Baseball season is here again, and once again I have to pay attention to the White Sox since the papers and our readers just can’t get enough.  I don’t hate them, I just don’t care.  Fortunately Ozzie’s nonsense coupled with Kenny’s hilariously itchy trigger finger have made for entertaining stories.  I’m not sure where this video fits into that, but Kenny as the Quantum Leap guy stealing contracts of old players from when they were good is just too perfect.  Enjoy!

Thanks to Adam Z. who not only tipped me off to this goofy video, but also created it.

I waited to weigh in on the most recent news involving the White Sox organization until it was official. Mark Teahen is coming to the South Side while Chris Getz and Josh Fields pack their bags for Kansas City.  The White Sox wanted the versatile Teahen to add youth to an aging outfield or add experience to a youthful infield depending on what source you asked. The Royals obviously wanted to lower their average team age back down below 28 and Teahen would not help them meet that organizational goal.

When I initially heard about the trade, I figured it was a good trade for two reasons: 1) Josh Fields did not have a spot on this team as the most recent winner of the annual Brian Anderson/Joe Borchard award; and 2) while Chris Getz performed only a little bit off the pace of AL Rookie of the Year, Gordon Beckham, the Sox were smart to sell high on the 26 year old who had outperformed most expectations for him.

Remember at the beginning of 2009, Brent Lillibridge and Jayson Nix were expected to play over Getz. Ignoring Lillibridge’s lilliputian production, Nix remains and could serve the same role as last year (slugging utility man) or could start at 3B if Teahen stays in the outfield.

What’s that? Kenny Williams announced Teahen will start at 3B and Gordon Beckham will move to 2B?  Well Crap… as smart as Kenny is, this is a stupid announcement. I’m sure that we’ll hear that he wanted to make this announcement early so that the wunderkind Beckham could spend the entire offseason perfecting the pivot turning the double play from the 2B position. But is this necessary?  No!

The Sox had a Rookie of the Year runner-up at 2B in 2008. That same individual, who goes by Alexei Ramirez or “You ‘Effing Moron” depending on your mood, was pretty horrible at SS in 2009.  With 75 more total chances in 2009 at SS than at 2B during his rookie year, Ramirez’ error total rose from 11 to 20 total errors. We should have seen this coming as (in an admittedly small sample size) he couldn’t go 24 total chances at SS in 2008 with committing an error. This pace would’ve put him at 23 errors if he played SS full-time in 2008.

So considering that one of the major failings of the White Sox team in 2009 was their collective team defense, wouldn’t the organization want to put the players in their best natural positions? I say make it official: Ramirez back to 2B, slide Beckham to SS (his college position, not his “I played it once in the Cape Cod League position) and then tell newbie Mark Teahen that he’ll play at the hot corner or in RF depending on what they can muster in free agency. While Jermaine Dye is likely out, the Sox could always resign him for cheap and hope he bounces back like he did in 2008 from a similar slump in 2007.

Hell, let’s see if Kenny aims for a Jason Bay or Matt Holliday in free agency, although with their new championship, the Yankees will likely sign them both to 8-figure/year salaries.

h/t: Luol’s Dong

A week and a half ago, Chicagoans were bitching about how unseasonably cool, dry and boring the summer had been. We longed to have fun summers like the people on the East, West and Gulf Coasts were having. Kenny Williams, a native Californian had an especially troublesome time with the mild weather. Not only did he know what he was missing in the weather, he also knew that the weather was killing him at the turnstiles.

What a fox aye?

Harkening back to his days with the Appleton Foxes where the players had to get pretty damn creative to pass the monotonous summers, Williams decided he had enough and started to make his own fun. The first sign that Williams had a serious case of cabin fever was when he started trading the farm system to acquire a National League pitcher with an ankle injury serious enough to sideline him for more than two months that the Sox will have the joy of paying $48 million over the next three years with a $22 million club option for 2013 with a $4 million buyout.

Now usually this kind of trade and a quick trip to Beansnappers would have satiated the Appleton Kenny Williams for the rest of the summer. But then Mother Nature struck.

With heat advisories encouraging residents to stay inside if they did not have to go out this past weekend, Williams’ cabin fever flared up again. With his trusty bluetooth headset firmly implanted in his ear, Williams made a few prank calls.

First up, the Pirates. Williams called Neal Huntington and offered to trade him Gordon Beckham, John Danks, and Gavin Floyd in exchange for any combination of Nate McLouth, Adam LaRoche, John Grabow, Tom Gorzelanny, Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson, and Ian Snell. Unfortunately, Huntington didn’t understand the joke and told Williams to “hang on” as he furiously worked the phones to try and reacquire some of these players in order to trade them again.

Thinking that was too easy, Williams moved on to his next target. Lowering his voice even more than usual, Williams worked his magic. After fifteen minutes he had a tentative trade arranged with Chris Wallace of the Memphis Grizzlies involving Rudy Gay and OJ Mayo for DJ Carrasco, Mark Kotsay and PF Jim Thome.

After hanging up and giggling to himself, Williams quickly grew tired of this game. He went online to check on his Facebook page and found himself staring at Alex Rios, outfielder for the Blue Jays, sitting on the waiver wire. After collecting all of his babysitting money, Williams threw caution to the wind and agreed to spend it all and more for the next five years (forget that trip to Paris with his French class next summer) to snatch up Rios, he of the 0-5 with 5 strikeout evenings.

On second thought, maybe Kenny isn’t bored but is suffering from heat exhaustion instead. They always say that humidity is a silent killer. This is the GM that said earlier in the year that the White Sox couldn’t afford a guy like Jake Peavy with only 20,000 fans trickling into premium priced games against the Dodgers. What possible explanation other than mental illness could explain Williams picking up the tab on Peavy’s $48-70 million contract and Rios’ $64 million contract that runs through 2014?

Is Kenny taking a page from the President's book?

Some may wonder if President Obama has become too close with Williams and the rest of the team.  It certainly seems that Kenny has adopted some of the President’s economic policies, electing to spend in the face of grisly future predictions for the state of the Sox economy. Kenny just agreed to take the Blue Jays’ clunker off their hands and will be paying a ton of cash over the next five years for it. Hopefully Rios’ emissions will be healthy for the Sox future, but it will be a sad day when 2005 World Series MVP Jermaine Dye or fan favorite Jim Thome is sent to the scrapyard at the end of this year or the next.