The King of Dumpster Diving

[cabiness42]

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/i...ated-gm-in-game

 

Kenny Williams never seems to get the credit he deserves as White Sox general manager, but that's an impressive string of deals. Viciedo and Ramirez were sought-after Cubans, but the others show Williams' ingenuity in building a baseball team. He's the king of dumpster diving.

[southsider2k5]

That is the perfect nickname for Kenny.

[southsider2k5]

Fixed.

[NorthSideSox72]

I also like Yard Sale!

 

[caulfield12]

Ramirez WASN'T that sought after, really. He was another version of Ramon Santiago, to many scouts.

 

But Wise, Quintana, DeAza, Humber, Youk, Myers, Liriano, Veal, Heath, Marinez (acquired for Ozzie), Nathan Jones, Reed (taking a closer in the first 3-5 rounds of a draft), Hector Santiago...they all kind of fit the definition.

 

Rios, essentially, was picked up for free, just his contract was assumed.

 

Thornton was the original successful dumpster dive that REALLY worked out well, along with the likes of Loaiza, Quentin, Contreras, Dye, AJ, Iguchi, Pods, Hermanson and many others.

 

Gavin Floyd fits to a tee, as well.

 

CUE MARTY34 appearance to say he should be fired if the White Sox don't make the playoffs.

Edited September 18, 2012 by caulfield12

[elrockinMT]

Ramirez WASN'T that sought after, really. He was another version of Ramon Santiago, to many scouts.

 

But Wise, Quintana, DeAza, Humber, Youk, Myers, Liriano, Veal, Heath, Marinez (acquired for Ozzie), Nathan Jones, Reed (taking a closer in the first 3-5 rounds of a draft), Hector Santiago...they all kind of fit the definition.

 

Rios, essentially, was picked up for free, just his contract was assumed.

 

Thornton was the original successful dumpster dive that REALLY worked out well, along with the likes of Loaiza, Quentin, Contreras, Dye, AJ, Iguchi, Pods, Hermanson and many others.

 

Gavin Floyd fits to a tee, as well.

 

CUE MARTY34 appearance to say he should be fired if the White Sox don't make the playoffs.

 

 

I am certainly glad that KW took my advice & signed players that didn't cost us a lot of money but could still play and contribute

Edited September 18, 2012 by elrockinMT

[The Ultimate Champion]

Kenny Williams is a very good GM and has been that for many years. He's only made a couple bonehead moves (Teahen, trading for the wrong player, the Thome situation, the CF situation for years), but those aren't the ones people focus on. The "misses" he gets stuck with were either all win-now moves (Edwin Jackson, the first Swisher deal, etc.) where he traded good-but-not-great prospects for highly talented proven players, or else low risk/high reward types that didn't work out (Sisco, Massett, MacDougal's extension, etc.). Pretty much everything Kenny Williams has done in the last 10 years has either been a great move that the Sox have benefited from or at least a decent on-paper move that only looks bad viewed in hindsight.

 

Let's not forget that some of the "worst" moves Kenny has ever made, at least when you go back and look at the fan reaction when the deals were made - trading Brandon McCarthy, giving up Miguel Olivo AND Jeremy Reed plus Morse as a 3rd player which was a huge haul for rental Freddy Garcia, trading the now-injured Dan Hudson who I think we should all finally agree is NOT what many here trumped him up as, etc. - these have all been pretty good moves or at least haven't really stopped the forward progress of the organization.

 

Kenny's bad farm system rankings are going to start to turn around fast now that Mr. Club Burn is out of here and the new CBA has put the Sox on pretty even ground. Watch Kenny build and then maintain a consensus mid-tier farm system while constantly depleting it through trades. Meanwhile, watch what Theo does on the North side. It'll be apparent rather quickly who the better GM is.

 

And finally, one more thing to throw out there about Kenny & his farm: there are about 20-30 prospects per organization for the national "prospect evaluators" to pay attention to, plus the players who have graduated/fallen out of list contention, plus the players in the upcoming draft, plus the guys coming out of the Dominican as teenagers, or out of Cuba or Japan, etc. There are literally several hundred "prospects" out there for these national guys to pay attention to. Most of the time they are working on old 2nd or 3rd hand information that may account for nothing more than a couple of observations. These guys are desk jockeys who sit there and try to use their own criteria to come up with ranking systems more or less based on nothing. They are not pro scouts and their opinions & rankings mean next to nothing. If they get to see a good amount of video on a particular prospect then it's probably such a big name prospect that any fan with an internet connection can see the same thing. They are the Joe Cowleys of the prospect world, i.e. they have their "sources" which in general seem to account for very little and are really the only advantages they have over the average educated fan with an opinion. The Hector Santiagos and Jose Quintanas and Eduardo Escobars of the world always fall through the cracks with these guys, and only through posting otherwordly numbers in the minors do they ever get attention. The problem with that is that players like this account for a good percentage of the players actually competing in the Major Leagues. KW, Rick Hahn, Buddy Bell, etc. are showing that they have a system in place that is working and is producing actual results. Who the f*** cares if Keith Law doesn't like Chris Devenski or Matt Heindenreich? I doubt Houston does, and I certainly don't because I kind of like having Brett Myers coming in late in the game. So basically f*** these prospect guys, kudos to KW & the Sox. And next time KW trades a prospect nobody knows anything about, don't sit there and say "KW is a thief" like an idiot just because Keith Law says so, maybe give KW & his group a little bit of credit for finding a prospect that another team likes enough to bother trading a proven veteran for.

[The Ultimate Champion]

I just now had a min to read this article... good for me I was able to stop a couple sentences in.

 

Third baseman Kevin Youkilis, acquired on the cheap from the Red Sox in a salary dump deal.

 

Reliever Brett Myers, acquired earlier this season in a salary dump trade with the Astros.

 

Err, per Cots...

 

Brett Myers

acquired by Chicago White Sox in trade from Houston 7/21/12 (Astros pay $1M of $4.84M remaining in 2012 salary)

 

Kevin Youkilis

acquired by Chicago White Sox in trade from Boston 6/24/12 (Boston pays about $5.6M of remaining $6.62M 2012 salary, with Chicago responsible for 2013 option or $1M buyout)

 

Hmmm, a salary dump where the trading team pays almost all the salary? Sign me up!

 

That's actually another way of saying "I know nothing about the players KW traded so I'll just assume they suck & the deal was a salary dump." Kudos, ESPN.

 

 

Also, as an aside, the Quintana mention... if you read the scouting reports on Cuban lefty Gerardo Conception, best case scenario there is Jose Quintana. Kenny gets Quintana for nothing & he's contributing right now in a pennant race. Theo gets Conception for $7M and he's got a 7.39 ERA in A ball.

[Quin]

But what about the terrible farm system? We'll never recover.

[southsider2k5]

But what about the terrible farm system? We'll never recover.

 

If Kenny Williams wasn't a smug ass before, after the farm system has saved this season to a large extent, he deserves to be one now.

[LittleHurt05]

But what about the terrible farm system? We'll never recover.

 

[insert Royals #1 farm system joke here]

[Balta1701]

[insert Royals #1 farm system joke here]

No joking about the Royals until we can beat them?

[LittleHurt05]

No joking about the Royals until we can beat them?

 

I thought about that before I pressed "Add Reply", but in my world a 14 game lead in the standings speaks way louder than a 10-5 season series advantage.

[Balta1701]

I thought about that before I pressed "Add Reply", but in my world a 14 game lead in the standings speaks way louder than a 10-5 season series advantage.

I just don't want to anger their spirits...

[LittleHurt05]

I just don't want to anger their spirits...

 

Good point. We don't want Jeremy Guthrie reading any posts and deciding to pitch on 2 or 3 days rest just to spite the Sox!

[southsider2k5]

No joking about the Royals until we can beat them?

 

[checks standings]

[SI1020]

In order to maintain the #1 position in the ALC it would be wise to win the series against KC. If they had handled them the way they have should this division race would be ovah. For some reason KC hurlers turn our hitters into mush. It needs to stop now.

[EvilMonkey]

The Sox have always had one team every year that was bad but would still spank them every time. When Detroit was bad it used to be them we couldn't beat. Just throw strikes (n0 o-2 walks), catch the ball, the rest will come.

[kitekrazy]

One thing hard to ignore that needs to be fixed. The Sox don't draft well. Take notes Jerry if you plan on being a budget minded owner.

[NorthSideSox72]

One thing hard to ignore that needs to be fixed. The Sox don't draft well. Take notes Jerry if you plan on being a budget minded owner.

Actually in the past few years, they've drafted a lot better. Team WAR from playes drafted 2008 and beyond for the Sox is higher than any other team. For that matter, they did that having only one year in that time with a particularly good draft position (2008). And, the new system really seemed to benefit them in the 2012 draft (although really, it is early to say for sure on that one).

 

The system still lacks depth at a lot of positions, but things are getting better in the past few years.

 

[caulfield12]

Kenny Williams is a very good GM and has been that for many years. He's only made a couple bonehead moves (Teahen, trading for the wrong player, the Thome situation, the CF situation for years), but those aren't the ones people focus on. The "misses" he gets stuck with were either all win-now moves (Edwin Jackson, the first Swisher deal, etc.) where he traded good-but-not-great prospects for highly talented proven players, or else low risk/high reward types that didn't work out (Sisco, Massett, MacDougal's extension, etc.). Pretty much everything Kenny Williams has done in the last 10 years has either been a great move that the Sox have benefited from or at least a decent on-paper move that only looks bad viewed in hindsight.

 

Let's not forget that some of the "worst" moves Kenny has ever made, at least when you go back and look at the fan reaction when the deals were made - trading Brandon McCarthy, giving up Miguel Olivo AND Jeremy Reed plus Morse as a 3rd player which was a huge haul for rental Freddy Garcia, trading the now-injured Dan Hudson who I think we should all finally agree is NOT what many here trumped him up as, etc. - these have all been pretty good moves or at least haven't really stopped the forward progress of the organization.

 

Kenny's bad farm system rankings are going to start to turn around fast now that Mr. Club Burn is out of here and the new CBA has put the Sox on pretty even ground. Watch Kenny build and then maintain a consensus mid-tier farm system while constantly depleting it through trades. Meanwhile, watch what Theo does on the North side. It'll be apparent rather quickly who the better GM is.

 

And finally, one more thing to throw out there about Kenny & his farm: there are about 20-30 prospects per organization for the national "prospect evaluators" to pay attention to, plus the players who have graduated/fallen out of list contention, plus the players in the upcoming draft, plus the guys coming out of the Dominican as teenagers, or out of Cuba or Japan, etc. There are literally several hundred "prospects" out there for these national guys to pay attention to. Most of the time they are working on old 2nd or 3rd hand information that may account for nothing more than a couple of observations. These guys are desk jockeys who sit there and try to use their own criteria to come up with ranking systems more or less based on nothing. They are not pro scouts and their opinions & rankings mean next to nothing. If they get to see a good amount of video on a particular prospect then it's probably such a big name prospect that any fan with an internet connection can see the same thing. They are the Joe Cowleys of the prospect world, i.e. they have their "sources" which in general seem to account for very little and are really the only advantages they have over the average educated fan with an opinion. The Hector Santiagos and Jose Quintanas and Eduardo Escobars of the world always fall through the cracks with these guys, and only through posting otherwordly numbers in the minors do they ever get attention. The problem with that is that players like this account for a good percentage of the players actually competing in the Major Leagues. KW, Rick Hahn, Buddy Bell, etc. are showing that they have a system in place that is working and is producing actual results. Who the f*** cares if Keith Law doesn't like Chris Devenski or Matt Heindenreich? I doubt Houston does, and I certainly don't because I kind of like having Brett Myers coming in late in the game. So basically f*** these prospect guys, kudos to KW & the Sox. And next time KW trades a prospect nobody knows anything about, don't sit there and say "KW is a thief" like an idiot just because Keith Law says so, maybe give KW & his group a little bit of credit for finding a prospect that another team likes enough to bother trading a proven veteran for.

 

 

Good post.

 

However, I don't think ANYONE ever considered Escobar a potential force, any more than Andy Gonzalez, for example.

 

And to characterize Gio Gonzalez as a "good but not great prospect" is slighting one of the best young pitchers in baseball. When all is said and done, there will be more complaining over dealing Gio for Swisher than perhaps any other trade that has been made, other than Todd Ritchie for Wells/Fogg/Lowe.

 

But yeah, the Juan Uribe/Aaron Miles trade was another example of an under-the-radar trade that clearly led to 2005.

 

Bobby Jenks and Sergio Santos also deserve/d mentions in the original article as "dumpster dives" that panned out incredibly well.

 

And there's bound to be grumbling about Z. Stewart and Molina, although Stewart partially ended up getting us Youk and one of the players traded for Quentin led to the acquisition of Liriano, who has given us some decent starts down the stretch and helped buy time for Sale and Gavin Floyd, as well as Jose Quintana.

[The Ultimate Champion]

Good post.

 

However, I don't think ANYONE ever considered Escobar a potential force, any more than Andy Gonzalez, for example.

 

And to characterize Gio Gonzalez as a "good but not great prospect" is slighting one of the best young pitchers in baseball. When all is said and done, there will be more complaining over dealing Gio for Swisher than perhaps any other trade that has been made, other than Todd Ritchie for Wells/Fogg/Lowe.

 

But yeah, the Juan Uribe/Aaron Miles trade was another example of an under-the-radar trade that clearly led to 2005.

 

Bobby Jenks and Sergio Santos also deserve/d mentions in the original article as "dumpster dives" that panned out incredibly well.

 

And there's bound to be grumbling about Z. Stewart and Molina, although Stewart partially ended up getting us Youk and one of the players traded for Quentin led to the acquisition of Liriano, who has given us some decent starts down the stretch and helped buy time for Sale and Gavin Floyd, as well as Jose Quintana.

Escobar has a shot at being a solid player, not necessarily a force, and that's a big part of the problem with the national prospect guys, they only seem to care about those with "force" potential. I singled out Keith Law in the post you quoted (and I usually do) because he's the one more than any other who comes off like a jag. It would have been/would be poor form for a national prospect evaluator to view Escobar as a game-wide top shortstop prospect over many others with higher ceilings, but someone like Law is apt to trash a prospect like Escobar as if he's just that - garbage - while someone like Sickels OTOH is far likelier to admit he has a chance if he can hit enough. My greater point though was that with so much focus on ceiling, ceiling, ceiling you miss a wide cross section of talent that ends up overachieving versus the higher ceiling guys who fall off the face of the earth. And speaking of Andy Gonzalez, he was actually a higher ceiling guy who didn't make it.

 

Calling Gio a great prospect though is all hindsight. Gio's size, durability, pitch count, walk totals, and penchant for big struggles while adjusting to a new level made him one of those guys a GM really likes but is willing to part with in the right deal. Gio was offered as part of the Miguel Cabrera package along with Danks, Fields, and Sweeney and the Marlins let that one go. There are lots of young pitching prospects out there like Gio (and many in the Majors too, including the one we faced tonight) who have terrific arms but lots of questions. Some make it, others don't, Gio is just one that did.

 

The Uribe trade is still one of Kenny's all-time best moves. Jenks & Sergio too. Really what Kenny has done -- in his ability to pull MiLB talent out of other organizations, pull former top prospects like Humber and Jenks off waivers, make the big trade ala Freddy or Bartolo, make the big money deal ala Dunn/Rios/Peavy, the Uribe/Thornton/Marte small-turned-huge trades, major reclamations like Contreras, etc. etc. etc. along with smart FA signings like Dye, Loiaza, Flash Gordon etc. and then the drafting and developing his own talent -- is he has shown he is a very versatile GM who works well under Reinsdorfian operational constraints and one who can turn a team seemingly destined for 5+ years of mediocrity or worse into a contender with an extended playoff window, all without even raising the payroll. Kenny is a great GM & sometimes angry Sox fans need to calm the f*** down and really look around the league because there are some other types out there who have handled money (payroll), minor league talent, and potential MLB windows of contention a hell of a lot worse than KW ever has.

 

Oh, and he's also creative. And rather dapper in a suit, but better in a hoodie, if I may say so myself.

[The Ultimate Champion]

One thing hard to ignore that needs to be fixed. The Sox don't draft well. Take notes Jerry if you plan on being a budget minded owner.

Jerry's problem it seems was never with meeting a set budget, or the fact that talented prospects get big bonuses, it seems his issue was with organizations more or less handing out blank checks to unproven prospects and MLB turning a blind eye. Add in the Wilder scandal and it's hard to see an owner like Reinsdorf doing his part to make things even worse. Without getting into politics, JR is the kind of guy who votes 3rd party if he believes that candidate is the best one for the job, not someone who picks a side and runs with it just because he doesn't think his guy will win. JR I'm sure knew his organization would be at a disadvantage if he refrained from abusing the system like everyone else, but he held firm and didn't give in anyway. With things in order expect the Sox to address the farm system budget in an entirely different fashion.

[greg775]

I may owe the board an apology for all my hatred of Rios in the past just as many of you owe me an apology for your hatred of Wise in the past. He's been quite a savior.

Edited September 19, 2012 by greg775

[iamshack]

I may owe the board an apology for all my hatred of Rios in the past just as many of you owe me an apology for your hatred of Wise in the past. He's been quite a savior.

I don't remember going after Wise too much, but I will give credit where credit is due. You saw some things in Wise (whether deservedly or not) that no one else (or very few) did.

 

Props to you, Greg.