After hearing Ken Williams’ impassioned defense of baseball’s lack of movement at the winter meetings, one might get the impression the White Sox have a better chance of acquiring the Rally Monkey than a No. 2 starter.
Williams sounded off Sunday night after being asked about possible collusion by major-league teams.
“Every industry has a leveling-off period,” Williams said. “Every industry, every country, every business, whether it’s the mom-and-pop store on the corner or big business. Baseball reached that leveling-off period quite some time ago in that respect. When you talk about revenues going up at the rate that salaries have gone up, there’s quite a bit of disparity, and that’s the bottom line.
“You cannot spend a dollar if you only have 50 cents. However, that has been the practice, and sooner or later you knew that some people were going to have to come to their senses and be a little bit more judicial in the way they allocate their expenses for their payroll. Agents, players, whomever … they can talk about collusion all they want … but the fact of the matter is teams do not have the money to spend as freely as they once had, and they better get used to it.”
The Sox had another quiet day, like most teams, as the annual meetings began to wind down. Williams has consistently declined to address which teams he has spoken to or which players the Sox are interested in. He was effusive, however, on the subject of salaries.
“Everyone gets hit with the bug to overextend themselves at various times or to put a strain on the budget when you have an opportunity to win,” he said. “We also have done that from time to time. We’ve done it recently and got burned in the process.
“I promised myself one thing–I don’t want to go down this road because our fans, Chicago White Sox fans, do not want to hear it. They don’t want to hear about revenues, don’t want to hear us cry about payroll limitations or anything else. All they want on the South Side is a winning baseball team, and that’s all we’re focused on, regardless of the circumstances. We just have to be that much more creative and make proper decisions and accurate decisions on our personnel and the type of club we put together to make that happen. I’m not going to go down that road because our fans do not want to hear it.”
Did Williams’ speech imply the Sox have no intention of acquiring the type of starter whom he described on Friday as a “difference-maker”?
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” Williams said.
In other news, the Sox said top prospect Joe Borchard is unlikely to make the team out of spring training, and that Frank Thomas can play more first base in 2003 if he wishes.
“If [Thomas] does want to come in and play first base to create a sense of value for himself and be more marketable than he was this season, I’ll do everything I can,” manager Jerry Manuel said. “That’s what you would hope you can do for your players–when they leave you they are, No. 1, better people, and No. 2, better baseball players.”
Williams said Borchard needs “more seasoning,” and will likely start out at Triple-A Charlotte.
Manuel also had a bit of advice for incoming Cubs manager Dusty Baker, his new counterpart on the North Side.
“I usually get advice; I don’t really give advice,” he said. “I told him he should probably spend the winter there because it develops that thick skin, because you’re going to need it in Chicago. If you don’t have thick skin, bro, it’s going to be tough on you. Put some wool sleeves on, because it can get rough.”
Also, the Rule 5 draft takes place Monday, after which the Sox will receive two prospects from Oakland from the Billy Koch trade. Sources said the two players are Class A left-hander Neal Cotts, a second-round pick in 2001, and Double-A outfielder Daylan Holt, a third-round pick in 2000.
