Following up: Visiting and revisiting Avisaíl García

Doctorindy / Wikipedia

The White Sox Coast-to-Coast Caravan of Losing wraps up its well-received tour with a three-game set in Tropicana Field against the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays are so good at rolling with punches that it’s hard to ever catch them at a good time, getting swept in a Yankee Stadium doubleheader the day before counts as one of those rare openings.

There was plenty of turbulence at Yankee Stadium, including an Aaron Boone rant that launched a thousand t-shirts.

Before that, CC Sabathia and Avisaíl Garcia had a less volatile exchange that involved more people when they stared at each other after a strikeout. It’s classic baseball posturing, but it reminded me to check in on how García was faring this season, as I hadn’t heard about him in a while.

There’s a reason for that. After making a potential All-Star case in April and May, he’s been in funk since June that looks familiar to White Sox fans:

  • Before June 1: .301/.363/.522 over 204 PA
  • After June 1: .252/.298/.338 over 151 PA
  • Total: .280/.335/.443

That’s a decent, average season for a right fielder, and one the White Sox would gladly take, at least at the price the Rays paid. It’s somewhere in between his All-Star season of 2017 and his injury-marred 2018, as his fourth month away from the White Sox starts drawing to a close, he hasn’t yet broken new ground.

However, there’s always a chance that he rallies to finish strong, isolating his struggles to a 1½-month period and topping 20 homers for the first time his career. He’s only at 12 entering the weekend, but a series against White Sox pitching might help get him unstuck. Just as there’s seldom a good time to face the Rays, there’s really never a bad time to play the Sox.

* * * * * * * * *

James Fegan expounded on Jose Abreu’s seemingly subtle call for Luis Robert in an article that’s very much worth reading:

“We need them,” Abreu said of Jiménez and Anderson, through Russo. “We’re missing them. But we need to deal with what we have here. Until the organization gives us a chance to bring the people up that can help us here.”

General manager Rick Hahn said just Wednesday that he’s fine with increased calls for Luis Robert to be promoted, but ironically, Abreu is saying that the 25 men in the White Sox clubhouse need to be patient while another reliever or fourth outfielder shuffles through, and this painfully long rebuilding process continues to drag through another prime season of his career. The rest of his postgame availability, sagely discussing the necessity of passing through a rough stretch for the umpteenth time in his White Sox career, was about the necessity of stoic labor through the darkness.

He also makes the same point that Josh made on the podcast — while there’s a big prioritization over Luis Robert’s team control period, and the general sense it makes to shift his seven-year window from 2019-25 to 2020-26, the window with Yoan Moncada only runs through 2023, barring an extension. Yes, you want some players to extend past 2023 in order to avoid everybody potentially hitting the market at once, but the easiest way to make the rebuild stick is to have a high talent concentration during the years Moncada is in top form. They’ve already wasted one of them this year, and they run the risk of pissing away a second one if they wait until May 2020 to call up Robert. Based on their track record, I generally think the White Sox front office needs more chances to get it right than fewer.

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mikeyb

The White Sox have not had a winning season under Hahn. Imagine having the kind of job security he has, where he’s planning for 7 years for now, rather than trying to find a way to put a competent team on the field as soon as possible. That’s absolutely wild. Any other GM in his position would be sacrificing every possible long-term plan in order to try to save their job next season. Not Hahn. Not this organization.

roke1960

Hahn’s job is safe as long as Cheapskate Jerry is the owner. He probably has a bonus clause for most consecutive losing seasons as a GM without getting fired. I can’t imagine any GM has lasted 7 losing seasons and also caused and went through a rebuild. Pathetic.

As Cirensica

I can’t imagine any GM has lasted 7 losing seasons and also caused and went through a rebuild. Pathetic.

I could be wrong, but I think the record is 5 seasons. Hahn is setting new milestones.

roke1960

Terry Ryan took over the Twins from Andy MacPhail in 1995 and proceeded to have 6 straight losing seasons until the Twins were finally over .500 in 2001. If that’s the record (at least in the expansion era), then Hahn will beat that this year. There have probably been others that were longer (especially expansion teams), but it’s still a feat that should never be allowed to happen with a non-expansion team.

NDSox12

How many years did Dayton Moore’s Royals go under .500 before their resurgence?

roke1960

Moore took over in the middle of 2006 and then had 6 consecutive losing seasons from 2007-2012 before the Royals had a winning record in 2013. Even the Pirates who had 20 consecutive losing seasons did not have a GM last 7 consecutive full seasons. So Hahn will beat those two losing teams. Maybe the early Padres, Expos or Mariners had one with 7+ years, but I doubt it. So Rick may be breaking the record soon. What an achievement!

roke1960

Ok, I found one. Jim Fanning was the Expos GM from 1969 until being fired in the middle of 1976. That is 7 1/2 consecutive losing seasons. Hahn’s getting close!

As Cirensica

That explains the Jim Fanning pedestal with lit candles and stuff Hahn has in his office

burning-phoneix

Putting competent teams on the field as soon as possible sounds like a disaster in the making, how many teams have destroyed their future to get a ring as soon as possible? Look at what happened to the Tigers. Why would Hahn do that when the organization is clearly in rebuild mode?

karkovice squad

The Tigers with 4 consecutive finishes atop the division? Those Tigers?

egib52

Exactly, the goal is to get into the playoffs regularly.

Trooper Galactus

Prove you can do it even once before talking about doing it regularly.

burning-phoneix

Literally who cares about stacking division titles? Those Tigers only managed a single AL pennant during their run. Kenny Williams was more successful than that entire organization.

Willardmarshall

What better way for a chronic underachiever to secure his job than to hit the rebuild button?

PauliePaulie

Should the Sox bring up Robert? Yes.
Will the Sox bring up Robert? Doubtful.
Kopeck, Dunning, Burdi, Hamilton, Burr, Rodon, Lopez, Adolfo, Collins, Fulmer, Hansen and Getz are the ones wasting years of Moncada and Abreu, not 3 months of Luis in AAA.

roke1960

You’re right about that. If even half of those guys did what they were supposed to do, we wouldn’t be so worried about Robert.

PauliePaulie

If half those guys didn’t get hurt/suck Robert would be up right now. Because then 7 would actually = 7.

roke1960

Yeah, and we might be talking about a playoff race, not a 7th losing season.

knoxfire30

Its an absolute joke and slap in the face to this fan base that this management team thats accomplished nothing (except being the worst team in baseball during hahn’s run), and this ownership group who has raked in dollars while penny pinching every chance they get is concerned about the finances of 2025, just beyond parody and stupidity.

PauliePaulie

BA updated their top 30’s.

burning-phoneix

I was always surprised that the Sox never went for Avisail’s option. It was cheap and even in his down years he had a better bat than Cordell/Tilson/Palka and if they didn’t want him they could have shopped him for a lottery ticket down the line.

karkovice squad

Though as it turns out that wouldn’t be worse than playing Cordell, Delmonico, Engel, Palka, and Tilson for free.

Trooper Galactus

This assumes both that Avi would have signed here for even close to that amount and that he would have performed just as well. We’re a lot more used to the post-June 1 results than the pre.

karkovice squad

I was assuming Jim’s “what the White Sox would’ve owed him” in arb. And probably almost any healthy version of Sox Avi would’ve been more valuable than all of those players even at his max arb salary.

There’s that much negative production out of the lot of them.

itaita

To be fair to the Sox heading into the offseason people were expecting Palka to replace his numbers. Even if you suspected he might hit some regression i dont think anybody saw 2-405940594 or whatever hes sitting at right now.

roke1960

Good one, Jim!

PauliePaulie

Not sure if Hahn is saying that Renteria will start to put players in a position to win, or if he believes his current ability to do so will show more with a talented roster.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/white-sox/2019/7/18/20699755/white-sox-renteria-riding-out-another-storm

Milky✌️

I don’t know too much about him, especially not his personal life, but that sure seemed like it came out of left field

Patrick Nolan

Wow.

As Cirensica

I didn’t even know he was facing assaults charges. Too bad. I liked his writings, but he now goes into my list of douchebags I don’t wanna know anything about anymore.

Right Size Wrong Shape

Since the Expos were my B-team as a kid, I loved his book on the history of the Expos. Sad to hear about.

karkovice squad

3 separate incidents over the last year. Hopefully the protection order works for his wife and kid.

gusguyman

“Death threats are sometimes said in a moment of anger especially when there’s an emotional situation of divorce and you’re seeing your family go down the drain,” Morena [Keri’s Lawyer] told reporters.

Yeah, there is no situation where it is normal, OK, or legal to threaten to kill your wife.

dwjm3

The way Brett Gardner attacks the dugout roof is hilarious. He is almost methodical in the way he rams his bat into it.

gusguyman

The best part is the rest of the dugout acting like it is the most normal thing in the world.

MrTopaz

Like a contractor trying to find the rotted part of a ceiling so he can get at the leaky pipe up above.

melidoperez

Now that we have a couple years sample size of a modern day rebuild, I can say with some certainty that my least favorite part of the process is when an exciting young player has months of his 20s flushed down the toilet while the fans get to watch a player who sucks, all in an effort for the already generationally wealthy ownership group can save a nominal amount of money that will make no difference in any aspect of their lives. All of this for the sake of avoiding a fate worse than death, actually paying someone their market value. Spooooooky.

ForsterFTOG

It’s a wonder the Sox can’t draw 15K fans per game.

lil jimmy

averaging 21,500 so far.

Trooper Galactus

Well, that means they aren’t drawing 15,000, doesn’t it? Clearly they didn’t tank hard enough.

ForsterFTOG

Look at the palm side of your thumb. Now, look at Brett Gardner. Now, look at the palm side of your thumb again.

karkovice squad

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