Chicago White Sox

I’d assume most, if not all are external candidates.

I really don’t think La Russa is getting the job. To me, it’s painfully obvious it will be Hinch.

Totally forgot he managed the A’s back in the day. Definitely someone worth talking to if you’re doing a complete interview process.

Got to be Quatraro

Why Thursday?

I thought $140M was a pretty reasonable target for 2021 with the potential for a little higher. I still think that’s possible depending on their view on fan attendance next year. The fact they are paying Ricky money not to manage the Sox next year has me optimistic. I don’t think there’s any chance they reduce payroll though as we still make plenty on our TV deals and don’t have any financing or debt that will will impact our near term cash flow and put us in a dangerous spot without fan revenue.

Fully agree. Just saying hopefully we can go sign someone at market value rather than trade for someone who may provide some surplus value.

I think our financial situation is much better than people probably realize. Obviously the pandemic will have an impact, but I think we’ll able our financial assets before we need to start trading our limited minor league capital.

Why is it silly? A bunch of players conducted one of the most elaborate cheating schemes in baseball history and weren’t punished at all despite being caught. What the fuck is wrong with people holding them accountable? I think it’s silly you think we should all pretend it didn’t happen or this is some kind of “moral preening”.

Chris Sale is not healthy though and we would never be able to sign a premier free agent again if we made this trade.

Who do you prefer of all the internal options? I can’t recall what you said on the FA Podcast other than leaving Teaford where he’s at.

About what?

Why John Farrell?

I get your frustration with our past hiring processes as I hated them too. But so far, Hahn has said all the right things and has implied there will be candidates from some of the playoff teams. I fully expect a couple more guys to be interviewed in addition to TLR & Hinch.

He posted the 7th highest fWAR among position players this year. Even with him being 30 the ask will be very because he’s controllable for the next five years and is dirt cheap.

Which pitcher?

That was kind of what I was getting at. Assume we have $45M to work with this offseason to address the last three spots on the pitching staff plus RF, DH, & backup catcher. One option is going big after Springer & Stroman (let’s go with $42M combined) and then go with cheap internal options at the other four spots (Lopez, Burdi or Johnson, Vaughn, Collins). Alternatively, you could spread Springer’s salary (say $25M) over multiple positions and possibly add Quintana ($10M), Pederson ($8M), and a B tier reliever ($7M) in addition to Stroman. What would you rather have? To me, if we plan on letting Crotchet pitch out of the bullpen for a year I think I’d go with option A and hope for the best with our young arms. It’s risky no doubt, but you’re probably talking about the best offense in baseball at that point.

The GM he hired made the “Shelby Miller” trade amongst many other horrible decisions.

How would people feel if our only two additions this offseason were Springer & Stroman? That means going cheap with the bullpen, no other rotational depth, Collins as your backup catcher, and Vaughn as your DH.

Unless the new pitching coach comes in and demands his own guy, I will be shocked if it’s not Zaleski. He seems like the real deal and hiring anyone else will likely result his exiting of the organization at some point.

He also helped turn him into a top 100 prospect who led the minors in the strikeouts. Not Matt’s fault that Hansen is a bit of a head case.

We know basically nothing about their search except that La Russa is a candidate. You are drawing way too many conclusions right now and I’m not sure why. I’d wager large sums of money they will interview more than just TLR & Hinch.

His Statcast numbers were not very impressive either. He could be a defense-oriented fallback option, but I’d aim a little higher to start.

But what does Reinsdorf pushing for La Russa as manager have to do with Hahn fucking up at the trade deadline?

Why settle for a big “if” in this market? To fathom’s point, you can probably trade for someone like Calhoun for basically nothing who would be a massive upgrade and not that much more money.