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There wasn’t much doing at baseball’s winter meetings in Nashville, Tennessee, this week, especially where the Cubs and White Sox were concerned. Only one major free agent signed: Andruw Jones, who’s going to the Los Angeles Dodgers for $36.2 million for two years. (Where did LA general manager Ned Colletti learn to spend that kind of money? Not doing media relations for the Cubs in the early years of the Tribune era, that’s for sure.) Only one blockbuster trade came off, but it was a doozy, with the Detroit Tigers obtaining Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera from the Florida Marlins for six highly regarded prospects. A fan might think this would put a little urgency in the step of Sox GM Kenny Williams, but in a record-breaking case of denial he replied, “All this has done is put the Tigers in a better position to compete with us.” True, the Sox are only two years removed from their world championship, while the Tigers are one year past their American League pennant, and neither made the playoffs last season, but the Tigers were a lot closer at 88 wins than the Sox at 72 last season.
The Cubs were quiet for the most part too, but the Sox could have benefitted from the sort of minor tweaking the Cubs pulled off in obtaining hard-throwing bullpen help in prospects Jose Ascanio from Atlanta in a trade and then Tim Lahey in a deal growing out of the Rule Five draft of unprotected minor leaguers. Both have impressive stats and 90-mile-an-hour fastballs, and they bolster an already overstocked bullpen with the return of Kerry Wood.
