Kenny Williams

by marykate on Nov 21, 2008 7:21 AM EST Comment 22 comments

I do not think Kenny Williams makes good trades . He never gose after good players and he gives good talent away. He trades good pitching away (Jon Garland) and keeps Old washed up players . I do not see the White Sox ever winning the World Series again and he had nothing to do with winning the World Series. He should trade Javier Vazquez but i doubt he will and what about Jose Contreas he is another one I would get off my roster ., instead he trades Jon Garland who is still very young and I believe he is very good even though he did not have a great year with the Angels .

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Jon Garland is one of the most overrated starters in baseball.

http://statcorner.com/leader.php?type=2&year=2008&leag=MLB&limit=300
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=232&position=P

by R.J. Anderson on Nov 21, 2008 8:19 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Also, I'm usually lukewarm on Williams but to say he had no part in the WS is wrong.

A quick look at his moves:

Good:
Freddy Garcia
Jose Contreras
Dustin Hermansen
Bobby Jenks
Jermaine Dye
A.J. Pierzynski
Tadahito Iguchi

Bad:
Orlando Hernandez
Trading Carlos Lee for Scott Podsednik.

I might be missing a few, but it looks like he hit on 7 of 9 acquisitions that off-season.

by R.J. Anderson on Nov 21, 2008 8:29 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

and he wouldn't have been able to make a few of those hit acquisitions if he didn't dump carlos lee's salary.

nothing in a vaccum, mate.

and i personally think el duque made all of his $3.5M in the sixth inning of game three of the ALDS. but i’m a homer.

free chris getz!

by larry on Nov 21, 2008 10:32 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Fair points.

by R.J. Anderson on Nov 21, 2008 12:16 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

hawk alert!

put it on the booooooaaaaaaaard! yeeeeeeeeessss!

"The NY Mets are my favorite squadron" --Apu Nahasapeemapetilon

by jessef on Nov 21, 2008 2:57 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

congrats on pointing out something the guy said on his own

I am Mega Man, here's my mega plan, you die!

by U-God on Nov 24, 2008 10:02 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I wasn't making fun of Larry,

I was making fun of Hawk. There’s a world of difference.

"The NY Mets are my favorite squadron" --Apu Nahasapeemapetilon

by jessef on Nov 30, 2008 11:01 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

You are missing Something

by Omar Little on Nov 26, 2008 4:40 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

but I think Kenny Williams is a solid GM. Sure, he has made a few trades that have backfired, but every GM makes some bad deals, and Kenny has made plenty of good ones to make up for his mistakes. He screwed up by trading Gio Gonzalez and Fausto Des Los Santos for Swisher, but went out and traded Swisher for some Yankees prospects, albeit lesser ones. I also think he would love to have Chris B. Young back. Carlos Quentin, who is a bit overrated, was a great pickup by Kenny, and the same goes for Alexei Ramirez.
I guess what I am trying to say is that if you are going to come out and lambaste Kenny, at least give some reason as to why. Jon Garland is not a good pitcher. He has posted just two sub-4 ERA’s in his career and in one of those seasons he wasn’t a full time starter. His career FIP of 4.74 is not impressive at all. His K rate of less than five is atrocious. Also, you might be the only sane person on the planet who would rather have Garland than Vasquez.

by dakoose on Nov 21, 2008 9:56 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

I agree.

His tenure in Chicago starter out quite poorly, but his decisions have greatly improved over the years.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on Nov 21, 2008 10:24 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

he was rough around the edges, sure.

he reached his potential, and I think around 2004 is when this happened. This is when you start to see some of his genius playing out. 2005 was his masterpiece. His intention to rebuild on the fly recently worked out, albeit with some stumbling. One of his better qualities, IMO, is the one to give players a chance when no one else will. See: Pierzynski, Thome, Contreras, Loaiza, Floyd. He is the ultimate dice roller when it comes to GMs, and this gives him the ability to look others look really bad. Of course, a lot of his gambles are based on banking on prospects not panning out. He has his smaller losses, but when he wins, he wins big.

by Daniel Berlyn on Nov 21, 2008 3:25 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

2005 was the result of a whole bunch of pitchers

posting bizarre career years, out of nowhere, that they would never repeat, and all of it somehow coinciding in a single season.

Dustin Hermanson, Neil Cotts, and Cliff Politte (career ERA+: 104, 103, 104— and those career marks include their 2005), three league-average relief pitchers, combined to throw 205 highly leveraged innings at a peak-Pedro-Martinez level.

And it’s not like those were the only career years on the team, either— it’s just that that particular trio is so mediocre that the spectacle of them pulling 10 wins above average (70 pitching runs, leveraged to about 1.4 times normal value) out of their asses is almost comical, it’s so lucky.

Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.

by PaulThomas on Nov 21, 2008 8:17 PM EST up reply actions 2 recs

This idea deserves its own thorough article.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on Nov 21, 2008 9:05 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

aren't a good portion of championship teams

or even teams that make the playoffs constituted with a number of players who have career years? this doesn’t really seem all that bizarre to me. but then i witness the twins do the same all the time.

by larry on Nov 22, 2008 11:47 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

As a Cards fan,

I love seeing Kenny pull off those somewhat counter-intuitive moves that work out, consistently showing up the Cubs by putting a better product on the field for less or equal money.

Space.

It's a problem we face.

So we never go anywhere.

We just stay in one place.

by hazel on Nov 21, 2008 7:53 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

At what point have the White Sox spent less money than the Cubs?

2008: WS $121 mil, Cubs $118 mil
2007: WS $108 mil, Cubs $99 mil
2006: WS $102 mil, Cubs $94 mil

You have to go back to 2005 to find the last time the Cubs outspent the Sox. The W-L record between 2006-2008 is virtually identical (Sox have won 3 more games). Sox have done it in a tougher league, admittedly.

I has a blog. | Ask a sabermagician!

by cwyers on Nov 22, 2008 12:31 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

i think it's better to use "real" payroll

than to include all the money a team gets from other teams when computing payroll. but ymmv.

by larry on Nov 22, 2008 11:40 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Not only do the Sox get a significant portion of payroll from other teams

but they don’t backload their players’ contracts to a comical proportion. Watch the Cubs payroll rise like gas prices in the summer the next couple of years.

by Daniel Berlyn on Nov 22, 2008 6:50 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

way to cherry-pick there, buddy.

Cubs
2005: $ 87,032,933
2004: $ 90,560,000
2003: $ 79,868,333

CWS
2005: $ 75,178,000
2004: $ 65,212,500
2003: $ 51,010,000

06-08 CWS +20m
03-05 Cubs +67m

In years before that it’s even worse. Meanwhile the sox have won the WS in he last hundred years and get little to no respect in Chicago compared to the cubs.

Space.

It's a problem we face.

So we never go anywhere.

We just stay in one place.

by hazel on Nov 22, 2008 10:25 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

take a look

http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2005/01/chicago-cubs_112114177768677294.html

at just how dramatically their payroll rises because of backloaded contracts, and that’s without arbitration raises.

by Daniel Berlyn on Nov 22, 2008 10:39 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

yeah,

two to three years in most of the contracts are up by 50% or even doubled in value.

The only exception is derek lee.

Space.

It's a problem we face.

So we never go anywhere.

We just stay in one place.

by hazel on Nov 23, 2008 1:45 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

As a Rangers fan

I’d say that any discussion of the merits of Kenny Williams should include the Danks-McCarthy trade. You really can’t overstate the impact of moving an asset like McCarthy at his peak value (right before a complete implosion) and getting a young top of the rotation starter like Danks in return.

In memory of Ulysses Simpson Grant Stoner. RIP Lil Stoner.

by tricer on Nov 29, 2008 12:17 PM EST reply actions 0 recs