Sports Illustrated KW article

[NYSox35]

I don't know if this has been posted already. If so, my bad...

It's an awesome read. I never get tired of this guy. Way to go Kenny!

 

"Man with a plan

 

John Donovan, SI.com

 

In a dugout in his workout clothes, spitting sunflower seeds and joking with passers-by, Kenny Williams doesn't cut the accustomed profile of a successful general manager.

 

But no GM in baseball, from the old-timers to the cadre of young up-and-comers, is looking better as the 2006 season begins. Williams, entering his sixth year as vice president and GM, is coming off a season in which he guided the White Sox to their first World Series win in 88 years and a winter in which he fine-tuned those Sox, making them a favorite of many to repeat.

 

It hasn't been a particularly quiet offseason for Williams, who turns 42 later this week. What he thought was an ulcer was actually a painful kidney ailment, and the subsequent surgeries laid him out for much of the past few months. A spat with former White Sox slugger Frank Thomas thrust him unwittingly into the headlines.

 

Still, Williams was loose and in good humor as he sat and talked with SI.com's John Donovan about the Series and its aftermath, his ideas on building the Sox and what lies ahead for Chicago's new favorite team.

 

Here are some excerpts:

 

SI.com: It's been about five months since the White Sox won the World Series. How's the time gone?

 

KW: It doesn't seem that long. I guess it would have been nice to see what it would have been like had I been healthy, to win it then to jump right into the normal -- well, I guess it wouldn't have been a normal -- offseason. But it wasn't until Jan. 3 that I had some downtime. Really, my offseason amounted to six weeks.

 

Somebody asked me, "If you could be assured of winning it again and going through the same thing with the kidney stones and the catheter and the surgeries ... would you go through it again?"

 

And I said "Hell, no. That'd be the year we just had to lose."

 

I don't ever want to go through that again.

 

SI.com: Still, you managed to get plenty done this offseason. The trades for Jim Thome and Javier Vazquez. The re-signing of Paul Konerko. You said in the Sports Illustrated baseball preview, "I didn't think the team we had in 2005 could win in 2006." Why not? That was a pretty good team.

 

KW: We had a lot of things go our way. Offensively, although we had our power and we had the ability to manufacture runs, I felt like in order to kick it up a notch we were going to have to improve the offense. The defense was going to remain intact. We lose Aaron Rowand [in the trade for Thome], but [new center fielder] Brian Anderson will show people that he's certainly a guy that controls the area out there for you, in a big way. But the other way to get better -- and I think this is key to provide insurance against the extended season last year -- was to get the pitching better, too. That's why I went out and got Javy. Our pitchers had 230-something innings last year, each.

 

I wanted [manager] Ozzie [Guillen] and the individual pitchers, both for the team's sake and their career's sakes, to have the assurance that, should they not quite be ready at the start of the season, or at some point they needed a break, that they wouldn't feel like they were hurting the team. If they need a break, the way we're currently constructed, fine. One of them comes out, Brandon [McCarthy] goes in for a spot start, you effectively can give one of them 10 days off until their next start.

 

SI.com: How'd you decide on that plan of action?

 

KW: It's just studying past teams that have gone deep into the playoffs and what happens to them the year after. Where they've been tripped up is the starting staff not being able to carry the same load that they carried before. Also, there's always been a mindset of mine is to work young players into the rotation and bullpen. This kind of affords us the opportunity to do both.

 

SI.com: The White Sox were known, for much of last year, as a team that played "smart ball," as if you weren't a power team. But you smacked 200 home runs. And now you have Thome?

 

KW: You look back on that, the day we made the trade for Carlos [Lee] and we got [scott] Podsednik and all those guys we got in Carlos' salary spot -- and that's really the way we looked at that deal [in December of 2004] -- if you look at that, I tried to tell people at the time that we're going to hit 200 and some odd home runs. It's just going to come from a variety of people. We're going to be better as a whole instead of being better in certain isolated areas. Nobody would listen. Somebody came up with "small ball" or whatever you want to call it ... OK, whatever.

 

SI.com: Can a team be both a power team and play "small ball" or "smart ball?"

 

KW: Yes.

 

SI.com: Can this team, in 2006?

 

KW: Yes. That's where we strived to be last year. We play in a ballpark that's conducive to the longball. We had no desire to take that aspect away from our offense. But over the past few years, we were one-dimensional. Power will come and go, but the other aspects of the game, situational hitting, running ... that has to be a constant.

 

SI.com: Do you find it funny how people -- and I guess that means the media, mostly -- try to characterize your team?

 

KW: There were so many things said about us -- how stupid we were -- we just stopped paying attention. I like to say I'm not too busy to listen to all the things that are being said on the peripheral, but I'm certainly too busy to pay attention to it.

 

People have their opinion. That's OK. And you know what? An injury or here or there more, and their opinion could have been right on the money. We've had good teams before in the last five years that we thought, on paper, had an outstanding chance. It didn't materialize for whatever it's worth, and you become the village idiot. That's part of the gig, man.

 

SI.com: You mention a lot of things going right for you last year. How much of winning the World Series was luck?

 

KW: We had some injuries. Frank [Thomas]. Podsednik. [Jermaine] Dye with a bad groin. Duque [pitcher Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez] went down. We had our share.

 

SI.com: So no luck, then?

 

KW: Sure, we were lucky sometimes. So what?

 

SI.com: Tell me what happened last September when you almost lost your huge lead to the Indians.

 

KW: We didn't almost lose it. Cleveland almost won it. There is a difference. People were calling us chokers, and we're like "Whoa, we're winning two out of three. Three out of five."

 

SI.com: You did have one stretch ...

 

KW: We had one week. We had a bad week. That's when I thought I had the ulcer. They just played out of their minds. And hats off to them. But we always felt that, if it got close, we did pretty well against them.

 

SI.com: I've heard stories that, on the bus ride out of Minute Maid Park in Houston after you completed the sweep of the Astros in the Series, you already were instructing your staff to think about next season. True?

 

KW: The bus wasn't even out of the stadium. We had just taken off. We were still in the tunnel. I had to get 'em quick ... they'd have been drunk in another 10 or 15 minutes.

 

SI.com: Your guys must've loved you spoiling the party.

 

KW: I've been together with these guys 20-something odd years. They know me. I know them. There are no airs or spin put on around here. They were probably wondering what the hell took me so long. They knew it was coming.

 

SI.com: But that soon?

 

KW: It was important for them to understand that, yes, we won and yes, I'm happy. But this isn't the goal. It's part of the goal. We want to put ourselves in position on a consistent basis, like [Atlanta's] Bobby Cox and John Schuerholz have done, to give our city a sense of pride about their baseball team -- one of their teams -- give them a sense of expectation. A one-trick pony, I'm not interested in. That message needed to be sent, right then and right there.

 

SI.com: How far do you think the White Sox have come in sending that message to Chicago? Has this changed how people think about the Sox in Chicago?

 

KW: We had a million tickets sold on Opening Day last year. We got 2.2 million sold this year. As far as the general pulse ... I don't know. I have to ask someone that's a little bit more objective than me. Someone that pays a little more attention than I do. I can't get caught up in that sentimentality. That's why I didn't watch any of the World Series DVDs until we completed constructing this team going into spring training. Had I watched them, I don't know that we'd have done all the things that we needed to do.

 

The drama, you can get caught up in it ... I'll forever love them for it, and be appreciative of it. But that was last year. That was that moment in time.

 

SI.com: So what was the most extravagant thing you did to celebrate?

 

KW: [Pause] I got sick pretty quickly.

 

SI.com: Afterward, no champagne, no cigar, no dinner out?

 

KW: [Pause] Me and my wife went to dinner -- we didn't pop open any champagne. Then we went to see a movie or something.

 

SI.com: Wow. That's quite a celebration.

 

KW: What the heck are you supposed to do? Listen, you were hired to do a job. Do the ------- job you were hired to do. And if you didn't do the job ... mostly you're going to get fired.

 

SI.com: Nobody's going to call you a sentimental fool.

 

KW: We did the Oprah show, and then we did the parade ... then the marketing people had all this stuff lined up. I went to my house in Scottsdale. "See you guys later." And I watched it on TV. I watched Ozzie on TV go to Venezuela. And I watched CSI or whatever. Then the NFL season ...

 

I don't know what you're supposed to do. It wasn't elation. It wasn't a great sense of joy, I'll tell you that right now.

 

SI.com: Sounds like relief, maybe?

 

KW: More than anything, John, yeah ... You know why? 'Cause I've been in Chicago since ... 1983, '86 as a player. I've been there 22 years. I have felt the frustration. I literally have felt the tension in my neck and my back every game, every season, every pitch to where people don't even really want to sit with me to watch the game. That's the weight I got to carry around. So, I couldn't go from that state to joy or elation. I went from that state more to ... [exhale] whewww.

 

One of the proudest moments I've ever had ... the guy comes out to sing the National Anthem in Game 1. The crowd starts to swell.

 

Look at that ... [Here, Williams points to his thigh, where a healthy set of goosebumps has popped up as he talks.]

 

The tremendous amount of pride that came over me. I looked and went "Wow, I had a hand in helping these people, generations of people, enjoy this thing that they've never had an opportunity to enjoy."

 

Mind you, that only lasted until the first pitch.

 

SI.com: Sounds like that was better than the actual winning of the thing.

 

KW: Well ... after [the World Series clincher], there was that sigh ... but I just watched [owner] Jerry Reinsdorf every step of the way. In my mind, it was like I was just a bystander. It's been a lifetime dream of his. That's where my enjoyment came from, that's where my sense of accomplishment came from -- watching him. He was like a little kid. Then, when we got on the field, and Jerry's holding the trophy, and the players are chanting his name. And he starts to cry.

 

It's moments like that, more than any professional feeling ... it's personal. That's the best way to put it. It's never been about a job. It's personal.

 

SI.com: You've built this team with an eye toward getting a certain type of player in here, which brings up the old question of whether chemistry on a team is a byproduct of winning ...

 

KW: I don't know.

 

SI.com: ... or a necessary ingredient to winning.

 

KW: You know how long I've been trying to figure that ---- out? I don't know.

 

You gotta have some talented players at this level. Yes, we've looked at makeup first and foremost. But ... we don't have any great theories about this thing that we can go out and write a book about it.

 

We want the grinder type guys, and as many guys that care about a "W," more than what they're hitting, as we can get. That unselfishness that these guys have ... a number of guys structured things in a way in their contracts so we wouldn't lessen their chance to win. But we can't take credit for that type of character. That's their mommas and daddies. That'd be awfully arrogant of us.

 

SI.com: You're an ex-player and an ex-player development guy who seems to lean more toward old-school than new-school sabermetrics and statistical analysis. Accurate or not?

 

KW: You know the funny thing is, because I come out and say, "The first question I ask is to my scouts and player development, and the last question is to my scouts and player development" ... that's true. But the reason I ask them is because [director of baseball operations systems] Dan Fabian and his group have deciphered all the numbers. Sometimes it starts with them. Sometimes it starts with the scouts. We're a blend.

 

SI.com: OK, so here's a trick question. VORP?

 

KW: What?

 

SI.com: VORP?

 

KW: What the ---- is that?

 

SI.com: Win shares?

 

KW: I know what that is.

 

SI.com: Do you know how it's calculated?

 

KW: I know the form that I get it in. The form that Dan puts it in that I understand is fine for me. If I had to go home tonight and calculate all of that stuff, there's no telling what I'd come up with.

 

SI.com: Ever hear of PECOTA?

 

KW: Yep. The only reason I know it is because those guys tell me. Some things, I'll be honest with you, it's too complicated for me.

 

You have to be both. Then there are times, like Esteban Loaiaza [signed by the Sox before the 2003 season], where nobody ... The record says no, the walk-to-strikeout ratio has been declining. Here's what is says about pitchers who are nearing their 30s and blah blah blah and the scouts say no ... But you know what? That's why we have four TVs in my box up there. Because once we have identified these targets, we're watching. And Esteban Loaiza developed a cutter at the end of the year.

 

If you're so locked into those theories, you don't create an atmosphere to where you can change or you allow a guy to develop and change.

 

SI.com: You had that rather public, and fairly obscene, offseason spat with Thomas. We all heard about it. You told me that your grandmother got on you for that?

 

KW: She didn't want to hear me cursing. She said [Here, Williams goes into his best grandmother impression] "Baby? I saw you on tee vee today. You know you were raised better than that, right?"

 

"Yeah, I know Grandma."

 

"Well, I still love you. You seemed kinda mad. I hope you get that evil out of you. We're gonna go to church on Sunday, I'm gonna gather the congregation, and we gonna pray for you."

 

"Thanks, Grandma. Thanks."

 

"We're not gonna have to see you cursing on that," ... what'd she say? ... "That E-S-P anymore. Right?"

 

SI.com: I love the fact that the GM from the World Series champs can get put in his place by his grandma.

 

KW: Man, when I got home after the World Series, I tried to tell my wife. She told me to do something, take out the trash or something. My kids forgot to take the trash out to the curb.

 

So she said, "You need to gather the trash and take the trash out." So I said "Do you understand that you are talking to the general manager of the World Series champion?"

 

She says, "Oh, excuse me. Why don't you take your championship ass out there and put the garbage on the curb. Mr. Champion."

 

So I gathered the garbage and took it out."

[bmags]

somebody's whipped

/green

Edited April 3, 2006 by bmags

[NYSox35]

somebody's whipped

 

lol...maybe, but he was in a celebratory mood that night and wanted to make sure he was getting some.

 

I like the part about his grandma thinking he's evil. I remember hearing him say in an interview after the profanity-ridden one that he was going to get in trouble for that and it cracked me up b/c he's so mild mannered.

[RME JICO]

Good stuff. These articles never get old. KW is the man.

[southsideirish]

QUOTE(bmags @ Apr 3, 2006 -> 02:59 PM)

somebody's whipped

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Cause he takes the trash to the curb?

[bmags]

there

[Jordan4life_2007]

KW has evolved as a GM considerably since '01.

[TheBigHurt]

QUOTE(NYSox35 @ Apr 3, 2006 -> 08:29 AM)

SI.com: OK, so here's a trick question. VORP?

 

KW: What?

 

SI.com: VORP?

 

KW: What the ---- is that?

 

ROFL. I just love Kenny's attitude. It's no wonder he and Ozzie are so great together.

[Whitewashed in '05]

Once again. KW

[chitownsportsfan]

SI.com: OK, so here's a trick question. VORP?

 

KW: What?

 

SI.com: VORP?

 

KW: What the ---- is that?

 

That's just KW playing "bad cop" for the cameras. I still think he holds a grudge against Beane, and now says things like this just to spite Beane through the media. He knows what VORP is, he implies that he measures sabermetricians opinions on his staff very importantly, and VORP (or something similiar) is surely one of their metrics.