An interesting blurb from Scott Merkin’s triumphant return to even more biased reporting than the site you’re currently reading:
But as Williams said recently, adding Quentin amounted to adding a “big name” in the collective minds of the White Sox brass. By the way, that 2008 plan worked just about to perfection, with Quentin emerging as an American League Most Valuable Player candidate, Ramirez stepping up as an AL Rookie of the Year possibility and Floyd and Danks standing out as the rotation’s most consistent starters.
Did Carlos Quentin amount to a big name? The biggest.
Did Alexei Ramirez, Gavin Floyd and John Danks surprise the doubters beyond belief? Absolutely.
The surprise success of those moves in and of themselves is fine by this writer, but can anyone say with a straight face that the Sox were actually counting on those types of performances? That Danks’ vaguely Cy-worthy season was a foregone conclusion? That Carlos Quentin wasn’t acquired as a fourth outfielder? That Alexei Ramirez would somehow rebound from those first abysmal months of the season?
Are we supposed to forget how much the team needed (and didn’t get) from Nick Swisher? And is barely winning the worst AL Central in recent memory en route to an ALDS trouncing really something anyone would call “working out to perfection”?
Everyone knows MLB.com doesn’t exist for the sake of cutting down the teams or somehow diminishing fans’ views of the entertainment product they’re throwing so much money at. But it’s hard not to laugh at this kind of slap-in-the-face thinking, as though both Kenny Williams and Scott Merkin have seen every twist and turn coming along the way. And if true genius is really defined by half-executed plans and longstanding holes in the roster, well, you can just go ahead and start printing those World Series tickets already.
