If the White Sox were doing as badly as the Indians, Kevin Williams would be getting much more hate than Shapiro is getting. Remember when Williams was mocked about his comment about the Tigers acquiring Cabrera?

It is more that Williams deserves less hate than he gets. Shapiro has done a solid job as GM of the Indians but Williams has also done a solid job for the White Sox. Yet, it is my perception that Williams is considered much less competent than Shapiro and that's not fair.

I think Kevin was pointing out what does a former Dallas Cowboys WR have to do with the White Sox :P

See how much disrespect he gets? Even his fans around here don't know his name.

They've had very different assignments over the past few years and both have done well. People here stopped hating on Williams a long time ago, AFAICT (but I don't recall the Cabrera quote). Williams does say some stupid stuff that is worthy of mocking, even if he is doing a good job.

Yeah, I'm a name hawk, but Borowski to the Bucs makes sense with Capps out for 2 months and absolutely no successor.

Williams does say some stupid stuff that is worthy of mocking, even if he is doing a good job.

I don't particularly care if my team's GM says stupid stuff; I only care if he DOES stupid stuff. Or, considering that all GMs do stuff that later looks stupid, that he keep his stupid mistakes to a minimum. After a rough start, Williams has done that.

The acquisitions of Quentin and Danks have been great -- the Alexei Ramirez signing and Floyd acquisitions are also looking very good at this point, better than I ever expected, and I'm coming around on Swisher.

To me, Williams is at his worst when he tries to acquire "name" guys -- he sure paid a lot for Dotel and Linebrink, although both have been very good. And I think it's now obvious that the best baseball move would have been to let Konerko walk, although I can understand the PR reasons for re-signing him.

Shapiro is loved by statheads for a number of reasons. Probably the least controversial of these reasons is that statheads LOVE low-payroll GMs, guys who are (or appear to be) stockpiling a lot of great young players. These GMs are rarely criticized when (a) guys don't pan out or (b) guys DO pan out, but only after they've been cast aside (think Brandon Phillips or Quentin or Dan Uggla).

Borowski to the Bucs makes sense with Capps out for 2 months and absolutely no successor.

Not going to happen. The Pirates aren't going anywhere, so they aren't going to bother with a "name" closer. If Yates can close acceptably well, they may be able to move him for something of value.

-- MWE