Balancing present, future remains Hahn's focus

CHICAGO -- The White Sox have been a better team through the first two months of the 2014 season than most people expected. They have hovered around .500, despite countless injuries, and have stayed in contention in the American League Central and for a Wild Card spot -- albeit only at the 58-game mark.

General manager Rick Hahn has stated numerous times before that the team won't make moves to get one playoff berth while hurting the overall plan of sustained excellence for years to come. Hahn reiterated that point prior to Sunday's series finale with the Padres.

"As we've seen in the first two months, a lot can happen and a lot of plans can change," Hahn said. "You lose your right fielder [Avisail Garcia] and that alters how you have to behave. First and fundamentally, hopefully the baseball gods smile on us a little bit more over the next two months than they did over the last two months, which will impact our decision making.

"Second and sort of broader, the opportunities to win are sacred. If we are in a position where we feel we have a real chance to win, we will address whatever needs we feel exist at that time to enhance those chances. At the same time, we are not going to do anything that's going to compromise our longer term goals that we've talked about for about a year in terms of putting us in a position where we can win on an annual basis.

"We don't want to jump up and make one playoff appearance and then drift back away for the next several years," Hahn said. "We want to be in position to contend annually."

Hahn added that there are some areas of depth right now in the organization where it's conceivable that they can address needs for 2014 and still "not compromise our ability to compete going forward."

"But it's going to be a little bit of a balancing act conceivably," Hahn said. "We still have a little bit of time to get more information about this club and our competitors and the viability of winning this year."