Expect busy winter from ChiSox
Posted: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 7:52 PM
White Sox general manager Ken Williams is fearless. That’s a good trait for a GM if his owner is supportive and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is known within the sports world for his unending loyalty. Remember that Williams took on Frank Thomas – in the process defending Reinsdorf -- when the longtime White Sox player had an acrimonious split with the franchise.
Williams appears to hold no grudges. He made a trade with Billy Beane last winter, something that may have caught those who read the book “Moneyball” by surprise. But Williams and Beane seem to share a willingness to improve their teams by whatever means necessary. Is it because they are the rare GMs who once played in the big leagues?
Williams understands the struggles of players. Like Beane, his big league career was brief and undistinguished. And Williams was in a Stanford football uniform when Cal ran “The Play” to deny the 1982 Cardinal, and their QB, one John Elway in his final game, a bowl bid.
What both GMs display is a grasp of today’s reality that rosters are more fluid than ever. Beane often says that his team’s payroll will never allow them to hold many players for the long term. Williams has more money to play with but not enough to hold a fully stable roster.
What seems highly impressive about Williams is his willingness to cut losses, which contains some admission of a mistake in judgment on his part. Nick Swisher had a bad year and fell into White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen’s doghouse so when the season ended he was promptly moved by Williams to the Yankees.
Javier Vazquez, a durable pitcher who has proven unable to deliver the clutch performance in a pennant race, appears next to go, heading to Atlanta pending physicals. Williams watched Vazquez pitch poorly in his last three regular season starts as he failed to finish the fifth inning in any of those outings. Then with a chance at redemption, Vazquez was hammered by Tampa Bay in his one playoff start. Williams saw all he needed to make the decision to move Vazquez.
Now rumors are that Jermaine Dye, a mainstay of the 2005 World Championship White Sox, could be on the move. Williams has sent a message that no one is untouchable, not even his closer Bobby Jenks.
Think about the dynamic in which Williams operates in Chicago. He won a World Series on the South Side while over on the North Side, the Cubs can’t win a single playoff game. The Cubs spend more and thrive in the media limelight much to the eternal chagrin of the White Sox, who are like Republicans in their frustration with the “mainstream media.” Of course in Chicago, the major paper owns the Cubs, who haven’t had an October like the one the White Sox enjoyed three years ago.
So Williams is willing to move anyone in the right deal. His team charged past the Twins in the final days of the season but their decisive loss to Tampa Bay showed Williams they needed to improve and so one of baseball’s gutsiest GMs is hard at work to make that happen.
FIVE MORE SWINGS:
1. HOPE THE GIANTS’ SCOUTS…have learned something new about Edgar Renteria. Reports of San Francisco offering the free agent shortstop a two-year deal are circulating. Now here is a player who has been given up on by three teams in the last four years. Detroit hoped to resurrect him last year but his waist size increased while his range decreased. He is now a shadow of the Gold Glover he once was. The Giants need offense but their ballpark rewards pitching and defense. Why put Renteria behind a Cy Young Award winner in Tim Lincecum? Is it simply a decision that two years of Renteria is a safer bet than four years of Rafael Furcal, who is also on the open market?
2.13 STARTS…are all it takes to raise hopes. Free agent Mike Hampton signed with Houston and while the return to his original NL team is a good story and the Astros risk is limited, the optimism voiced over his 13 second-half-of-the-season starts for Atlanta is almost laughable. This is a pitcher whose body broke and not just his elbow broke down on him.
3. INTERESTING NAMES WERE MISSING…from the arbitration list Monday night. Bobby Abreu, Adam Dunn and Pat Burrell were not offered by their former teams, meaning the teams, while maintaining the right to re-sign the player, forfeit the right to draft pick compensation. What does this mean? A surplus of bats, especially DH types, on the market will lower the price, below what any of the above could command in arbitration. One exception was Seattle offering arbitration to Raul Ibanez, who’s likely to sign elsewhere and so if he does it helps Seattle’s rebuild with a pair of compensation picks.
4. PITCHERS ARE THE OPPOSITE SPECIES...thus the Mets offered arbitration to Oliver Perez, willing to take another flyer on the lefty if Scott Boras can’t land the Santana-like contract his “book” contends Perez should command. Not a bad move by the Mets -- remember it’s the years not the money that scares teams -- who would pay Perez a high number on a one-year deal. If the economy prevents many long-term deals this winter – and that’s looking more likely by the day -- Perez could emulate Kyle Lohse’s one-year deal with St. Louis. Rather than expecting a big contract simply for being alive -- the Boras plan for Lohse that failed last winter -- Lohse followed a smart mantra in 2008 -- just win games and the money will follow.
5. ONE PITCHER WHO MIGHT BE WISE…to accept arbitration is Ben Sheets with Milwaukee. While the Cubs did not offer arbitration to Kerry Wood, a decision that mirrored the DH situation in that there is a greater supply of relievers than the demand for big-money closers, Milwaukee did offer Sheets and CC Sabathia arbitration. The Brewers know they will get two draft picks for Sabathia but Sheets is oft injured and in a bad market so he will likely need to prove himself sturdy. Arbitration in Milwaukee may well land Sheets a better deal than he could get on the market.
