Kenny Williams Not Being Complacent

By: John M. Crist

The Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years two seasons ago, yet they tinkered heavily with their roster the following winter and received an awful lot of criticism for doing so. The team ended up with major holes in the starting rotation and bullpen, and the locker room chemistry that seemed instrumental during their unprecedented championship run simply wasn’t there anymore.

The Chicago White Sox have now captured their first World Series title in 88 years, and like their chowderhead counterparts, the next season’s opening day roster will display much more turnover than you might expect from a defending champion. But instead of being beaten over the head with all the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it talk, GM Kenny Williams has been applauded for his hot stove efforts all over Chicagoland.

And deservedly so.

Williams never would have been forgiven had he let 1st baseman Paul Konerko leave via free agency, no matter what kind of crazy cash was being thrown his way by the Angels and Orioles. After another 40-homer, 100-RBI season and a ton of big hits in the postseason, Konerko solidified himself as the figurehead of the franchise and the people’s champ throughout U.S. Cellular Field. When your best player is also your best guy in the clubhouse, you simply can not lose him, and the Sox didn’t.

Before the Konerko deal came together, Williams made a somewhat surprising blockbuster trade and acquired another big bat 1st baseman, Jim Thome of the Philadelphia Phillies. It hurt to give up Aaron Rowand, another fan favorite and the embodiment of the nitty-gritty ballplayer that catapulted this team to prominence, but Ozzie Guillen’s lineup was in desperate need of some legitimate left-handed power. Thome was abysmal last season due in large part to a number of debilitating injuries, but he is another 40-homer guy when healthy and has long had a reputation as one of the classiest guys in baseball.

The deal gave Williams a genuine secondary plan no matter what happened with his biggest star. On the one hand, if all hell broke loose and Konerko took more money on the free agent market, Thome would slide right in at 1st base with Frank Thomas being been brought back to be the everyday designated hitter. Once Konerko decided to re-ink with the Sox, Thome became the DH while the ‘Big Hurt’ Era officially came to a close.

South Siders are going to miss Rowand, nobody can dispute that. Not only was he a solid hitter who could be moved up and down the lineup seemingly every day, ‘Crash’ deserved a Gold Glove last season with his aggressive and fearless play in center field. Rowand is not the kind of middle-of-the-order slugger who strikes fear into opposing pitchers, but he has decent power, can steal a base when he needs to, and is too much of a team player to let the pursuit of numbers get in the way of the task at hand.

That being said, Rowand was fairly disappointing at the plate last year. After a torrid finish in `04 when he mashed his way to a .310 batting average and 24 home runs, Sox fans were expecting him to reach 30 homers and maybe the century mark in RBIs. Nevertheless, he hit just .270 with only 13 bombs despite almost 100 more at-bats during his `05 campaign. Most alarmingly for the number-crazy sabermetric-types out there, his OPS dipped from a Magglio Ordonez-like .905 to a Rey Ordonez-like .736.

The starting rotation carried the Sox throughout the postseason, especially during that run of consecutive complete games that obliterated all the mind-numbing lefty-righty bullpen matchup madness (I like to call it LaRussa-ism) that has poisoned the typical baseball broadcast. Mark Buerhle, Jon Garland, Freddy Garcia, and Jose Contreras all have the stuff to win 18 games next season, Orlando Hernandez came to the rescue with his brilliant bases-loaded-nobody-out Houdini job against the Red Sox in the division series, and Brandon McCarthy is considered to be one of the most promising young starters around.

Nevertheless, Williams saw an opportunity to make a team strength even stronger. He sent Hernandez, also-ran reliever Luis Vizcaino, and top outfield prospect Chris Young to the Arizona Diamondbacks for talented right-hander Javier Vazquez. Although he was only 11-15 last season, he hasn’t thrown fewer than 198 innings since `99, and since he’s still just 29 years old, a lot of pitching experts believe Vazquez has the goods to put together a 20-win season.

Most teams in Major League Baseball will be lucky to break from spring training with four starters capable of getting the job done, but as presently constituted, the Sox will have six. Even better, Williams was able to get a fair amount of cash from both the Phillies and Diamondbacks in these trades, which will keep the balance sheet in order going forward. The Sox don’t have the luxury of throwing money at their problems like the Yankees and Mets, yet they still managed to create more positive buzz this winter then either of their Big Apple compatriots.

Williams made another under-the-radar decision this week by re-signing tough-guy catcher A.J. Pierzynski to a three-year contract worth $15 million. Toss in the addition of utility man Rob Mackowiak from the Pirates and the promotion of super prospect Brian Anderson to replace Rowand, the `06 Sox already appear to be deeper, younger, more flexible, more balanced, and more talented than the team that won it all just two months ago (all without being ridiculously more expensive).

White Sox fans waited nearly a century between World Series titles, but instead of basking in the championship glow (which would have been perfectly fine with many people), Williams recognized that his team still had flaws and could get better. Not only are they now better, but you have to look very close to find any hint of a flaw. Maybe the outfield defense won’t be as good without Rowand and perhaps Bobby Jenks isn’t ready for a full season as the closer, but considering what Williams has done already, he’ll fix those problems should they arise.

And he won’t wait until the July 31st trading deadline to do so.

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John Crist is a longtime contributor to the CSR, and the Editor-in-Chief of Bear Report Magazine. Check it out and become a Bears Insider. You can contact him at johncrist@yahoo.com.

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