This summarizes it all pretty succinctly...

https://www.southsidesox.com/2023/8/6/23821413/chicago-white-sox-find-themselves-at-crossroads

19 hours ago, Tony said:

Bullshit 

I agree JR is the #1 culprit . He decides how much to spend in player development, from hirings to budget. He sticks his nose into everything as is his right in the position he holds and he's the one conducting the interviews ? It's a farce.

Until he makes fundamental changes in the way HE views how to operate a franchise that cares about things that Tampa Bay does then the franchise will be forever mediocre of worse until the team is sold. Even then there are no guarantees ,If Tampa Bay can do what they have done on a shoestring budget it can't be that expensive to overhaul the whole minor league system.

Sox rebuild:

1 minute ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

I agree JR is the #1 culprit . He decides how much to spend in player development, from hirings to budget. He sticks his nose into everything as is his right in the position he holds and he's the one conducting the interviews ? It's a farce.

Until he makes fundamental changes in the way HE views how to operate a franchise that cares about things that Tampa Bay does then the franchise will be forever mediocre of worse until the team is sold. Even then there are no guarantees ,If Tampa Bay can do what they have done on a shoestring budget it can't be that expensive to overhaul the whole minor league system.

Unfortunately he has the exact same attitude as Angelos in Baltimore.

Just not the required vision for transforming the entire area like is currently the trend across numerous ballpark complexes in MLB.

Like pairing it with the Star Wars Museum/Theme Park that Melody Hobson envisioned going all the way back to 2016...

1 minute ago, pcq said:

Sox rebuild:

Ozzie?  Swisher?

Hmmm going back to the orginal name of thread, lets see .500 team last yr and 26 games under to date

Id say drastic changes are needed, dont ya think???

25 minutes ago, The Grinder said:

Hmmm going back to the orginal name of thread, lets see .500 team last yr and 26 games under to date

Id say drastic changes are needed, dont ya think???

The only people on Earth who would say otherwise are likely to be the people being interviewed by Reinsdorf.

1 minute ago, Balta1701 said:

The only people on Earth who would say otherwise are likely to be the people being interviewed by Reinsdorf.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall and listen to the "interview" between JR and Hahn. Considering McGuffy continues to say that Hahn wasn't allowed to finish the rebuild job, that he wanted to sign a few guys to nine figure deals...I mean what/how is he supposed to tell his boss (assuming what McGuffy says is true) 'YOU were the one who screwed this rebuild up!' ?

3 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

I'd love to be a fly on the wall and listen to the "interview" between JR and Hahn. Considering McGuffy continues to say that Hahn wasn't allowed to finish the rebuild job, that he wanted to sign a few guys to nine figure deals...I mean what/how is he supposed to tell his boss (assuming what McGuffy says is true) 'YOU were the one who screwed this rebuild up!' ?

The scary thing is that JR might accept that bulls@$”.  
if he needs nine figure guys to complete the rebuild, then he had no rebuild. And he didn’t ever really rebuild:  no depth of young talent at all.

1 hour ago, Lip Man 1 said:

I'd love to be a fly on the wall and listen to the "interview" between JR and Hahn. Considering McGuffy continues to say that Hahn wasn't allowed to finish the rebuild job, that he wanted to sign a few guys to nine figure deals...I mean what/how is he supposed to tell his boss (assuming what McGuffy says is true) 'YOU were the one who screwed this rebuild up!' ?

You’d think Hahn would know after how many decades in the organization that JR is never going to give out a $100M+ contract.

I wonder if the wording "internal interviews" is an accurate description of what has or will take place. For example, these internal "interviews" might only include JR , others in the ownership group, trusted friends,and his own family members.   It seems counterintuitive that an internal interview would include Rick Hahn in order to determine his plight.

Every team creates a budget for player contracts. You can argue that JR is cheap but I suggest that is not even a proper assertion to make.  Aside from that, there are many examples of Hahn not using the budget for player contracts wisely. For example, Sox fans here (including myself) wanted the Sox to sign Cody Bellinger when he was a free agent.  We know what happened. Cubs signed Cody for one year at $17.5 Million with an option for a second year.  Meanwhile, Hahn signed Bennintendi to a 5 year $75 Million dollar deal. Now we get to watch Bellinger help the Cubs try to gain a play-off spot  Just great..,And then there was the precipitous, unnecessary  trade of Jake Burger, one of the moist popular players on the team.

edit: @JoeC beat me to it on page 3

Edited August 21, 20232 yr by Donny Lucy's Avocado Farm

7 minutes ago, tray said:

I wonder if the wording "internal interviews" is an accurate description of what has or will take place. For example, these internal "interviews" might only include JR , others in the ownership group, trusted friends,and his own family members.   It seems counterintuitive that an internal interview would include Rick Hahn in order to determine his plight.

Every team creates a budget for player contracts. You can argue that JR is cheap but I suggest that is not even a proper assertion to make.  Aside from that, there are many examples of Hahn not using the budget for player contracts wisely. For example, Sox fans here (including myself) wanted the Sox to sign Cody Bellinger when he was a free agent.  We know what happened. Cubs signed Cody for one year at $17.5 Million with an option for a second year.  Meanwhile, Hahn signed Bennintendi to a 5 year $75 Million dollar deal. Now we get to watch Bellinger help the Cubs try to gain a play-off spot  Just great..,And then there was the precipitous, unnecessary  trade of Jake Burger, one of the moist popular players on the team.

Jake Burger definitely makes me moist. 

3 hours ago, pcq said:

Sox rebuild:

 

If Hahn is out, Getz probably gets the next shot.  They are not going outside the organization to find talent.  The only other thing is TLR or Buddy Bell would come in to help the new GM figure things. out.  The only change that is going to truly impact the team is when Jerry is no longer the owner.   The team is a piggy bank for him and his investors.   When he is gone that is when the team will be able to sold.

 

20 minutes ago, tray said:

I wonder if the wording "internal interviews" is an accurate description of what has or will take place. For example, these internal "interviews" might only include JR , others in the ownership group, trusted friends,and his own family members.   It seems counterintuitive that an internal interview would include Rick Hahn in order to determine his plight.

Every team creates a budget for player contracts. You can argue that JR is cheap but I suggest that is not even a proper assertion to make.  Aside from that, there are many examples of Hahn not using the budget for player contracts wisely. For example, Sox fans here (including myself) wanted the Sox to sign Cody Bellinger when he was a free agent.  We know what happened. Cubs signed Cody for one year at $17.5 Million with an option for a second year.  Meanwhile, Hahn signed Bennintendi to a 5 year $75 Million dollar deal. Now we get to watch Bellinger help the Cubs try to gain a play-off spot  Just great..,And then there was the precipitous, unnecessary  trade of Jake Burger, one of the moist popular players on the team.

The Jake Burger trade still irks me. Dude is very likely to finish the season as a 3 WAR player. The guy the Sox received in return has a 6 plus Era at AA and turns 25 in October. No bueno all around. 

7 minutes ago, LittleHurtCG said:

The Jake Burger trade still irks me. Dude is very likely to finish the season as a 3 WAR player. The guy the Sox received in return has a 6 plus Era at AA and turns 25 in October. No bueno all around. 

If he keeps putting up WAR at the current rate since he left the Sox  he could finish with over 4 fWAR .

He's accumulated 1.1 fWAR in 17 games with the Marlins. I know that rate is unsustainable but it's impressive nevertheless. 1.4 with the Sox, 1.1 with the Marlins to put him at 2.5 now.

A decent finish without a prolonged slump could get him up to 3.5. It's still too early to evaluate the trade properly though.

4 hours ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

I agree JR is the #1 culprit . He decides how much to spend in player development, from hirings to budget. He sticks his nose into everything as is his right in the position he holds and he's the one conducting the interviews ? It's a farce.

Until he makes fundamental changes in the way HE views how to operate a franchise that cares about things that Tampa Bay does then the franchise will be forever mediocre of worse until the team is sold. Even then there are no guarantees ,If Tampa Bay can do what they have done on a shoestring budget it can't be that expensive to overhaul the whole minor league system.

I think Rick has done an incredibly poor job and have always said I believe there are GM's out there that COULD operate and win under the restraints Jerry puts on. 

However, there is zero evidence to tell me Jerry would have the smarts to hire someone like that. So why should we think anything will change if Rick is gone? The new hire will have traits Jerry likes...which should be a huge red flag to every Sox fan. 

17 minutes ago, Tony said:

I think Rick has done an incredibly poor job and have always said I believe there are GM's out there that COULD operate and win under the restraints Jerry puts on. 

However, there is zero evidence to tell me Jerry would have the smarts to hire someone like that. So why should we think anything will change if Rick is gone? The new hire will have traits Jerry likes...which should be a huge red flag to every Sox fan. 

Things might not change, but they also might. One way they won’t change is keeping these same clowns in place. 

18 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

Things might not change, but they also might. One way they won’t change is keeping these same clowns in place. 

At the end of the day none of them deserve the benefit of the doubt.   Tony is right, anyone JR hires is a huge red flag simply based on his entire past as an owner

40 minutes ago, Tony said:

I think Rick has done an incredibly poor job and have always said I believe there are GM's out there that COULD operate and win under the restraints Jerry puts on. 

However, there is zero evidence to tell me Jerry would have the smarts to hire someone like that. So why should we think anything will change if Rick is gone? The new hire will have traits Jerry likes...which should be a huge red flag to every Sox fan. 

No doubt Hahn and anyone he relies on have done an incredibly poor job. I just think when it comes to trades/drafting/development and the people surrounding Hahn that the Sox are understaffed and don't hire the best people including scouts analytics types and even the equipment to make Hahn as well informed as he could be. Plus JR puts a lot of restraints on almost everything to do with acquiring and developing good young talent. There's not been many attempts to go after Asian players. They haven't ever had a Dominican star and that's quite a feat since the DR has been a hotbed of talent in the whole time JR has owned the team.

I think JR's constraints are big enough to limit all aspects of the organization to a large degree.

I do agree that there are GM's out there who could operate under the constraints of a JR owned team but maybe not someone with experience or a network of his own to get the job done. Plus if someone with that kind of experience is ever interviewed for GM he'd have to want to meet staff ,see all aspects of scouting and development and get assurances from JR that he could upgrade and get an increased budget even if at the expense of the payroll for players budget for a couple of years if necessary .He'd basically have to interview JR and get the lay of the land and convince JR that his current way is wasteful , irresponsible and unproductive.  JR wouldn't hire someone like that.

 

Is it worse knowing that whoever replaces Hahn will likely be just as bad, and a change now means change is less likely again anytime in the near future? 

35 minutes ago, Tnetennba said:

Is it worse knowing that whoever replaces Hahn will likely be just as bad, and a change now means change is less likely again anytime in the near future? 

Given JR's age change could be coming tomorrow or next week...you never know.

35 minutes ago, Tnetennba said:

Is it worse knowing that whoever replaces Hahn will likely be just as bad, and a change now means change is less likely again anytime in the near future? 

Can't be in a much worse position than where the Sox are right now...what would that even look like?

The A's actually moving their franchise?

 Good number of non Chicagoan fans might even be open to that at this point if it meant a new stadium and keeping the franchise name/logo intact.

At least if that meant getting rid of Reinsdorf.

3 hours ago, Tony said:

I think Rick has done an incredibly poor job and have always said I believe there are GM's out there that COULD operate and win under the restraints Jerry puts on. 

However, there is zero evidence to tell me Jerry would have the smarts to hire someone like that. So why should we think anything will change if Rick is gone? The new hire will have traits Jerry likes...which should be a huge red flag to every Sox fan. 

Bold statement, considering we have no idea what the constraints are on the front office staff, player development, and the minor league system. Given JR's history, I doubt there are many people out there that could do so... They are completely incapable of identifying and developing players, and that's because JR has never, ever invested in the minors or player development. He doesn't "believe" in it.