Contempt

White Sox general manager Rick Hahn is a smug, arrogant fool, smug and arrogant because those are traits valued by owner Jerry Reinsdorf, fool because the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree. With the trade deadline ticking down yesterday, Hahn traded Jake Burger to the Marlins for minor-league pitcher Jake Eder. Hahn told reporters, “We love Jake,” so why did they trade him? “We needed to be compelled to do that, and Eder, we think, has a chance to be very special and help many White Sox teams for a long time going forward.” [story today on team website] Yeah, until he refuses to sign an extension, at which point he goes the way of Jack McDowell, Mark Buerhle, Lucas Giolito… The White Sox acquired seven pitchers, which tells you how good they are at developing their own. The twenty-four year old Eder was a fourth-round draft pick in 2020. Given how high Hahn is on him, you’d think Sox scouts would’ve convinced the front office to draft Eder in the second or third round. Instead, the Hahn brain trust took Jared Kelley (career 5.18 ERA in the minors) and Adisyn Coffey (career 5.07 ERA). Neither has gotten higher than Double-A, and neither is at Double-A right now. I doubt Hahn would know talent, even if it bit him, hard and repeatedly, somewhere. Beyond that, he doesn’t understand the Sox fan base. Very few of us are plumbers or laborers—I have a Ph.D.—but blue collar is in our DNA. We love the occasional superstar like Frank Thomas but identify more easily with yeoman talents like Buehrle and Paul Konerko. Burger would’ve been the next Konerko. Hahn already has a third baseman. (Apparently, he drafted Burger in order to trade him.) That would be the grotesquely overpaid and underperforming Yoan Moncada, who struck out three times last night in a 2-0 loss to the Rangers. There’ll be more of that and more of those in the months ahead, I’m sure. You know things are bad when a Cubs’ fan calls to tell you it was a bad trade, and that’s what happened to me. Right after that, Clare called, screaming into the phone. She’s a smart kid, a true fan who saw the Burger-Konerko connection. Held in contempt by the people who own and run the team she roots for, she returns that contempt, in buckets and tubs. I do, too.