Big League Stew doesn’t see the team’s unofficial forfeit of the season as the GM Kenny Williams’ fault.
The White Sox Blame Game: Players or Management?
I've seen some suggestions here in Chicago and around the blogosphere that it was GM Kenny Williams who decided to give up on the White Sox season with Monday night's trades of Jim Thome and Jose Contreras. Some people even seem to be on the verge of calling him a quitter.
But let's get something straight here: It was the White Sox players who inflicted all of the white flag-raising damage on themselves.
Williams is only guilty of a mercy killing — if he in fact killed a team by shedding two veterans who were on their way out anyway.
The move has fans reliving frightening memories of a similar situation in 1997. During the '97 season, the White Sox trailed the Cleveland Indians by a mere 3.5 games with two full months left in the season when they dealt two starters (Wilson Alvarez and Danny Darwin) and their closer (Roberto Hernandez) to the Giants.
So what’s going to be the end result with the ‘09 White Sox? That remains to be seen, but chances are people in Chi-Town have shifted their focused towards Jay Cutler. With everything taken into consideration, however, Stew was right: The players tanked the season, not the GM.
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