On August 31, Kenny Williams, the irreverant executive that he is, took a page straight out of a seventh-grade girl's spiral-bound handbook. Instead of studying the rosters of farm systems around the league and placing phonecalls to those that had young talent to trade him for his aging veterans, he made a list. On this list he put every player of his team whom he considered available on the final day to make a waiver deal. It was essentially a note, passed through the back row of class to all his buddies, like Ned Colletti, that read, for each of the players on the list:
DO YOU LIKE ME? CHECK ONE:
YES [ ]
NO [ ]
MAYBE [ ]
Classy.
Well, good old Ned checked a "Yes" for aging left-handed slugger Jim Thome, while Kenny Boy got the Rockies to bite on Jose Contreras. It was a pretty nifty little trick- dispensing with all that "homework" usually involved in trade talks- until we all saw how little the South Sox got in return.
After decimating their farm system by giving up their top four pitchers in a couple of disastrous trades with the A's and Padres over the last two years, the South Siders were in desperate need of some top level talent to restock the farm system. So in trading the man currently ranked 12th on the all-time home run list, you would expect at least a decent mid-level prospect in return, right? Needless to say, that didn't happen. Instead, they got a 25-year-old mired in A-Ball with a career OPS of less than .700. Yikes.
Meanwhile, Colorado continued to employ the "well-you-were-a-shitty-pitcher-in-Chicago-so-you-should-be-great-here" strategy for their season in acquiring Contreras, who leads the American League with 12 losses. Williams may have made off slightly better in his returns here, but again has shown us again how short-sighted he can be (even while off-loading veterans!) in whom he took in return.
Brandon Hynick is a 24-year-old who has spent all season at Triple-A Colorado Springs and tossed two seven-inning shutouts this year, including a perfect game against Portland on July 30th. Sounds pretty good right? We'll take him!
Of course, outside of those two starts he is just 8-9 with a 4.21 ERA and has struck out only 92 in 155 innings. Hmm... kind of reminds you of a poor man's version of someone else...
The point is, Williams threw in the towel on his season for the same reason he makes most of his decisions- to prove a point. Not to make his team better for the future, or even save money (the Sox sent cash to the Dodgers to offset Thome's remaining salary). Just because he wanted to. It will be fun to see Williams says about Jake Peavy once he realizes he won't pitch again until next year. Perhaps he'll start spreading nasty rumors about him, or ban him from sitting at the same lunch table.
Whatever he does, I know this much: I just can't wait to see what junior-high tactic he will employ next. Read More!
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