The White Sox promised that the money would be spent. To a degree it has. They signed Grandal and Keuchel last offseason. They've built a solid young core that they've for the most part extended. Rick Hahn has built himself a nice little house. He just has a few little things to patch up, like the foundation that the whole house stands on.
Once again this off-season Rick Hahn finds himself operating on a budget. According to Bob Nightengale the Sox were interested in Michael Brantley but he was too expensive. In comes Adam Eaton. Yes it is troublesome that Michael Brantley is out of the price range that Jerry Reinsdorf has given Rick Hahn to operate in. We all know that. It's a problem. A larger problem though is Rick Hahn's ability to operate in a tighter than expected budget, like a bad, third Property Brother.
Imagine if you will the White Sox roster as the first floor of a pretty nice house. They think they're ready to add a second floor though- the playoffs- the World Series. Everything looks good, but the stairs need to be fixed. Rick doesn't have much left in the budget though. So instead of building stairs with some fresh lumber from Home Depot, he goes to the house Edwin Encarnacion or, say, Shin Soo Choo used to live in but abandoned next door and takes some old wood from their stairs. They should be fine. The stairs may look old and rickety, but they have never collapsed before!
One day when Eloy Jimenez is trying to carry his new TV up the stairs or Tim Anderson is carrying a bowl of spaghetti to his bedroom the stairs collapse. Oh no this part of the house isn't working. Tim and Eloy are going to have to get to their bedrooms by putting a ladder over these broken stairs that don't work anymore. There's a hole in the lineup, I mean house.
One day Eloy is climbing the ladder while face timing his Mom. Because he doesn't have both hands on the ladder he slips and falls. He injures himself, but worse than that because the White Sox didn't draft well, I mean build a good enough foundation, the whole floor collapses underneath him and brings down the entire house.
This is the perpetual dilemma that the White Sox seem to face when addressing rosters issues under Rick Hahn. Instead of signing a younger cheaper player who has struggled elsewhere Hahn tends to go for the aging veteran because they've had past success before. The problem is it never works out for him. If you're going to have to sign someone cheap then at least go for someone who might be risky because they haven't had sustained major league success but could still have a higher ceiling. Hahn likes to sign these veterans because their past success indicates a high floor, but the floor these veterans have always seem to rot and collapse under them. bringing the rest of the roster with them. It doesn't help when you only have one position player in the pipeline in Andrew Vaughn, so that when injuries occur and Eloy falls off the ladder there is no one to replace him creating yet another hole in the lineup.
The signing of Adam Eaton was troubling for this reason. Eaton has been good in the past. There's a chance he's still good, but no one knows. What is he going to do at DH and in the starting rotation? Hopefully these rumors that the Sox can't afford Brantley are not true. If they are, then get ready to fortify this house without a lot of rotting wood.
