White Sox ‘blowing it up’ not a likely scenario

In an odd way, the White Sox are probably somewhat thankful for the Blackhawks’ playoff run considering it has taken some attention off a team that’s had great difficulty in putting together much resembling a good season.

Though the front office would always prefer more attention — since more attention leads to more tickets sold, which leads to more revenue to spend, etc. — it’s been sort of a nice break from the inevitable criticism.

But that criticism is just, seeing as how the White Sox have played worse than what I believe them to be. That’s not to say the Sox are a great club, because I don’t think that’s true. However, I do think they’re better than what they’ve shown.

Unfortunately, they haven’t shown us better — and the 60-game mark of the season has been surpassed.

Therefore, what you want to know is:

Are they going to blow it up and start over?

This is a question that’s been asked repeatedly, and I’m fairly confident it won’t go away.

And I get that. Fans are frustrated, and when they’re frustrated, they want change.

Do something, anything different than what we’ve been watching the last several weeks. But what the fans really mean when they say they want change is that they want change for the better.

This is where the difficulty lies.

In the coming weeks leading up to the July 31st non-waiver trade deadline, the White Sox will decide whether they’ll hold steady with their roster, if they’ll trade maybe a player or two or if they’ll try to deal as much as possible to get back as much as possible.

Heck, they could even attempt to add a bit, though that’s not likely.

The problem with “blowing it up” is that it’s usually an unrealistic process, at least in the way that Sox fans would want it to happen here.

Teams rarely trade their best prospects anymore for a number of reasons, including cost certainty.

With that being the case, the Sox have little that would bring back a substantial haul, which is problematic considering the “substantial haul” is the change fans would desire.

Of course, Alex Rios could still be a trade piece, as could Jesse Crain or Matt Thornton (I think Jake Peavy’s injury dramatically reduces the odds that he will be moved), but it doesn’t seem to me that any of these players would bring a return that would better set up the White Sox for the future. Not substantially, at any rate.

Unless the goal is simply to dump payroll to avoid greater financial loss, my guess is that most of these players stick around until the end of the year, if not longer in some cases.

I don’t think the organization is in the salary-purge mode just yet.

On this day, the Sox last in the Central Division , 8 games behind the Tigers.

Not entirely insurmountable, but obviously not a good position to be in. And even if the backdrop of the AL Central race doesn’t change much, I think we might still be watching most of the same players all the way through September.

ŸChris Rongey is the host of the White Sox pregame and postgame shows on WSCR 670-AM The Score. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisRongey and at chrisrongey.com. Subscriber Total Access members can email him questions each week via our online link.