Show the swagger ... the door
If you told me on Jan. 3, 2008, that the White Sox would ship Nick Swisher out of town for far less talent than it took to acquire him in less than a calendar year, I would’ve told you to get out of town.
And if you didn’t get out of town, I would’ve cold-cocked you, put you
in the back of my truck and dumped your unconscious body outside of the
city limits of said town.
It seemed that ridiculous. And even now, when such a trade is not the product of a drug-addled imagination but rather science fact, it still seems ridiculous.
It’s not the staggering disparity between the quality of prospects the Sox gave away and the ones they received in return for Swisher’s services. Kenny Williams has been burned a few times by his itchy trigger finger. Look at Aaron Cunningham, who figures prominently in Oakland’s outfield plans for 2009. Williams traded him for Danny Richar, who briefly appeared to be Tadahito Iguchi’s heir apparent before he was buried on the depth chart shipped to Cincinnati for Ken Griffey Jr.
Trading Fautino De Los Santos, Gio Gonzalez and Ryan Sweeney for Wilson Betemit, Jeffrey Marquez and Jhonny Nunez isn’t much different than trading Aaron Cunningham for Ken Griffey Jr. It’s unfortunate, but it happens.
No, in this case, what makes it so unbelievable is Swisher appeared to be such a fixture that
the White Sox built their entire marketing campaign around him.
“Swagger,” or lack thereof,
had gained some traction as a minor buzzword partially explaining how the White Sox offense bottomed out during the 2007 season.
Swisher’s arrival, simply put, signaled the return of the “swagger.”
A very brief timeline:
Feb. 20, 2008: Swisher shows up to spring training.Upon his appearance,
no fewer than six media outlets attached the word “swagger” to Swisher:
"'Why do you gotta say it like that?' asked Swisher with a broad smile on his face, after a reporter inquired if he had that mean swagger Guillen sought." – Scott Merkin, whitesox.com.
"'I love playing the game, and if it comes off like that, hey, some people look at it like that,'' Swisher said of his swagger." – Scot Gregor, Daily Herald.
"'He's the perfect fit for our station,' program director Mitch Rosen said. 'He has Chicago swagger.'" – Teddy Greenstein, Chicago Tribune.
"Swisher brings a certain swagger to the South Side." – John Mutka, the Post-Tribune (Gary, Ind.)
“Forget they fact that he’s single and has been known to refer to himself as “Swish-a-licious,’’ he also brings a swagger and cockiness with him that will instantly be embraced on the South Side.” – Joe Cowley, Chicago Sun-Times
March 5, 2008: The White Sox announce their season slogan.Replacing “We Are Chicago Baseball,” the Sox finalized their advertising campaign with the unwieldy tagline “Share the Passion. Show the Swagger.”
As the Chicago Sun-Times explained, “It's a two-pronged tag because agency and client both contributed part of the final line. Energy BBDO can take credit for "Share the Passion," while White Sox marketing honcho Brooks Boyer and his staff came up with the swagger part.”
So. There you go.
Swisher did his part by throwing himself not just at the media, but also
into the media. He made regular appearances on both the White Sox flagship radio station and Comcast Sports Net’s pregame shows. Even if you didn’t tune in until the game started, you couldn’t miss clips of Swisher hamming it up during several commercial breaks.
(Honestly, the first thing I think of when hearing “Nick Swisher” is telling the TV audience how he’s got the CSN logo facing the camera and has “got this thing locked in.”)
He also brought with him “Dirty Thirty” t-shirts, a variety of hair styles (face included), the post-double, double-barrelled points to Heaven, the post-homer hip bump celebration, and the Captain Morgan dance with Orlando Cabrera.
Little about Swisher suggested he was willing to blend in even before he joined the Sox. Dating back to his emergence in Oakland, he craved to be the face of the organization, and was even willing to wear clown makeup to do it. Considering the tens of thousands of dollars he’s raised for charity that way, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
That’s why it’s shocking that just 10 ½ months after the Sox paid a handsome price to acquire Swisher’s services, team sources say personality issues are ultimately what bought him his ticket to New York.
Take Swisher out of the equation and ask yourself the following question: “Will a guy who’s spent his successful career exuding overconfidence be humbled promptly and easily?”
Or, to put it another way, “How well do manic people handle disappointment?”
The answers to those respective questions are pretty simple: “No,” and “not well.”
Hell, there are hundreds of thousands of stories, books, plays, and movies devoted to the first one, and in most of them, those guys see the error of their ways, learn from their mistakes and become model citizens.
On the other hand, there is a minority of main characters who never change, only to die alone and penniless, and that’s supposed to serve as the happy ending.
Maybe Swisher is so stubborn that he falls into the latter camp, because the Sox are no strangers to toxic personalities. Williams traded for dinosaur-denying, gay-bashing, accused-of-child-abusing Carl Everett twice. It’s possible Jurassic Carl’s brand of personality defect, though outwardly troubling, had no negative effect on the team, and Swisher’s type undercut Ozzie Guillen or fractured the clubhouse in some other way.
Still, it’s unsettling that the Sox couldn’t account for this turn of events and bailed on their poster boy that quickly, and at such a loss. There’s only one other team that comes to mind when it comes to erecting and dismantling a team image that quickly, and that’s the 2000 Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
Desperate for a quick fix, the Rays spent a lot of money on Vinny Castilla and Greg Vaughn, who, when paired with Jose Canseco and Fred McGriff, would give Northern Florida fans the sluggingest lineup to ever wallop the apple around baseballing grounds.
It didn’t work. Finding his team in last place once again in early August, Rays GM Chuck LaMar waived Canseco in early August. He released Castilla a month into the 2001 season, and waived McGriff three months after that. Vaughn was the only one who stayed for the duration of his contract. He hit so poorly that nobody would take him.
Who did Rays ownership receive in return for four players whose contracts cost the Rays more than $75 million over their durations? Middling prospect Jason Smith and journeyman pitcher Manny Aybar.
We’re not looking at an apples-apples situation because that Tampa quartet was seen as the solution to all the Devil Rays’ problems, and it looked risky at the time and downright foolish now. We’d have a more direct comparison if Williams handed big contracts to Paul Konerko, Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye
this offseason, and not anywhere from two to seven years ago.
But the way the Sox ditched their investment, only one year into it and at large net loss, is unsettling to say the least, because such capricious decision-making doesn’t normally yield successful results. Look at the Yankees, who went with Gary Sheffield over Vladimir Guerrero and Randy Johnson over Carlos Beltran just because. Or the Rockies, who decided over the course of four years that huge investments in power, then pitching, then speed, and finally power were most important to success in Coors Field before saying, “Hey, let’s take some time, develop some young, talented players and see how that works out.”
Swisher was supposed to be such a young, talented player that the Sox gave up three younger players who could reach Swisher’s level for him. Now the Sox are back where they started at the very least, and likely worse off.
That’s not saying it’s the end of the world, because Swisher had a bad year and could do it again. But the manner in which he was moved is cause for alarm, because it does raise questions about player evaluation.
And what about swagger? If Swisher brought it to the table, does that mean it’s off the table? The swaggerless Sox won 72 games, and the swaggerly Sox won 89 and the pennant. Does that mean that the Sox are due for a downturn unless they bring in somebody to replace Swisher’s swagger?
Maybe the greatest victory for Sox fans in this whole chain of events – to the chagrin of the marketing department – is the whole concept of “swagger” being thrown by the wayside. The concept should have never escalated above the clubhouse. A lack of swagger didn’t derail the Sox in 2007; it was a lack of talent, especially in terms of depth. If Swisher showed the Sox that swagger without results is kind of annoying, then they’ll have discovered what Sox fans already learned the season before.