P.O. Sox: Ideal shortstops, lineups and corner outfielders

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Trooper Galactus

The Guardians might win the division when they weren’t even trying, beating a White Sox team that spent years and record payrolls carefully aligning everything to this point in time. That really shouldn’t be acceptable.”

This is, to me, the most infuriating part of the whole thing. The Indians completely punted on the offseason, even more so than the White Sox. They’re not having a great season by any stretch of the imagination, though they’re definitely outperforming their projections overall. Still, if you told me before the season the closest competition the White Sox would have was an 85-87 win team, I’d have figured they’d run away with the division. Instead, there’s a very real possibility they barely surpass the .500 mark.

Fire Hahn yesterday, because even the best-case scenario for this season is an embarrassment.

GrinnellSteve

Encourage the Giants to take him.

asinwreck

The “Sell the Team” sign is still my favorite part of the season for identifying the root cause of the rot.

Looks like the Tigers will pry Scott Harris from the Giants to run baseball operations. The Tigers are not currently successful, but hiring a manager who won a World Series in the past half decade and a GM whose team won 107 games a year ago (as well as hiring one of the most coveted pitching coaches in college baseball) indicates an attempt to survey the industry for successful talent.

I mentioned Harris as a potential replacement for Hahn/Williams a few weeks ago. That was always unlikely as the only time Reinsdorf hired a head of baseball operations from outside The Family Business was Larry Himes 36 years ago. Himes is also the only GM Reinsdorf booted out the door (Hemond received the first of the nefarious promotions the year before), so perhaps that experience scarred him too much to ever try it again.

(That the 1990 White Sox would scar Reinsdorf would say something, as that team was one of the most delightful ones in his ownership history. But he has priorities other than building exciting young cores that produce 94-win seasons.)

Augusto Barojas

Record payroll is singular, not plural. They were 15th last year, 20th the year before, and I believe like 26th prior to that. I give them zero points for this year’s payroll as demonstration of effort/commitment, given that the biggest contract they gave out during the whole rebuild was Grandal – who got less than half what the Cubs gave Lester almost a decade ago.

It all comes down to largely the complete avoidance of multi year free agents of any real worth at all. Maybe this team could have been better if they had spent the money given to Kelly, Velasquez, Harrison, Garcia, Pollock elsewhere, but they couldn’t get anybody good anyway if they are only willing to give out short term deals. We’ll see if they change anything in that regard this offseason. Until they change that, the results won’t either.

Trooper Galactus

I literally copy/pasted from the article.

And the problem is not the lack of big time free agents (which hurts, yes, but isn’t a crippling hinderance), it’s that he keeps finding the absolute worst guys to throw money at. Meanwhile, guys like Cueto, Rodon, and Andrus are some of the best pickups Hahn has ever made and he basically backed into them rather than including them as part of any master plan.

Last edited 1 year ago by Trooper Galactus
Augusto Barojas

I knew you quoted, was not directed at you but the quote itself. My biggest annoyance with all of this is that even a good GM could not do great things with a high payroll if he is completely restricted on the type of contract and therefore player he could sign. Get rid of Hahn, I agree, but Jerry has to give another GM the latitude to sign real players, not 1-2 year deals.

Trooper Galactus

Competently run teams are able to work around those limitations by creating an effective farm system and through cost effective free agent signings. Hahn has proven incapable of both.

Last edited 1 year ago by Trooper Galactus
soxygen

Cleveland’s front office may have punted, but their players sure didn’t. That team plays hard every day.

Hold Hahn accountable. And LaRussa. But don’t forget the players.

Trooper Galactus

Yup. They’re getting career years out of Rosario and Gimenez, which has helped them get past losing Plesac and Civale to long IL stints and having to DFA their DH. Their farm system provides pretty good depth too.

markott225

I think you may have missed a coupje of things. 1. This team, at best was built only to win the central. 2. The Sox lost the season series to KC last year (and this year) and only won 1 more game than a pitcherless Cleveland team last year.My expectation was that Minnesota wouldn’t settle for being crappy again,and neither would Cleveland. I did also, however think the tigers would be better. I was pretty positive that these 3 teams upgrades guaranteed the Sox would lose 6-9 more games this year.Their band-aid approach to bringing in average players that are north of 30 isnt a World Series type solution

To Err is Herrmann

While neither Hahn nor TLR are responsible for the collapse of Moncada and Grandal, or for Tim Anderson’s midseason slump or for the raft of injuries, Hahn is fully responsible for putting a washed-up Adam Eaton in RF in 2021 and for failing to address the team’s problems with RHP for years on end. As Jerry will not sell the team or fire his friend Tony, Rick Hahn is the only person and GM the only area they can address to do better, but for all the reasons Jim mentioned, Jerry is not likely to do a thorough job search and be proactive in finding the best talent. I can’t imagine he is happy with the team’s underperformance, but he lacks either the baseball sense or the needed motivation to do better, as he does not like to go beyond his comfort zone. However, his history with the Bulls show he is capable of change so I would be puzzled but not surprised if he does nothing.

Chris

Michael Reinsdorf now runs the Bulls… Daddy gave him total control. Plus the ticket and merch sales were dropping. That is why the Bulls made the changes.

For the Reinsdorf Cabal… the Bulls have always been the cash-cow. Not the Sox.

Last edited 1 year ago by Chris
imperiousk

thought I remembered reading something about Jiménez’s stance from a while back, and I found this article on The Athletic from James Fegan: https://theathletic.com/1170091/2019/08/29/do-the-white-sox-need-to-change-eloy-jimenezs-stance-thats-up-to-him/

from the piece: “When he utilized a more straightforward stance, Jiménez said his front leg tended to stride away from the plate, making him pull off the ball and rendering him unable to cover the outer half. By setting up with his foot in the bucket, it serves as a reminder to step inside as he strides forward. That’s not a mechanism anyone employed with the Sox is going to take away without a second thought — what Jiménez was able to do in the minors after making the change is why he’s here in the first place.”