Kenny didn’t pick Hahn. Hahn had to basically beg Reinsdorf to get an entry level scouting position, and Reinsdorf told him no because he has a billion degrees and didn’t “belong” in baseball. Hahn wrote Reinsdorf a hand written letter explaining how he could help the organization, Reinsdorf finally obliged, and the rest is history. Hahn is Reinsdorf’s guy, not Kenny’s.
Once named GM and until the Collins pick, Kenny was in charge of the draft and Hahn was in charge of dealing with agents, proposing trades, and contract negotiation. Hahn is the reason Sale, Quintana and Eaton were all signed to insanely team friendly deals. Hahn had little say in the draft, until recently when they started embracing advanced analytics more, cleaned house in the scouting department, and chose ‘his’ guys.
That’s why Corbi is incorrect. None of us have any idea how they draft or develop now, because all of the guys Hahn has drafted and developed are still in the minors. He’s looking at ancient history. Gone are the days of drafting the Jared Mitchell and Joe Borchard types they hope they can groom into baseball players.
If it were up to Hahn, he would have started the rebuild two years earlier with trades. Reinsdorf and Kenny wanted to go for it still, in spite of Hahn’s wishes. After the Sale jersey cutting incident, Reinsdorf approached Hahn and said “were going to do it your way” and they have ever since.
Kenny acts as a liaison between Hahn and Reinsdorf now, while having his hand in scouting, etc. But it’s only been a few years that Hahn has actually ran the show, in spite of being GM for 5ish years now.
Source: Rick Hahn told this all to me himself.
It is a completely different organization now than it was just 2-3 years ago.