Leave Kenny Out of It

By: Chicago Sports Review

Spend five minutes speaking to the man, and it’s almost impossible to question Ken Williams’ desire to win. Or, just look at his track record.

He was the most active general manager in baseball the season before the White Sox won the World Series, and a week after the soreness had subsided from the champagne and parade, he was again active.

He didn’t rest.

So as Sox fans mutter about the current condition of the team (as if baseball’s second or third best record, depending on the day, is an averse “condition”) they should skip placing their GM in the “blame” category. To do so would be an admission of the necessity to have it both ways.

Obviously, Williams weighs in on personnel, but to blame him for the mismanagement of a bounty of resources is to curse the Creator for global warming.

 I once lauded Williams on his trade for and signing of Freddy Garcia, only to gain the response, “Yeah, and it secured us second place.”He wasn’t kidding. When it comes to winning, with Williams, it’s never a joke. And it’s never enough.

During that discussion, Williams was referring to the 2004 season, and to a team that bitterly wasted a playoff opportunity down the stretch. You wonder if he’d say the same thing about oh, maybe Jim Thome, if the Sox end up in a similar position this year.

I doubt it. But I also doubt the idea the Sox won’t have a post-season spot. And that’s mostly because of Williams, who has created a team that Bill Russell could have referred to when he made a similar statement about the process of baby-making. Said Russell, “Even when it’s bad, it’s not that bad.”

Neither are these guys.

That’s because the fact is, on paper, this general manager has done his job. Maybe too well. The 2006 White Sox entered the season with microscopic holes. Every media outlet said so, and the fan boards echoed it, even when they cried apocalypse after a rough first week. Those who would conveniently like to say otherwise now that second place is a reality either have Tiger’s envy, or are simply stunned in the way Indians fans may have been last year, when the Sox were so uncharacteristically good, they had laid waste to the division before August.

But back to 2006, circa April 1…

Here was a pitching staff so deep that they could remain with baseball’s best or second best record for the next two months even with a brutal start from two of their previous season’s best in Jon Garland and Cliff Politte, and a slow start from others.

Then consider an offense so deep the Sox could almost completely sacrifice the hitting for half a season out of the shortstop and center field positions and a slow start from their leadoff man. The Sox weren’t just the best offense in the first half, they were the best offense with roughly seven players. They still sit near the top of the game in that area.

As of Monday, since the All-Star break, the White Sox pitching staff had posted an ERA of 5.50, good for 28th in the league.

It’s an almost astonishing figure, largely buttressed by the disastrous second half’s being put up Mark Buerhle, Freddy Garcia, and even on some days, the previously untouchable Jose Contreras. Javier Vazquez has the ability and the inclination to be better, and generally is a stud for five innings. His bugaboo has been the blow-up inning. To suppress that might make him just what he was when Williams nabbed him: an almost incredible coup for a fifth starter.

And still there are plenty of people attacking Williams for deadline inactivity. Some wanted Soriano from Washington. To do what, exactly? Further plump up the best heart of the order in baseball, only to weaken a defense that hasn’t been defending? (Not that they shouldn’t defend on paper … is that Williams’ fault too?) And there’s Soriano’s expiring contract on a team where the reasonable longer deal is almost standard.

…or a starting pitcher, some said.

What starting pitcher traded hands at the break that had market value more considerable than any Sox starter?

Cory Lidle? Come on. In fact, there hasn’t been a starting pitcher that has made much difference in the playoffs for a contending team since 1995. What you usually get is desperation out of a second place team, and a Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano situation. There’s a move that should get a GM canned.

What had been the issue was the bullpen, and Williams addressed it poignantly, with David Riske and Matt Thornton early on, and Mike McDougal — who’s been lights out, after all the second-guessing — just a few weeks ago.

The fact is, you can claim World Series fatigue now for the starters, but nobody truly foresaw the difficulties this starting staff has gone through. They were the deepest in baseball, bar none. And World Series fatigue is a good problem. Besides, it’s not like they’ve been injured, the problem most teams are dealing with.

Mark Buerhle is a soft-tossing lefty who is experiencing a stretch that many have. Barry Zito got destroyed for a half last year, and for the start of this season. Mark Mulder did too. Tom Glavine has gotten killed for stretches of a Hall of Fame worthy career, and struggled for years to survive the first inning mess. Jamie Moyer, same boat. Al Leiter and his cutter. This list goes on…

There just aren’t many guys in Buerhle’s category who won’t hit a rough patch. They could be hitting too much plate, having bad first innings, the cutter isn’t cutting. You name it. It stinks. But adjustments are made, and form returns. How, exactly, should Williams have prepared for a slump from one of baseball’s most consistent pitchers over the last few years?

Freddy Garcia has also experienced stretches like this. We know Contreras has too. It happens. When he got them, it was a steal. Now he’s to blame for their ineffectiveness?

Doesn’t work.

What the Sox have now is a team not just struggling (most teams would take this “struggling”), but mostly shouldering the burden of incredible expectations, and weathering the unthinkable tear the Detroit Tigers have been on. That, and the boos of a fan base suddenly drunk on delusions that this franchise has always operated with such lofty expectations.

(And besides, whose roster would you have rather had heading into 2006, Detroit’s or Chicago’s?)

If the Sox have missed one opportunity this year, perhaps it’s not developing the arm strength in Brandon McCarthy to give them a sixth starter down the stretch to help the relieve the mythical or actual starter’s fatigue. Ozzie Guillen gave an almost ludicrous quote yesterday, decrying the performance of McCarthy last season.

He’s wrong.

In September of last year, when McCarthy was spelling the starters, he had an ERA of 2.06 in 35 innings pitched, with 29 K’s. You could imagine him helping tired Sox starters at this point.

So take that to Ozzie. Leave out the GM. Obviously, Williams weighs in on personnel, but to blame him for the mismanagement of a bounty of resources is to curse the Creator for global warming. (Curse Al Gore’s dad … he helped create the vast Interstate Highway system, but I digress…)

When the Sox reach the playoffs, in the Wild Card, or following a miraculous run coupled with a Detroit collapse, they can claim to have made it even when they struggled. Even when they were bad, they weren’t that bad.

But if you want to decry the job Kenny Williams has done, you’d be foolish.

We all know what the Sox are capable of, and the almost unthinkably high expectations are a reflection of Williams’ strength, not his fallibility.

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