caulfield12

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.

Jones had an 827 ops with the Sox. Kotsay and Erstad, not only much.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/34897273/mlb-playoffs-how-phillies-constructed-world-series-roster Spend spend spend!

Another potential innovative hire off the board...to the Royals this time. Tigers and KC have been doing basically what everyone on the board has consistently advocated for with the Sox.

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2022/10/29/detroit-tigers-mark-conner-scouting-director-san-diego-padres/69591321007/ Also hired someone from TB.

That must explain Kelenic's 2022.

Fathom calling for reinvestigation of Castellanos being denied a Gold Glove.

Former QC River Bandit...Kyle Tucker.

And Hahn wasn't out of Harvard Law School until 1996 at the earliest. But it would be fun to blame his regardless. Maybe Hahn originated the diminished skills clause as an intern to win JR's everlasting respect as a risk mitigator.