Kenny Williams' Off-Season in One Word: Laughable

Yesterday I was talking with a friend on-line, discussing another article I recently posted to the B/R, along with other baseball topics.

In the article, I had mentioned Freddy Garcia (the fifth-man in the White Sox rotation) so naturally the talk turned to our favorite team on the south-side of Chicago.

He then asked me very plainly, "what the hell are the White Sox doing?"

I didn't have an answer at first because I didn't know to what aspect of the Sox he was referring to, and after some explanation it became clear he was referencing the off-season acquisitions made by the Kenny Williams-led White Sox.

My only response was that I didn't know, because really, I didn't. I don't.

I mean, I was there to discuss each individual acquisition with my friends and on White Sox message boards, to be sure, but I had yet to take a step back and look at the aggregate of what the Sox have been able to put together this off-season.

Taking a step back now and looking at the whole of the off-season thus far, the best description I can come up with for the off-season of the Chicago White Sox is comedic, or even laughable.

After such a woefully underachieving and disappointing 2009 season, the answer (thus far) put forth by the White Sox has been acquisitions of Mark Teahen, Andruw Jones, Juan Pierre, J.J. Putz and Omar Vizquel.

Now, individually, each acquisition makes sense: Mark Teahen and Omar Vizquel provide above-average defense on a team that had sustained trouble picking up the ball last season; while Anduw Jones and J.J. Putz are low-risk, high-reward signings, from which any resemblance of a career-average season will be considered a success.

Juan Pierre, on the other hand, has a career .258 EqA and is a prime example of how more traditional metrics (batting average, stolen bases and hits) can be tricked into portraying a player as above-average when he is indeed quite the opposite. 

With the glove, Pierre is an unimpressive  negative 23 (-23) in Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA), so while the cozy dimensions of U.S. Cellular Field might aide him with his defensive struggles, he certainly won't be above average as a fielder.

Simply put, Juan Pierre is a bad, albeit cheap, stop-gap until one or more of the White Sox outfield prospects can mature into an everyday MLB player, or until a better choice for the center field and lead-off spot presents itself. Really, there was no better option than Pierre for what the Sox needed, but that certainly does not make Juan Pierre any good at baseball.

And, as stated earlier, each one of these acquisitions makes sense in its own right. It is just when the whole of the acquisitions is looked at, the moves become borderline comedic.

Think about it, the White Sox made the playoffs in 2008 and followed that up with a completely unimpressive 2009 season where they went 79-83. Yet somehow they were able to construct a pitching rotation (more on that next time) that is certainly in the top five of the MLB, and perhaps even in the top three.

Then, after constructing such an awe-inspiring rotation, they compliment it with off-season acquisitions of Mark Teahen, Andruw Jones, Juan Pierre, J.J. Putz and Omar Vizquel?

That is the view that turns the White Sox off-season into a tragic comedy already, and with the uncertainty of the offense even before the acquisition of these players, the outlook for the White Sox offense in 2010 is not very good, and even laughable at times.

Though, this is to say almost nothing about the White Sox pitching rotation, which is certainly the best in the AL Central Division, and probably one of the best in the AL. So that will be a good reason to keep tuning in for some White Sox baseball, as well as the progression of Gordon Beckham, last year's Sporting News AL Rookie of the Year.

So don't think this piece already damning the White Sox to a season of failures and comedic baseball follies, it isn't.

Rather, be able to take a step back and laugh at what the Sox have done, because while there are good baseball reasons behind the acquisition of most of the players, the aggregate of the signings and trades is certainly funny from a team supposedly in World Series contention.

-Jonathan Platek