Ken Williams's Big Risk

DURING HIS six-season tenure as the White Sox general manager, Ken Williams has completed 51 trades, the most by any G.M. during that span. Boredom, he likes to claim, is the explanation for his tireless wheeling and dealing, but in truth Williams has an appetite for risk and one of the game's shrewdest eyes for a bargain. In building the 2005 World Series champs, Williams not only took a chance on unconventional manager Ozzie Guillen but also, perhaps more important, spackled the cracks in his roster with such underappreciated players as Jose Contreras, Jermaine Dye and A.J. Pierzynski.

That contrarian streak has driven Williams to take his greatest gamble yet. Exasperated with what he calls the "market madness" of this past off-season, he has begun a makeover of the White Sox that will almost certainly continue into next winter. Unlike the bingeing Cubs, the White Sox took a pass on the latest free-agent market and have instead been shedding established assets, including two fifths (and very nearly three fifths) of their rotation, a spectacular risk in these pitching-lean times. Williams sent big-game specialist Freddy Garcia to the Phillies (for pitching prospects Gavin Floyd and Gio Gonzalez) and young, hard-throwing righty Brandon McCarthy to the Rangers (for even younger lefthander John Danks). He was very close to trading a third starter, Jon Garland, to Houston before the deal fell apart because of medical concerns about one of the Astros involved.

By the start of next season, Dye and workhorse lefthander Mark Buehrle, both of whom are in the final year of their deals, are likely to be gone. (According to sources, Dye, 33, recently cited the six-year, $100 million free-agent deal Carlos Lee signed with Houston in November as a fair barometer of his worth.) Though he is not a free agent until after the '08 season, slick-fielding third baseman Joe Crede is a candidate to be moved next winter to make room for top prospect Josh Fields.

Williams has been spoiled by the top-tier talent he's been able to sign at ridiculously reasonable prices. Dye is making $7 million this season, and last year the White Sox got the Phillies to take on nearly half of the $46 million owed to Jim Thome (42 homers in '06) through '08. "I look for a market correction in the very near future," Williams says. "This madness can't continue at this rate."

The late-blossoming Dye is more likely to get his big payday with the Angels or the Rangers, whose new manager, Ron Washington, is a close friend. Twice last season Buehrle turned down a three-year, $35 million extension to stay in Chicago. Though Buehrle went 3--7 with a 6.44 ERA in a dreadful second half during which he lost velocity and command, his price surely has shot up; both sides have publicly conceded that the lefty is virtually a goner, with the Cardinals a good possibility to sign the Missouri native.

Not that the White Sox are to be confused with the Marlins. The payroll is $109 million. Williams, understandably, scoffs at the idea that he's running the Tight Sox. "In Chicago they say we're pinching pennies. Yeah, we're pinching $100 million [worth]." There is one player for whom the White Sox might be willing to break the bank. According to league sources, Chicago was among the most aggressive of at least eight teams to make a run at Alex Rodriguez last summer. If A-Rod opts out of the remaining three years of his 10-year, $252 million deal at the end of the season, don't rule out another run. More likely, though, Williams will continue to parlay the overspending of his peers into such discount pickups as Contreras and Thome. "We won with our payroll at $75 million," he jokes. "Maybe we should get back to $75 million."