Williams, White Sox likely to stand pat today

While turning over the roster of the White Sox still might appeal to general manager Kenny Williams in terms of the future, it likely won’t happen before today’s non-waiver trade deadline.

Less than a week after he threatened to shake up the roster of his underachieving club, Williams said Saturday there was a slim chance he would make a major move ahead of today’s 3 p.m. deadline.

“Is there a chance we could have a different look? Absolutely, there’s a chance, but I would say that chance is very, very slim,” Williams said. “I don’t see anything on the horizon and everything than can potentially be done comes at a sacrifice of the guys I expect we would need to try and win the division. It’s very unlikely.”

It’s looking as if Wednesday’s trade with Toronto in which the Sox sent starter Edwin Jackson and third baseman Mark Teahen to the Blue Jays in exchange for relievers Jason Frasor and Zach Stewart, saving $9 million in payroll in the process, will be extent of the Williams’ wheeling and dealing for now.

If you believe the GM, all those trade rumors involving Carlos Quentin, Matt Thornton, John Danks and Gavin Floyd can be put to rest — at least until the off-season.

Williams admitted his team showed him something since his Monday talk with reporters.

“They’ve won some games,” Williams said. “Ultimately, that’s what it boils down to is they’ve won some games. And they’ve done it in a fashion in which Ozzie (Guillen) and I have talked about and what we expect, and that’s an aggressive style of play.

“I know that we are not still clicking on all cylinders offensively, but we see some signs of some things — battles at the plate and fighting through at-bats.”

That being said, Williams still thinks his team needs to be better.

“The word it not happy and it’s not satisfied either,” Williams said. “I’m grateful they’ve come out in the fashion they’ve come out with that aggressiveness they have so we don’t have to enter into that sell mode.

“We didn’t put this team together with any other intent that win a division championship and hopefully another world championship. I was dreading being put in the position where we may have had to do something like that.”

Detroit, which is the team the Sox are trying to catch in the AL Central, made a trade Saturday, acquiring starter Doug Fister and reliever David Pauley from Seattle.

“Absolutely, (Detroit) bettered themselves,” Williams said. “But our focus has to be just consistent baseball and improving upon who we are. That has to be the focus more than what Detroit, Cleveland or anyone else is doing.”

Guillen certainly isn’t worrying about what the rest of the division is doing.

“I worry about the White Sox,” Guillen said. “They’ve been making trades out there I don’t even know about. They traded Carlos Beltran two days again and I just found out today.

“Good for (the Tigers). We have to worry about it when we face them. They already have a good pitching staff and we knew they were going to add somebody. Is the ballclub going to be better? Yes. But we’ll see how that works when we get there.”