Sox GM Hahn says team may still deal
It's been an interesting week for White Sox general manager Rick Hahn, and not entirely on the trade front.
While talking to reporters at U.S. Cellular Field on Friday, the day after the nonwaiver trade deadline, Hahn had a noticeable burn on the right side of his face.
"Firepit accident at my house on Monday night," Hahn said. "Today's actually the worst-looking day since it happened. We had neighbors coming over, we got a new firepit and my wife tells me to fire it up. So I turn on the gas, stick the little lighter in and it goes up in a cloud and gets the whole side of my face."
Hahn didn't let a facial burn stop him from talking trades with other GMs leading up to Thursday afternoon's deadline, but he failed to complete any deals.
"I would probably characterize feelings as mildly disappointed, simply because of our history," Hahn said. "We've shown a desire to make trades and we would've loved the opportunity to continue the process we started a year ago of adding key pieces in this sort of restructuring or retooling or whatever you want to call it, going forward.
"Unfortunately, the right opportunity just did not present itself. We did come close to something. It was a three-way deal that would've wound up netting us such a piece, a guy who's been a target for awhile, but for whatever reason it fell apart about 1 o'clock yesterday and then it was fairly quiet after that until the 3 o'clock deadline passed."
Hahn traded outfielder Alex Rios to the Rangers last August in a waiver deal, and he expects to be busy again this month.
"We're going to be diligent on the waiver wire," he said. "We've been able to do some August waiver deals in recent memory and we have some nice groundwork laid on some certain fronts. How our club or other clubs perform over the coming weeks could change some matches. We're certainly going to stay diligent on it."
Last off-season, the White Sox signed free-agent hitting machine Jose Abreu and Hahn added sparkplug center fielder Adam Eaton in a trade from Arizona.
If Hahn has to wait for the right pieces to come along, he's willing to do so.
"We don't have a specific time for when certain things have to happen on most of the players that are out there," the Sox' GM said. "So it may well go into the off-season, into the winter, but if the opportunity to get better is presented, we'll jump on it."