The always quotable Ozzie Guillen spoke out on recent trade rumors involving Jermaine Dye and Mark Buerhle [Chicago Sun-Times]:
”It’s never been talked about,” Guillen said. ”Maybe Kenny has it in his mind, but he’s never said one thing to me about it. I want to go all the way to the end with these guys, see what we can do with these guys.
”I’ll be honest with [the media], I’ll be honest with the fans, I’ll be honest with me. If we get to that point, I’ll be the first one to tell people, ’It’s going to be hard to compete.’ But as long as we feel we can win, we’re going to keep those guys.”
Guillen did emphasize that he believes there’s a certain amount of pressure to make a postseason run this season. Not because of payroll or job-security concerns, but because he doesn’t know how long the window will stay open.
”I’ll be completely honest with you and tell you I don’t know what kind of team we’re going to have next year,” Guillen said. ”We have a lot of guys that are free agents, we have a lot of guys in the minor-league system that are close to coming up.
You have to admire Guillen’s determination to win, however, there might come a point in July when general manager Kenny Williams does come to Guillen with talk of trades. With both the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers so far out in front of the rest of the division, even making the Wild Card could prove to be difficult.
Getting some complimentary players via trade to go along with the prospects Guillen mentions might be a way for the White Sox to rebuild quickly after what is sure to be an offseason with a lot of roster turnover.
Tom Goyne is the author of Balls, Sticks, & Stuff, a Phillies-centric site, and maintains the Phloggers’ Pheeds page, a source for the latest commentary from around the "phlogosphere". Recently, he teamed up with his brother to launch Roto Front Office.
