Kenny Williams at GM Meetings: ‘we’re here to do business as usual. Well, not usual. More than usual.’
Real quick here because I couldn't let this go without opining on this since it sent White Sox Twitter into a free fall last night. I wanted to sleep on it and not make any knee jerk reactions, and after doing so I woke up with the same feeling I had when I saw this quote via Daryl Van Schouwen of the Sun Times.
Look, Kenny Williams is a smart guy. Stanford educated and Executive Vice President of a gazillion dollar operation. That doesn't happen if you're an idiot. But… he's honest to a fault to the media, and it gets him in trouble with fans. This isn't an isolated incident. This goes all the way back to his public spiffs with Frank Thomas and Ozzie Guillen years ago, continued on throughout the Machado saga,
https://twitter.com/NBCSWhiteSox/status/1097986633792516096
and went through last night with his "more than usual" quote.
Before we get into the quote, I'll say this: Kenny Williams is directly responsible for putting together the White Sox singular World Series team in 100+ years. He constructed that team and deserves all the props in the world. But right now, there seems to be this growing debate and dynamic amongst Sox fans that compares Kenny to Hahn and vice versa. To that, I'll say two things:
- Kenny is #2 in the organization. Anyone who thinks he doesn't also have his fingerprints all over the rebuild is bat shit crazy and
- Same for Hahn back in 2005. He was the assistant GM and one of the highest people in the organization at the time. He had his fingerprints on the World Series title as well.
Comparing them is a complete and total exercise in futility. Both are decision makers, both have made A+ moves and both have made F moves, by their own admissions. That happens with every executive in sports. Sometimes you hit a home run, sometimes you swing and miss.
That said, fans are still salty over the Machado shit from last winter. Prior to Manny signing in San Diego, Hahn had this (at the time awesome) presser saying he'd be pissed off if they didn't land a whale:
https://twitter.com/NBCSWhiteSox/status/1088908257291325440
Yeah, didn't happen. The speech was inspiring at the time, but it also left Hahn no room for error with the fans if Machado/Harper didn't work out. At all. Hind sight is 20/20 though and I'm sure he could take those quotes back if he had a time machine.
But… here we go again. I've said it time and time again that the White Sox should have an awesome offseason with most of their core talent having matriculated to the show already. They also don't have hardly any payroll commitments at this juncture of the winter. Should be a recipe for success right? Right, but at the same time, there's the "what if they swing and miss?" question that's prevalent in the back of Sox fans heads, whether that's fair or not.
I would hope that the Sox do indeed have grand aspirations for this winter as Kenny alludes to, but in the (hopefully slim) chance they do throw up a dud of an offseason the fanbase will undoubtedly dig this quote up and raise complete hell with it.
My advice?
Just don't say this kinda stuff. The juice ain't worth the squeeze with quotes like this anymore. Give the cookie cutter, canned lawyer speak and go and act instead of talk. Just lie to our faces, it'll help you save face if, god forbid, all hell breaks loose and the offseason doesn't go as planned. Something like, "yeah we're out here in Scottsdale looking to improve the club in anyway possible. We'll see where the winter leads us" or some shit. Keep it vague, keep it simple, and then go raid the Red Sox roster for big league improvements. Getting Sox fans hopes up and then failing to capitalize is the worst possible thing you can do in the age of social media. It'll be a nuclear meltdown and nobody wants to deal with it, not the organization and not the fans.