts before their success (however you define it) can realistically be measured in the field, which seems backwards to me.

^^^case in point. So if Hahn engineers a successful rebuild and the White Sox become a good, contending team on his watch, you’d cheer if he left for another team? Why?

Serious question: if the rebuild “works,” i.e. Moncada, Anderson, Gio and Lopez continue to improve, Eloy mashes, some handful of prospects (probably Robert and Cease, maybe Kopech) comes up and contributes, we add a couple free agents and start making playoff runs in 2020-2021, will those of you who are down on Hahn change your minds? Or have past moves made him irredeemable in your eyes? I ask because for me Hahn’s grade is “incomplete,” as my ultimate impression of the job Hahn is doing is 100% tied to the rebuild. If it works on a reasonable timetable I’ll give him credit, regardless of how frustrated I may be with this off-season/the Tatis trade, etc. if it doesn’t, he’s got to go. But it feels like some of you have formed opinions that are so strong they’ll never be changed, and that may be divorced from the success of the team on the field.

You’re only a “devil’s advocate” in the alternate universe of a thread explicitly dedicated to negativity. We are not supposed to be competitive this year. Stop looking at the standings, and the performances of veteran stopgaps. This year is about the development of Moncada, Anderson, Lopez, Giolito and Eloy, and the prospects—headlined by Robert and Cease. Look around you: things are going quite well with this group on the whole, and Eloy hasn’t even really “arrived” yet given the injury. I don’t get the doom and gloom.

Summarizing what the Cubs did in 2015, 2016, etc. is irrelevant to the question I posed, which is: are they an undeniably "great" team in 2019? Here's another question for you - were they a "great" team in their most recent full season, when they missed the playoffs? (And please let me stop you before you argue that losing a game to the Rockies is "making the playoffs.") They are playing well this week, and time will tell whether they return to their heyday and you all get that dynasty you were promised. But it's been a pretty obvious downward trend since 2016, and it's just no longer self-evident that the Cubs are a great team. Sorry.

I think the statute is running on the "but you can't deny that they're great" qualifier, too. Are they?

Yawn. Replace Eloy with Moncada and these posters with footlontommylongodog. Seen it all before.

Amen. Go Sox!

Yes, why would you ever dare make a prediction as to what a player will do in a single game that hasn’t happened yet? That’s pure insanity! Why not just wait until the game is over and just report his stats? This is why I submit a blank bracket in every NCAA tournament pool. Anything else is just unreasonable.

Easy tiger. Just messing with you. Don’t go whipping out your net worth on me ?

Looking forward to lots of opportunities to list players' names in short, one- to two-line segments. Sometimes with first names, sometimes: what the hell Yelich, Cain, Braun, Bob Uecker Jon Rauch Rocky Biddle, Buehrle, Mike Caruso, Parque, (James Baldwin, the Milkman); even Ricky Henderson/Bobby Bonilla if all goes right Also looking forward to pivoting to lists of unrelated, vaguely esoteric-sounding topics. Monetary theory. World War I. Malcolm Gladwell: Tipping Point? Also links https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/mar/17/as-recession-looms-could-mmt-be-the-unorthodox-solution-modern-monetary-theory Long embedded quotes of questionable relevance and provenance "The most recent indiscretion of sign-stealing, or at least alleged sign-stealing, took place on Monday in a game between the Yankees and Orioles, After the final out of the game was made, Andino yelled at Yankees catcher Russell Martin as the victorious Yankees made their way down the handshake line at midfield, as seen in the video here. He was evidently egged on by Martin, who had something to say to Andino after he believed he was tipping the location of Mariano Rivera's pitches in the final inning. Allegations like this from Martin are nothing new, but more on that later." Starting threads

It's a sad sign of how beaten down we are as a fanbase that news this big has only a couple of pages of discussion (half of which is the usual bickering between posters). This is a gut punch.

Quick, Kenny and Rick: lob over a 10/300 deal before he signs! That way you can brag to your fanbase about how the Sox were prepared to offer the largest contract in team history. #seatatthetable

Got it -- yes, that's true. Interesting that the biggest names after their top 5 are guys they traded away. (Though to be fair, Contreras isn't on this list and he's been pretty good).

I take it from the pithiness of your response that you take the import of your link to be self-evident. But I'm sorry, I'm not getting it.

Did they? That's a serious question. I mean, they won the WS, so who am I to argue with the results, but when you break it down on a player by player basis it seems a little more reasonable. They clearly "hit" on Bryant, who is a superstar. But are the likes of Almora, Schwarber, Happ, or even Russell "hits"? If they are, I feel better about our chances. I don't see a lot of Kris Bryants among our prospects. But Almoras/Schwarbers? 1.5ish WAR players? I can at least imagine those if I squint my eyes.

I'm as pissed about this debacle of an offseason as anybody. But I sense that the board's anger about missing out on free agents is morphing into increased pessimism about prospects who have nothing to do with that process. I have no idea what the future holds for our prospects, but think we should try hard not to change our view of them because Jerry wouldn't up his offer to Manny Machado from 250 to 300.

@tlongofootlongcomiskeykiwi

I'm thinking about going to the Ferrari dealership today with 10 grand in my pocket. I think I'll post some Instagram pictures of myself swaggering in (#blessed), maybe buy me one of those Ferrari keychains just to show I'm serious. Imagine that - little old me at the Ferrari dealership. The salesman just called me sir! It's anybody's guess how it will all go down, but when it's all said and done you can't deny I'm kind of a player. I mean, here I am.

I think Hahn is in traditional spin mode, Kenny is just dumb enough to blurt out his incompetence to a reporter off-the-cuff

Exactly. He's just out there blurting out catastrophically damaging information and whining to the press in real time like a clueless fan. They lack the most basic level of professionalism.

We're at less than zero. We didn't just miss, we beclowned ourselves in the process.

As long as we're speculating...maybe the double deal is actually the perfect face-saving measure for both stars/agents in light of the unexpectedly soft market for their services. There is no bidding war, they are not getting the $300M+ offers they expected from any of the limited number of suitors. They are worried about the optics of signing a deal that doesn't look appreciably better than the $300M the Nats already offered. Yet they don't want to take short term offers and leave money on the table, especially if they're not sure there will be a better market in the future. Signing together allows them to say, or at least imply, that they took seemingly "low" offers in order to be part of "something special," echoing the Miami Heat dream team line. The excitement of the super-mega-deal provides a massive distraction from a financial package that would otherwise scream out that they misread the market. I still doubt this is going to happen but it's fun to dream.