Don't call him a risk taker, but Sox GM not worried about perception

INDIANAPOLIS - For whatever reason, White Sox general manager Kenny Williams has the reputation as a risk taker.

Maybe it was the deal for pitcher Todd Ritchie a few years ago. That one didn't work out. They don't all work out.

Or maybe it was the trade of Carlos Lee for Scott Podsednik, which helped the Sox to a World Series title in 2005.

Or maybe it was Williams' willingness to bring players such as Carl Everett, David Wells, Roberto Alomar or Ken Griffey Jr. to Chicago for at least a cup of coffee and sometimes two cups.

Whatever it is, Williams doesn't see his methods as risky business. And he laughed off a suggestion by Sox field manager Ozzie Guillen that the GM is "too big" for the game.

"That's interesting," Williams said Wednesday, the final full day of the winter meetings. "I don't know about too big. Nobody's too big for the game. Risk. That's always been a strange term associated with how we do business because we don't look at it that way.

"We sit and plot a course of action, direction, go through a process of evaluation and analysis and come to our decisions with, I think, some reason and certainly with some logic. When we hear about risk, it's odd to us because we've dotted the i's and crossed the t's.

"I can't be concerned with perceptions. Not sitting in this chair you can't."

No discussion of risk at these winter meetings is too far removed from the name of Milton Bradley, the right fielder the Cubs have been trying desperately to move.

Williams knows Bradley a little bit, but he didn't seem to think the Sox were a fit for the embattled player, whom the Cubs suspended for the final two weeks of the season for conduct detrimental to the team.

The Sox GM talked carefully, because Bradley is someone else's player, but he spoke with some empathy.

"You know, the funny thing is, I've had the pleasure of talking to Milton in the past, and it saddens me to a great extent, actually, some of the situations that he's been put in or he's put himself in," Williams said. "I'd like to see this guy just be able to go out there without all of the distractions and everything and do what he can do because this guy can play.

"He can play. I don't know that I see a fit for us, and I probably shouldn't even be talking about him because he's not our player.

"But he can play. Milton Bradley can play. It's too bad because he's a really a more thoughtful person, and he's a better person than I think it's been portrayed or he's shown, however the (heck) it's manifested itself. It's too bad."

Williams probably figured he had said enough by that point. He's been known to tell others to "stay out of White Sox business," so he said he'd follow his own advice.

"I don't like it when people get in our business, and I certainly don't want to step over any lines," he said. "It's none of my business what transpires with that situation. I'm staying out of Cubs business."

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