Chicago White Sox

It’s called science.

But the players have never managed before so fuck their opinions!

I’ve got bad news for you, but La Russa also won World Series due to cheating. And I love that you use counting stats to try to make Hinch look bad. Yeah, Hinch does have less World Series trophies than La Russa, but he has also managed 28 less seasons. He’s both won more and made more World Series on a per season basis and both him & La Russa have won equally half of their World Series appearances yet you only hold losing one against A.J. Hinch also has the better lifetime winning percentage for whatever that’s worth. All that being said, the credentials don’t really matter. The concerns here center around timing & fit and whether a 76 year old La Russa is the right guy to connect with motivate a young core and to partner with a front office on in-game strategic planning. There are very obvious reasons to be skeptical that La Russa is going to connect with a bunch of black & brown players (let alone the White ones) given his incredibly old school view on things. There is also reason to be skeptical that Hahn will have enough influence over La Russa to be able to force Tony to align with the front office on any in-game strategic planning. There is real risk this quickly becomes the Tony show and that’s the last thing this White Sox team needs. IMO, now was not the time to get cute and go with polarizing manager, but alas Jerry put his own interests ahead of his front office, players, & fanbase.

Honestly, my three biggest issues with the La Russa hiring are as follows: We once again did no due diligence by failing to complete an extensive interview process and at least compare the qualities of La Russa to other candidates At face value La Russa seems to be a terrible fit for a young, enthusiastic team and creates unneeded risk of a clubhouse blowup at some point La Russa’s addition puts the organization hierarchy in question and potentially gives the manager too much influence on potential personnel decisions

It appears they’re sincerely protesting the hiring.

I think a lot of those prices seem too low, but they reflect a market adjustment due to COVID. And the Mets could easily sign McCann, but they also could just go sign Realmuto. This is going to be a fascinating offseason because the handful of teams prepared to spend a bit could really clean up.

I'm sure a ~$150M payroll target is unreasonable and some of these estimates are going to be way off, but holy shit would I quickly do the following and then just go to fucking war: Bauer = 4/$90M Pederson = 2/$20M McCann = 2/$14M Colome = 2/$14M Kluber = 1/$9M

Fangraphs has posted their contract predictions for the top 50 free agents! If Jerry is willing to spend some money to please his buddy Tony, damn could we clean up this offseason. Some of these prices are well below expectations. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2021-top-50-free-agents/

Who the vast majority of the players are upset about. But yeah, who the fuck cares about the actual talent because we now have a cognitive declining 76 year manager who hasn’t actually managed a team in 10 years!

What do you mean?

FIFY

You sure that date is right? Everything I’ve said says the QO deadline is tomorrow and that free agency technically begins sometime tomorrow. EDIT: I see we’re taking about different deadlines, but the non tender deadline is actually Dec 2 so we still get to enjoy Mazara & Rodon for a bit more time

I’m greatly concerned Brantley can’t play RF and I’m also worried about his bat falling off based off his Statcast numbers.

I’m sorry, I guess a GM firing an incompetent manager and trying to replace him with arguably the top available guy on the market is a power play. Luckily Uncle Jerry checked his ass right?!

Because it’s a Jerry Reinsdorf franchise unfortunately

Harold certainly has his sources, but he also possesses some ridiculous biases and one of those is apparently hating Hahn beyond any rational level.

Wow, what an excellent, unbiased summary of the clusterfuck of this hire. Well done Passan.

Balta - this is far & away your best post ever

Talk about one big kick to the dick

Why not do both if possible?

I think Hahn needs to hold his ground on this. I personally think the pitching coach hire is the most important one because of the amount of young arms we’ll be relying on in the coming years. I definitely don’t want Don Cooper 2.0. As for the bench coach spot, we’ve got a golden opportunity to bring in a high potential candidate and let them learn in a low risk for a couple of years before being handed the reigns. It also adds another young coach that can help bridge the gap between 76 year old La Russa and our 20 & 30 year old players.

Apologies, I’ll stop with the commentary

Dumb post

If I’m Hahn, I’m pushing to keep Menechino, Coolbaugh, & Hasler in their current roles. I’d also be pushing for Zaleski as pitching coach and a younger guy of my choice as bench coach and future successor (Jirschele, Fuld, etc). That leaves the 1B & 3B coaching roles for Tony’s buddies. Seems like a fair compromise given how fucked Hahn got here.

It’s a multi year deal.