White Sox Need Emergency Aid

All of the talk in Chicago is about how Theo Epstein is going to ride in on his white horse from the Red Sox and at last save the Cubs.

Lucky for Kenny Williams. The White Sox general manager is the one who should be feeling just as much heat as anyone connected to the North Side team. The Sox made a hash of the 2011 season. If they hadn’t, then Ozzie Guillen wouldn’t be managing in Florida next year.

There is more blame to go around on the South Side than settled on Ozzie’s shoulders after a 79-83 season. The Sox regressed as September progressed. Just like the National League Central Division, up until the Milwaukee Brewers caught fire, the American League Central Division appeared ready for the plucking until the Detroit Tigers got hot and disappeared over the horizon.

Right up until the temperatures leveled off at 100 degrees in mid-summer, the White Sox operated under the delusion that if they could just get a little baby winning streak going they could make a run at the flag. But they never could and they never did.

By July there really wasn’t much in the way of sound reasoning to support the notion of a Sox charge. If ever there was a case of a hitter being a dead man walking it was Adam Dunn. Dunn goes down in history as recording the worst season ever by a batter who played as much as he did.

It was an unfathomably bad season and the numbers are more gruesome than the perception. Dunn, signed to be the team’s power source at DH appeared in 122 games, had 415 ABs, clouted 11 home runs and drove in 42 runs. He batted .159 and struck out 177 times. The only reason he played in as many games as he did was because the Sox figured he just had to snap out of the worst slump since pitcher Hank Aguirre invented the career-long slump. (He batted .117 lifetime in 16 years.) The only reason Dunn didn’t have more strikeouts is because the Sox benched him periodically.

No one could see the Dunn debacle coming. Williams committed $56million to a player over four years who had hit at least 26 homers 10 times and drove in at least 100 runs six times. Who knew his cudgel would magically turn into a toothpick?

If that was the Sox’s only problem then you chalk it up to bad karma. But it wasn’t. Chicago let closer Bobby Jenks go, and while he was injured much of 2011, rarely taking the mound for the Red Sox, the White Sox had no replacement. Add in that the vaunted rotation featuring Jake Peavy, Gavin Floyd, John Danks and Mark Buehrle underachieved. For much of the season the steadiest starter was Phil Humber. Bet Guillen didn’t even know his name in March.

As part of the general letdown, the hitting wasn’t so great, either. Paul Konerko was. He stroked 31 homers, collected 105 RBIs, and batted .300. Catcher A.J. Pierzynski just keeps rolling along. He played in 129 games and hit .287. Young Alexei Ramirez at short did fine at bat with 15 homers, 70 RBIs, and a .269 average.

But just about everyone else had more go wrong than go right. Although a two-time All-Star, outfielder Carlos Quentin was only healthy for 118 games.  The younger players like Gordon Beckham did not live up to expectations. Last season the White Sox felt they could contend for a division title. If the 2012 season began today they would be picked to finish last.

Dunn, once again, could be the focus of the solution or the problem. If his spring training 2012 performance is as awful as his regular-season showing was in 2011, he will be too embarrassed to even play and should retire. If he regains his form as inexplicably as he lost it, his 35 homers will be more than welcome.

Williams has never been shy about making trades and will probably be a busy guy this off-season. He will be under intense pressure to improve this shaky team.