The general manager meetings in Orlando begin Monday, and
Kenny Williams says he's primed for action.
Williams should be far more active this offseason, but it's hard to tell if that's a good thing. Last year showed us that he's not good at playing it safe, but even a couple of his "solutions" suffered from a lack of quality talent evaluation. If there's no improvement in that field and he's planning to use far more resources, it could get ugly in a hurry.
Before the bloodshed begins, let's see what lessons he might apply from last offseason to this one (deals in chronological order):
Nov. 16: Neal Cotts for David Aardsma and Carlos Vasquez.
What it looked like at the time: "Cotts, with his ugly performance in 2005, wasn't worth as much, but I
still think the Sox did well to turn him into an interesting arm [Aardsma] that
can get hitters out if/when Coop works his magic."
How it turned out: Through May 12, Aardsma had allowed only three runs over 20 2/3 innings, striking out a whopping 26 batters over that period.
After May 12, Aardsma allowed 20 earned runs over 11 2/3 innings, allowing a whopping 35 baserunners. He was banished to Charlotte July 5, never to return.
Through
May 6, Cotts hadn't allowed a run over 10 2/3 innings. He then allowed nine runs over his next six, and was sent to Iowa for the rest of the season. The game that did him in -- the
Sox's 10-6 victory over the Cubbies at Wrigley. A.J. Pierzynski his a grand slam off Cotts on the second pitch of his appearance.
For what it's worth, Aardsma fared better at Triple-A than Cotts did.
The third guy in the trade -- Vasquez -- was the only one who didn't disappoint. He started the year in Birmingham, but threw only 14 2/3 innings for the Barons before joining the Knights, where he held his own. His strikeout rate declined, but
he got enough ground balls to overcome it.
What did we learn: Relievers are fickle. This one neither helped nor hurt, and might pay off better next year.
Dec. 6: Freddy Garcia for Gio Gonzalez and Gavin Floyd.What it looked like at the time: "Kenny wasn't lying when he said he was only interested in pitchers, and he accomplished at least three things with this trade:
- He opened up a spot for Brandon McCarthy
- He frees up $10 million
- He gave some beef to the high minors, and...
And there's also a fourth possibility:
4. He may have found a left-handed reliever."
How it turned out: Garcia posted a 5.90 ERA in 11 starts before going on the DL for the rest of the year with shoulder problems June 9. The official reason for the DL trip was a "shoulder strain," but as it turned out, he would need surgery -- and he waited nearly three months for it. And anybody who paid attention to Garcia's starts for the Sox in 2006 was not surprised by any of these events.
Gonzalez
led the Southern League in strikeouts with 185 over 150 innings, and finished with a 3.18 ERA. He improved upon all his peripherals from his 2006 Double-A performance with Reading in the Eastern League, but Birmingham's spacious ballpark had a lot to do with it.
Floyd enjoyed his best year in both Triple-A and the majors, which isn't saying much. He made the International League All-Star team, but was roughed up for the first half of his season in Chicago. After bouncing between the rotation and bullpen, he served as a regular starter in September to provide rest to the others and racked up
five quality starts in six tries. Hey, he was better than Garcia.
What did we learn: Selling high is good. Freddy wasn't at his peak value by any means, but a strong second half -- including
a dynamite September -- and a gaudy total of 17 wins boosted his stock. Williams took
a surprising amount of heat from the Chicago media for dealing Garcia, and in hindsight, this was his strongest move.
Dec. 16: Ross Gload for Andrew Sisco.
What it looked like at the time: "Still, this trade doesn't thrill me because I'm looking at
Sisco's 2006 splits and thinking, 'Good Lord -- he was way worse than Neal Cotts!' [...] So what I'm saying is that ultimately this is an upgrade for the Sox's
second lefty position. I'm just not doing backflips because I don't
see Sisco showing us right away."
In
a separate entry for Gload: "At the same time, the Sox still have only one and a half outfielders,
and there are no indications that the situation will be improved before
the sport starts up again in February. I'm concerned that either the
Sox will have to suffer through Podsednik once again, or make a wrong
move in trying to replace him when a solution was in the organization
all along."
How it turned out: Sisco had a serviceable April, although unlike Aardsma,
Sisco lucked out en route to his 3.24 ERA for the month, allowing far more baserunners and not striking out nearly as many. He
collapsed in May -- 12 hits and seven walks over six innings -- and never saw major-league action after May 27. He spent most of
his time in Charlotte as a starter, where he neither disappointed nor impressed.
Gload was Gload, only in a Kansas City uniform. He saw a decline from his 2006 numbers, but a .288/.318/.441 line from a White Sox left fielder would've been a godsend.
What did we learn: 1. Don't get any more relievers from Kansas City. 2. If a reliever only has one pitch and it's not that great, stay away. 3. Don't take .300 hitters for granted.
Dec. 17: Toby Hall for two years, $3.65 million.
What it looked like at the time: Erm...
I liked this move quite a bit.
How it turned out: Ozzie Guillen gave me a hell of a birthday gift by playing Hall at first base during spring training, where h
e tore his labrum diving for a ground ball. He rushed back to action by May 18, but never looked comfortable. He had only
one RBI after 100 at-bats, which pretty much sums up his ineffectiveness.
What did we learn: Don't play your backup catcher out of position for no good reason.
Dec. 23: Brandon McCarthy and David Paisano for John Danks, Nick Masset and Jacob Rasner.What it looked like at the time: "If the Sox front office felt McCarthy's homertastic ways (one every
five innings) wouldn't fare well long-term at U.S. Cellular Field, I
could understand it. But then I look at Danks' numbers, and I don't
see much of a difference."
How it turned out: McCarthy had a miserable April (9.90 ERA, 2.10 WHIP over 20 innings), but those numbers returned to normal over his last 81 2/3 innings (3.64 ERA, 1.43 WHIP). His strikeout rate took a hit, though, and that may have been due to what eventually turned into a stress fracture in his right shoulder blade. He missed about two months of action in total.
(Interesting McCarthy fact: After
a three-homer game April 15, he didn't allow multiple homers in a single outing, something Danks did eight times.)
McCarthy's injuries and the Rangers' struggles as a whole took heat off Danks, who wore down in the second half, posting a 7.11 ERA after the All-Star break before getting nearly the entire month of September off. He only threw 139 innings, but Danks labored through a frame more than any other starter on the staff. He
averaged 17.32 pitches an inning, nearly 1.5 pitches more than the second-place finisher, Javier Vazquez. Of course, Vazquez struck out a ton of hitters.
Masset drew rave reviews from his work in winter ball, as he had 22 strikeouts to only two walks in 20 innings for Mazatlan in the Mexican League. He
didn't look like much in Spring Training, and didn't look like much during the season. His fastball was roughly 4-5 m.p.h. slower than scouted, and therefore quite pedestrian. Because he wasn't spectacularly awful, he was the last to get sent down to Charlotte,
which happened on July 17. He
didn't do much there, either. He now appears to be a classic case of overscouting.
Neither Rasner (6.83 ERA, 1.78 WHIP in Kannapolis) nor
Paisano (.203/.273/.275 in A-ball) did anything worth writing about, but Paisano's only 19. Rasner was 20, but that doesn't excuse him.
What we learned: If we assume Herm Schneider and Don Cooper might've helped McCarthy avoid or lessen the impact of his injuries, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. And don't trust winter ball stats.
Jan. 12: Chris Stewart for John Lujan
What it looked like at the time: "Stewart's not going to be a major-league hitter, and while
his throwing arm is stellar, Gustavo Molina isn't much of a downgrade in that department. Supposedly, the White Sox staff likes working with him as well. [...] Lujan joins Jacob Rasner, Nick Masset, Andrew Sisco, Carlos Vazquez
and David Aardsma of guys who can crank up the heat but don't have much
of an idea of where it will end up."
How it turned out: After looking completely overmatched in his eight at-bats with the Sox last year, Stewart started his year with three hits in his first nine at-bats. That turned out to be an aberration, and he was later replaced by Miguel Ojeda. He posted a .627 OPS with Oklahoma in the PCL, 75 points lower than his OPS with Charlotte the year before.
Lujan had a solid year as the closer for Winston-Salem, striking out 90 in 82 innings with a 1.37 WHIP, but he's a bit old for the league (23).
What we learned: Nothing. Minor move.
Jan. 23: Darin Erstad for one-year, $750,000.What it looked like at the time: "The
White Sox have signed Darin Erstad, which I deemed
The Worst Idea of The Offseason to Date a month and a half ago."
How it turned out: Enough keystrokes have been spent on the subject.
What we learned: If it walks like a washed-up, injury-prone duck, quacks like a washed-up, injury-prone duck...
It's not like Williams' failures last year stem from the same source, but if I were to pick the most common theme, it would be that he might've seen what he wanted to see, and not what actually was there.
Erstad's the prime example -- Williams had considered him a desirable target for several years, and finally got a chance to acquire him for a fraction of his previous cost. Of course, he'd been a fraction of his previous value for quite some time.
But he also had a relationship with the Danks family since 2005, when the Sox drafted
Jordan Danks, John's younger brother, in the 19th round. Jordan rejected a quality offer and went to Texas instead, and perhaps his fondness of the family and
the increasing rift between McCarthy and Ozzie Guillen led to that move.
Throw in what became a substantial overappreciation of Masset based on 20 innings, and I wonder if his emotions got the best of him. Heck, emotions might have been the cause of his best move as well -- the reacquisition of Gonzalez, who he had a hard time sending to Philadelphia to begin with. Fortunately, the initial evaluation of Gonzalez was more standard procedure.
Perhaps I'm reading too deeply into this, but it may have some merit. Before the 2006 season, he packaged one of his favorites, Aaron Rowand, for a statistical juggernaut in Jim Thome. That was the centerpiece of his offseason plan, but the Sox didn't return the postseason, and a lack of "chemistry" and "clicking" were the popular root causes. It wouldn't be the first time somebody tried an opposite method after disappointment.
At any rate, enough with the armchair psychology. Tomorrow night I'll unveil my super-awesome offseason plan.
The Cheat and
Jeeves will be doing the same.