Eminor3rd

Backup. He still needs some reps there.

In 2020, I see him as a backup catcher with the opportunity to win ABs at DH.

I think yes. His arm is his best defensive tool, so you could even try hiding him in RF. He’s slow but his instincts are fine. It would be two notches better than palka. Spending relatively little on this as an upside gamble makes more sense, to me, than spending much more on the safer but middling RF options currently available elsewhere. Theres clearly elite pitching available right now, but not COF help. Gamble on a lotto ticket here; spend on the real deal in the rotation.

I don't think he's bad, I just don't think he's a TOR arm at all. I think he's a good 3/4 that is going to want to be paid like he's just a notch behind Cole/Strasburg. For example, Szymborski ran some projections for him in a neutral park, and they looked like a league average pitcher who is hurt by homers: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-17-8-million-answer/

You’d burn down the farm for one shot at going from 72 wins to WS champ?

That’s about what has been in my head, too.

With the paltry amount of money committed to future payroll that the White Sox have, the overtures we have been hearing from the front office, and how bad this team obviously needs high-end pitching, I will be disappointed if they don’t end up with one of Cole/Strasburg/Wheeler. As unlikely as it seems that they will do so, the fact remains that CAN get one if they choose to do so. Ending up with Keuchel/Bumgarner instead is just White Sox business as usual — spending money inefficiently on famous players that are past their prime, and trying to sell the brand names to meatball fans as if the coming season won’t expose it all for the farce that it is.

Lol what an awful pitch.

At that price, maybe I AM on the Calhoun train.

Ok,12m? Doesn’t change the point.

CC was wayyy better when he hit FA than MB is now. He was coming off a 7 win season, sub-2 FIP

Bumgarner is a Felix Hernandez 30. He debuted at 20, and has been a horse since 21. Lotta miles on the arm and the decline in stuff reflects it.

Dirtbag franchise

That’s the problem — they aren’t really. Those guys are each gonna end up with AAV’s in the 15m range. Get those two and a reliever, and maybe a washed up 5th starter, and you’re looking at 40-50m

I think he’s gonna give up dingers. I don’t see him as an alternative to Wheeler or even Odorizzi, and especially not at a comparable contract.

Bumgarner is being dangerously overrated at this point.

Yeah, the player dev angle is the one I’m most disappointed with. It isn’t that difficult to poach secrets from successful orgs — in fact I’ve been told it’s one of the things that those orgs worry about the most. All their hiring are public, you can physically see the facilities easily, and if you want, you can pretty much get any guy you want from the Astros/Yankees/etc. if you’re willing to give the person a big raise or promotion. The fact that the White Sox have objectively been one of the absolute worst at PD in an age where information is more freely available than ever speaks to some real troubling issues, whether it’s incompetence or a lack of willingness to invest.

I’m just as skeptical/pessimistic as you about it. I’m just trying to point out that it’s a much larger problem than one man.

For sure — all of the executives’ fingerprints are there. But there’s no way to know how much JR trusts RH. Or, for that matter, even if he DOES trust him completely, how many times RH has gone to JR and said “we need this guy, it’s gonna cost x” and JR has simply said it’s too much. And that goes for way more than just player acquisition — it goes for investments in player dev as well. Coaches, facilities, technology, etc.

Right — that’s my point. It’s easy to blame Rick Hahn for signing mediocre, mid-level free agents for example. But what makes us think he ever had clearance to actually get the more expensive guys in the first place? Theres a failure there, but who can we really attribute it to? We can’t know unless we are in the room. When we don’t sign Gerrit Cole this year, we will all go “dang Rick Hahn, why wouldn’t he beat that offer? Doesn’t he know how much this team needs Gerrit Cole?” Of course he does! If he didn’t beat the offer it’s because he couldn’t.

My point is that Rick Hahn is way less personally responsible for all of those things as everyone seems to believe. He has the big paycheck and so he can be the scapegoat (that’s fair), but the actual issues with team’s ability to field a winner are much more numerous and they aren’t all in the GM’s ability to correct.

You pretty much answered it in your last paragraph. He’s the name on the door, but a huge percentage of the decisions that lead to the success of the players are made by other people, and a huge percentage of the spending decisions that he directly handles are made by ownership. Rick Hahn’s personal skillset is just one of myriad factors that affect all the things in your OP. To be clear, in case you feel like I’m attacking your post personally, what I’m saying refers just as much to the original notion that Hahn being “smart guy” will make the team successful.

It appears that you missed my point entirely.

The widely-held misconception that the GM is primarily responsible for all the things listed in the OP is fascinating to me, because it leads fans to spend a lot of time and energy forming very strong opinions about these people as if they can actually know them — which, since no one actually can, on either side of the argument, leads almost to the creation of a fictional universe inside a fans mind where being the GM of a team is actually just like playing OOTP. Where people actually think that each decision is made by a single person, inside the near vacuum of how a fan views the game — virtually ignoring all the context of running a business, such as satisfying ownerships demands, balancing a budget that achieves revenue and profit goals, professional development of employees who have been delegated important tasks, etc. There’s no doubt that this franchise has been a joke the last ten or fifteen years, from top to bottom — certainly in terms of performance on the field and, from all outward appearances, as a brand and promotional entity as well. But the line of thought that connects a poster talking about Rick Hahn as an intelligent person based on his education and mannerisms and another poster arguing the opposite using evidence such as the White Sox’ lack of success acquiring amateur talent in Latin America is bizarre.

I was gonna say the same thing. Ironically, winning makes his non-tender way more likely.