Former Chicago White Sox GM Rick Hahn was part of the front office on the South Side for 23 seasons.
He served as the White Sox general manager from 2012 until his eventual firing in 2023.
Hahn oversaw the White Sox as they underwent their first full-scale rebuild of the Jerry Reinsdorf ownership era, which led to just two playoff appearances and zero playoff series wins.
With rumors about Executive Vice President Kenny Williams and Reinsdorf himself often being too involved in baseball operations, many fans, myself included, have been waiting to see if Hahn ever reveals the details of the failed rebuild and what went wrong.
Did Rick Hahn orchestrate his own firing?
Hahn appeared this week on the "Rosters to Rings" podcast, which is hosted by former Minnesota Twins GM Thad Levine.
While Hahn didn’t give away anything damning about Reinsdorf or the organization, he did reveal more details about what led to his firing in 2023, even implying that he may have orchestrated it himself.
“As I mentioned, in the 2022 season we sputtered around and didn’t fulfill our promise, and the 2023 season got off to a horrible start. Just a disaster,” Hahn said. “Jerry [Reinsdorf] and I had our first conversation in early May of that year. The focus of the conversation was 'What are we going to do to get out of it? What can we do? What are our options?'"
"I ended that meeting by saying 'Look, you do realize, if we can’t pull out of this, you’re gonna have to fire me," and [Reinsdorf] is like “No. Nah. That’s just silly. That’s not the case. I have faith in you.' and I said 'I appreciate that.'"
"I said 'However, you’ve given me and our department the opportunity to rebuild this organization, and we had some success, certainly not nearly enough in our opinion or what we strove for, but if this doesn’t work in ‘23, you’re gonna have to reset it again. And that’s just the nature of where this organization is, where the resources are and where our balance sheets are. And I’m not entitled to get to do that a second time,'" Hahn recounted on the podcast.
Hahn’s comments seem to indicate that Reinsdorf’s plan was not to make sweeping changes to the organization. Hahn went on to say that he advocated for Kenny Williams to remain in his current position, and that Williams and Reinsdorf find a new GM, but ultimately, Jerry elected to fire Williams as well.
Another example of Jerry Reinsdorf's incompetence
Hahn's story is Jerry Reinsdorf in a nutshell. It was obvious to nearly every fan watching that front office changes were needed. The White Sox had just gone all in for a World Series and couldn’t even make it out of the ALDS before the whole thing crashed and burned.
Yet somehow, Reinsdorf felt that the guys in charge were doing a fine job. It took Rick Hahn himself deliberately telling Reinsdorf to fire him to get him to make the obvious necessary decision.
Jerry Reinsdorf has always been loyal to a fault, and it has unfortunately caused the White Sox organization to fall behind the times in nearly every aspect of baseball.
It’s a deficiency that Chris Getz and the new front office have been working to dig out of, but there’s still a long way to go.
Rick Hahn’s tenure with the White Sox came to an unfortunate end. Had Hahn been given free rein over baseball operations, things likely would have turned out very differently.
Had Hahn not stepped in, he and Kenny Williams could still be running the team. That would mean no coaching and development overhaul, and likely more of the same bad practices that plagued their tenure.
Fortunately, Hahn had the self-awareness to be honest with his owner, and the White Sox are in a better position because of it.
As Chris Getz and the front office continue to remake the organization, Jerry Reinsdorf needs to continue to be receptive to the ideas of those around him. If he cares about winning as much as everyone says, he’ll understand that the best way forward is if he surrenders his pride and learns to listen.