Rick Hahn Tries To Minimize Reports As White Sox Culture Comes Under Scrutiny

Rick Hahn met the media on Monday night to address the growing number of reports about culture issues inside the White Sox clubhouse. He denied most of the allegations and even called out a former player for being part of the issue. 

The avalanche of bad press started after former White Sox relief pitcher Keynan Middleton peeled back the curtain of the dysfunction going on in the White Sox locker room in a recent ESPN article. In the article, he said the White Sox lacked, leadership, rules, and accountability. He also said that certain players would skip practice and meetings and that a pitcher fell asleep in the bullpen. 

When asked about Middleton’s comments, former White Sox starter Lance Lynn said “I was there a lot longer than Key was. He’s not wrong.”

Yasmani Grandal, Eloy Jimenez, and Yoan Moncada were then named by the article's author, Jesse Rodgers, as three of the issues inside the clubhouse.

“Grandal is no friend of the pitchers. Moncada is no hard worker who is there for his team or his teammates. It’s the guys you know. Eloy is kind of happy-go-lucky but really isn’t the hard worker at least according to people that I talk to,” Rodgers said. 

The latest included a story from 670 The Scores Shane Riordan said that Tim Anderson and Yasmani Grandal got into an altercation just before the All-Star break. According to Riordan Grandal wasn’t in the lineup that day and wanted to leave early. Anderson from the cold tub said something along the lines of  “ If he doesn't want to be here, I'll pay for his flight.” Grandal then proceeded to walk over to the tub and slap Anderson across the face. 

Grandal denied that there was any altercation with Anderson

But regardless if it happened or not, where there is smoke there is fire and this week there has been too much smoke coming from the White Sox organization to ignore. 

"No one in this organization for the last several weeks has run from the fact that we've had cultural issues and we need to improve the leadership in that room," Hahn told reporters before Monday’s game. "We're going to continue to strive to get better in that area. But one thing we're not going to do is stand idly by while false reports are put out there about the character of the men that remain in that room."

While Hahn acknowledged there were some issues he did his best to minimize the reports. 

"At no point over the course of this year has there been a reliever sleeping in the bullpen during a game," Hahn said. "That's just wrong. We do have a player, a position player, who has fairly serious sleep issues. And as part of our sports performance program of trying to address that issue, he has been given permission, and in fact encouraged, to sleep in the clubhouse at times. Earlier in the season, a couple of our veteran players approached me complaining about such behavior. To their credit, they thought they were trying to help the environment. And when I explained to them the background of the player and why we were doing that, they relented and understood.

"Perhaps that's something that got lost in translation in Keynan's report, but at no point have we had a player sleeping in the bullpen."

Hahn also took issue with Middleton's claim that players were able to skip meetings and practices without repercussion.

"We did have a young player miss infield practice," Hahn said. "And for the next three days, he was out there doing infield practice as extra work as a means of breaking through and holding him accountable for missing the practice and showing the importance of being there."

He then called out Middleton for not keeping things inside the clubhouse. 

“Quite frankly, it’s a little bit ironic that Keynan’s the one saying this, because my last conversation with him face-to-face was a week ago in the clubhouse where he sought me out to apologize for his unprofessional behavior Pedro had called him out on,” Hahn said. “At the time I figured that was a one-off.”

It’s ironic Hahn defended the culture by telling a story of a player breaking the clubhouse rule and acting unprofessional. Even manager Pedro Grifol was forced to talk about the leadership and culture in the locker room. 

“The leaders I thought we had in there weren't leaders,” Grifol admitted.