Trade Deadline groundwork beginning in earnest

MINNEAPOLIS -- White Sox general manager Rick Hahn met with the media Tuesday as talk of the July Trade Deadline already dominated the conversation.

Hahn noted that he has already started to receive some calls -- as is usual once the First-Year Player Draft is over -- and especially with the position the White Sox are in, nine games out of first in the American League Central at the start of play Wednesday.

"Given the way we've played thus far, it's not a real surprise we've had some phone calls -- more of the vulture-type phone calls, the type that traditionally we're more accustomed to making," Hahn said. "But that's part of the hole that we've dug for ourselves, that teams are going to look at us as potential sellers when the Deadline comes, and they're starting to lay a little bit of that ground work now."

Hahn didn't want to assess the potential movement of any individual players, especially with so much time left before the Deadline. He did say that regardless of how the next six weeks go, they will have "25 guys in that clubhouse every day and a coaching staff every day that's focused on winning that night's game."

But to deal with hypotheticals about any individual player would distract the White Sox from trying to turn their season around.

Paul Konerko added that the potential for a team to lose certain players in a trade is simply a part of the game players have to deal with.

"When it comes to that kind of stuff, I don't want to say you can't control those things because you can obviously as a team and as a player going on the field, [you] can control it in a way," Konerko said. "But all you can do is your best, and that's what we've been doing. I think everybody knows and is mature enough in here. … You just know going into it with this job that the management will make moves if they see fit at any time to do that."