Kenny Williams

A couple of weeks ago, Kenny Williams put together a package of four players that was acceptable to the San Diego Padres in exchange for ace starter Jake Peavy.

Peavy used his no-trade clause. The old, "I'm flattered, but not coming," routine.

Now in the last few days, reports out of Houston are that the Sox have had a scout following the Astros and watching their ace, Roy Oswalt, because of an interest in him joining Chicago's South Siders.

Although many refer to baseball's current generation as the "steroid era," far from the only changes in the game can be traced to medically enhanced physiques. Pitcher wins, losses, and saves, batting average, RBI, errors and bunting all seem to be on the way out in favor of adjusted ERA, BABIP, VORP, range factors, and pitch counts, all leading to a newer era in baseball influenced by the work of sabermetrics—trying to measure objectively what leads to wins and losses, challenging the conventional wisdom, and often upending it.

Let me begin this piece by stating the obvious: I am not on the Jim Hendry Bandwagon.

Hendry is the absentee General Manager of the Chicago Cubs, who now gets the privilege of answering harder questions that end with the word "Peavy" than the those he answered in March.

He failed in an over-publicized attempt to land the ace of the San Diego Padres, and decided to instead sign or trade for a bunch of players that have successfully made the team less competitive than they've been in four seasons.

The Chicago White Sox are playing really bad baseball right now.

Their offense is as bad as it gets in the majors right now. As a team, they rank 26th in baseball in batting average (.246), on-base percentage (.315) and slugging (.391). They rank 27th in runs scored (136) and total hits (303). Through 37 games, they've been held to two or fewer runs 15 times. They have been shut out six times.

There is only one player on the entire roster, no matter the number of at bats, that is hitting over .300 (Paul Konerko, .316).

Before the season most experts pegged the White Sox to finish fourth in the AL Central and some even said last place, and after the first month-and-a-half of the '09 season it looks like they will be correct.

During the offseason, Kenny Williams realized the Sox had to get younger and he had to cut some payroll, as most teams did with the struggling economy.

Williams dealt headache Javy Vazquez for powerful catching prospect Tyler Flowers and career pinch runner Brent Lillibridge. Williams also dealt Nick Swisher for Jeffrey Marquez and utility man Wilson Betemit.