caulfield12

Thanks. It's not THAT dramatic, but it's amazing how life priorities change when you get married and especially have kids. And now having lost both parents, it's a reminder of how short life can be. I remember once having a dream of retiring and buying White Sox season tickets every year. Now, I actually feel like an Advanced A minor league team or maybe AA like San Antonio in the past would be the dream...where the players are close (but not not TOO close to the majors) but everything's more affordable like parking or concessions and ticket holders largely come from same social class more or less.

The White Sox have massive problem on their hands. Apathy bordering on disgust for the ownership and management team. There's just no way attendance isn't going to be down another 20-30% based on this offseason, the losses of Abreu and Hendriks, and now another PR nightmare with Clevinger. They're basically just sitting on their hands hoping a new manager and better health fixes things...see 2012 White Sox under rookie manager Ventura, for a recent example. It feels like it has been all downhill since Luis Robert bombed that rocket into CF in Game 3 at the Coliseum after Crochet was injured/pulled. This coming from a fan who used to wake up every day to hand calculate statistics for the 1984-1989 teams from the afternoon newspaper box scores, some of the truly worst MLB offenses in recent memory. While it's totally impossible to change your #1 allegiance in any sport, it's so frustrating to read the news and see the Padres are already planning to go after Ohtani and a long-term extension for Soto with Machado likely opting out after 2023. How can a team with all the media market advantages in the known universe in the AL Central be getting curb-stomped by a team that's anywhere from 27th to 30th for MLB broadcasting dollars? It's totally infuriating. It's not like they haven't spent money, either. They just don't know how to spend it wisely, how to properly allocate limited resources. Hopefully I'm still alive when the next great Sox team comes around...as it's so unlikely to happen in the next 5-7 years.

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2021/aug/27/sdqt-former-member-padres-pad-squad-may-have-deep/ "Which makes it all the more mysterious how Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer, recipient of maybe the richest single-season contract in history, wound up in bed with a woman who’d been booted from the Padres' Pad Squad for her fling with Padres star Fernando Tatis, Jr., and who later hooked up with Padres pitcher Mike Clevinger." Seems a lot of the so-called groupies were 18 and 19 years old (not illegal but undoubtedly ill-advised for a married man around 30)...fwiw, the Dodgers have their own group called Las Angels. Once again, all this information was out there publicly with a simple Google search the Sox analytics team could have run if Hahn proved incapable. The whole acquisition was predicated on the "bargain" contract rate for someone with that track record and the theoretical bounce back the second year coming back from TJ surgery.

At least Rick Hahn could write a pretty comprehensive book about how to completely waste amounts of between $4-12 million and never lose his job... Otoh, guys like Rodon, Cueto, McCann, Andrus have (occasionally) worked from the bargain bin.

Then they would have been subject to a lawsuit (at best) and fine as well as successful and expensive civil lawsuit at worst. I guess there's a saying that all publicity is good...but White Sox have been challenging that axiom since the TLR managerial announcement. Finally, due diligence is the responsibility of any organization in the world that hires employees, especially hires over $10+ million per year (along with costly insurance on the contract.)

At the very least, he/Hahn could have looked into the cost of acquiring Adalberto Mondesi. Royals just traded him for a Boston pitcher with back issues.

Or the Guardians? LaRussa could (still, in his new capacity as a team representative) have found out anything he wanted to know with just one phone call to Francona.

Or Mike Sirotka. That will hurt a well-known Sox critic until his last day on earth. (That said, using the same doctor for both evaluations wasn't exactly the epitome of brilliance, either. Both teams are not better off for the next 4-5 seasons, especially SF.)

Also, a certain GM pulled a Hahn thinking he could take advantage of an Indians organization and manager desperate to dump one of its own players (see Big Game James). Didn't exactly work out as planned in either scenario. Two of the 5 worst all-time trades for both organizations. "The trade came shortly after Clevinger and Zach Plesac broke team and MLB COVID protocols to spend a night on the town in Chicago. Cleveland received Cal Quantrill, Josh Naylor, Owen Miller, Austin Hedges, Gabrial Arias and Joey Cantillo from the Padres. Clevinger underwent Tommy John surgery on his right elbow shortly after the trade and appeared in only 27 games, including 26 starts, in his time with the Padres." Cleveland.com/Paul Hoynes

Pretty clear when you trade away six players to acquire a guy and then want absolutely nothing to do with him despite having a couple of rotation openings (and Snell/Darvish not for much longer) that the relationship there had seriously soured. Preller would pretty much sell his soul to win and walked away instead of doubling down on a bad move and making it even worse like some team I'm quite familiar with now by age 53.

See track record of spotty character issues above. Will take side of Terry Francona over Bauer and Clevinger on every occasion. Integrity matters. This isn't about youthful libido. He's a borderline psychopath if you can believe even half of what's out there.

https://theathletic.com/1997516/2020/08/14/indians-send-mike-clevinger-zach-plesac-to-minors-what-does-it-mean/ First, you have all the issues he caused with the Indians/Guardians...Francona, and his teammates. The whole Covid-19 fiasco. Then, you have the tie with the likes of Trevor Bauer (multiple) accusers, Tatis Jr. and Puig...just do a rudimentary google search. You have rumors out there of him never being faithful to a single woman he was with...that he was an active participant with so-called groupies despite taking quite limited responsibility for parenting at the very least. This was before all that stuff coming out today. Not mention that he and Sean Manaea were just not that good in the first place down the stretch with very spotty/inconsistent stuff. He has simply never returned to that dominant form he had in CLE. In fact, one memorable playoff game he recorded either one or zero outs before being pulled. (See Shields/James/Big Game last start before being acquired by Hahn. Mistake repeated. Guessing no other team was willing to go over $8-9 million with his tattered clubhouse reputation.) Also, guess they learned nothing from the TA7 situation this past year. They subtract Abreu, add guys like this and wonder how everything could have possibly gone so wrong when all the signs were there. So no regrets putting White Sox aside until Hahn and/or Reinsdorf are gone. They deserve those billboards about selling the team or even a boycott. (And it's not just LaRussa, you also have Boston, Myers, Cordero, Wally Backman, Vizquel, Wes Helms, D'Angelo Jimenez, etc.)

Fine. I will leave. You win. It's not fun anymore being a fan of this organization anyway. The Sox will never go anywhere with Hahn or Reinsdorf involved anyway. Life is too short to invest any more time in a product with diminishing marginal utility. My son won't grow up with a rooting interest in the Sox either, and the White Sox couldn't care less about that, so neither do I. I don't even have to put a curse of them...they manage to self-sabotage everything themselves.

Taking the popular media media choice for every open coaching/managing position always works out so well. If the Phillies had missed the postseason, why would everyone be talking about Long? They wouldn’t at all. The Phillies’ success rides 100% on the back of massive FA spending, which will never be replicated in Chicago. Now if this is predicated on Long fixing the likes of Bohm and Stott over the course of the season…and that somehow applying to reaching Grandal, Moncada, Anderson and Luis Robert by osmosis, sure. But Grifol at least had six years as a minor league manager, and three winter ball seasons in Venezuela, including a trip to the championship series. The pressure in those games in some ways is more intense than the World Series. But Long hung out with Juan Soto in the stands to cheer on ex teammates. Okay.

Kevin Long is the equivalent of taking a 12 seed or higher’s coach who gets to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA’s and hiring him for a P5 conference. Sometimes it works, the media loves underdog and Cinderella stories, but it usually doesn’t translate more than 20% of the time. Its the same thing with the Saban/Belichick Coaching Tree. Kirby Smart and maybe Lane Kiffin have ended up doing well, but the majority haven’t succeeded. There’s just no way to know, in the end. If you could patent “gives great interviews” and transform it into W/L success, but that has never convinced me ever since KW claimed Robin Vebtura would have been a five star general and was going to be an incredible leader of men on the diamond as well.

This should be pinned at the top of the page when Hahn apologists claim he wasn’t totally onboard with Grifol…

This is how we ended up with Buddy Bell and Mark Teahen.

Could be the White Sox once again trying to prove they don't care what outsiders think about their smartest guys in the room and we're going to do whatever we want to do regardless of whether it appeases the fanbase or not schtick. Time will tell. In a lot of ways, he has just as many similarities to Renteria as anyone. Maybe the primary difference here is more into analytics framing shifting, etc.

One thing is for sure, they didn't prioritize the PR spin value of things in terms of holding onto season ticket holders with Grifol here. Not unlike dumping El Caballo, Maggie and Valentin for the cast that would lead them to the WS in 2005.

Would be a total shocker if he wasn't 100% positive, especially if he felt the Royals made mistakes twice passing him up for Matheny and Matt Q.

Especially because we just hired a guy an inferior divisional rival (arguably) fired/reassigned once and passed on two more times when they had the opportunity to make him their manager. Once for Matheny, this year for Matt Q. Marlins also just passed on him.

Cuban American. Passed over by at least four teams and the Royals twice. Six years as a manager in the Mariners minor league system when they were the best team in baseball. Baseball lifer like Thomson. Three years of winter ball managing including one trip to championship. Some connections in Venezuela. this article can be accessed for free if you have a FB/Meta account https://www.kansascity.com/article268134122.html#_=_

This is THE ONE article everyone will want to read from the analytics side of things. https://theathletic.com/306432/2018/04/09/dodd-how-the-royals-flourishing-analytics-department-convinced-ned-yost-to-shift-on-defensive-shifts/ Dodd a long-time KC Star contributor intimately familiar with Royals and Chiefs operations.

"Grifol was reassigned himself the next year when Royals hitters continued to flounder, taking over catching coach duties and quality control. He was considered for the managerial opening when Ned Yost retired, and interviewed for the Giants and Tigers managerial openings in 2019, but returned to serve as bench coach under Mike Matheny in 2020. Grifol has served as the connective tissue between the Royals’ analytics department and the on-field staff. He was part of the push to implement defensive shifts and sought to improve Salvador Perez’s framing. The 52-year-old Miami native is well-liked among players and is bilingual, often serving as a translator for Spanish-speaking players." Excerpt from royalsreview...previous citation. Also has mostly positive fan comments following article.

https://www.royalsreview.com/2022/11/1/23434814/white-sox-hire-royals-bench-coach-pedro-grifol-as-manager Lots of good stuff here. Royals' fans think the White Sox made a good move and should have been hired over Matheny. That said, he was fired/reassigned by KC right before they got to World Series level. And passed over by many many teams like Espada Dave Martinez and Sandy Alomar Jr. Recently passed over for Marlins' job as well as KC again.