Williams letting club's performance speak for itself
CHICAGO -- Ken Williams has an idea as to whether the 2014 White Sox, sitting at 19-18 following Friday's 9-3 drubbing of the D-backs, will emerge as one of this season's surprise postseason contenders.
But the White Sox executive vice president doesn't feel the need to share said opinion.
"All I can say is nothing I say matters," Williams told MLB.com. "They [the players] will continue to show you and everyone whether they believe they are and there is certainly nothing right now that indicates that they don't believe.
"Somebody is going to have to prove to them that they don't belong I guess," Williams added.
Williams spoke of the laundry list of things to be addressed coming off of last year's 99-loss debacle, a list mentioned many times by general manager Rick Hahn. But when asked what percentage of said list was actually accomplished since acquiring Avisail Garcia as part of a three-team deal at last year's non-waiver Trade Deadline, Williams once again couldn't provide a definitive answer.
"I couldn't even tell you, and you know why?" Williams said. "You just keep going to the next issue and because we've had so many injuries this early, it seems like it has been a scramble every day."
Holding steady or moving forward ever so slightly while getting healthy would be the next move to enhance that possibility of White Sox contention. Williams credits the entire front office for helping keep the roster solid with that abundance of first-month injuries.
"Not just Rick, but guys like [assistant to the general manager] Jeremy [Haber], [senior director of baseball operations] Dan Fabian and [assistant director of baseball operations] Daniel Zien," Williams said. "These guys back here, [coordinator of baseball information] Dan Strittmatter, these guys that are identifying Frank Francisco is out there or [Moises] Sierra who helped us win the other day, he's out there on waivers and maybe he can help us in this given situation. It's not just the people who are out front. It's a lot of the guys that are doing hard work behind the scenes, and I can't say enough about them."