Rozner: White Sox road still tough to travel

It's all part of a three-year plan.

You've heard this from the Chicago White Sox before and it always causes great consternation, but it's not so much a plan as it is a window.

The Sox are in a constant win-now, reload-rebuild mode. Yeah, that's a lot of stuff at one time.

It's hard to do.

What it really means is that there's a rolling three-year window, during which the Sox try to win and plan for a reload at the same time, all while considering payroll constraints.

At various times during that window - which is sometimes a year less or a year more - money will come off the books and offer opportunities to spend and add players at need positions.

Sometimes, several deals are up at the same time, which closes one window and opens another.

It's just what the Sox do and it works from time to time, often for short periods of time.

Under GM Ken Williams, the Sox won a World Series this way and seemed poised for another, though it ran out of steam late the next season.

Other than that, there's been a good season here or there, but not much for fans to hang their hats on.

With orders from ownership, this is how Williams and current GM Rick Hahn operate.

Would they function in a different way if given the chance? Maybe, but it's odd that every time the Sox have a good week, Hahn has done a great job, and every time they have a bad week, Williams is to blame for all the world's ills.

Nevertheless, they work together and trade young players for veterans, attempt to fill holes and some years - when the financial window is open - they spend money in free agency.

It's like a rolling Pick 3, with each season starting a new horse race and a new three-year window.

When you don't draft well, and miss on as many first rounders as have the Sox, you start from behind, chasing constantly the positions you've been unable to stabilize with young players.

So the Sox are always looking for cheap guys who might have something left, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle with Austin Jackson, Jimmy Rollins, Mat Latos and Justin Morneau, or trading for James Shields, Todd Frazier, Brett Lawrie, Adam Eaton and Avy Garcia.

It's a constant battle, managing money and players, while trying to field a competitive team.

The better answer, of course, is a genuine teardown and rebuild.

They can trade veterans while stocking up on young players and save millions in the process, banking that cash for a time when they are close to winning and it becomes wise to add through free agency.

They can spend on building a farm system. They can spend internationally. They can spend on scouting and infrastructure.

They can build from the bottom up.

The Sox have the resources and the manpower to get it done - and everyone knows it - but what they are missing is an appetite to start over.

The alternative is to spend like a big-market operation and become a top-five payroll team, but that is also unlikely.

So the Sox work the middle, always trying to compete but never really going "all in," despite a liberal use of the term.

It puts them in this eternally difficult position of scouring the planet for spare parts, drafting for major-league ready players and - essentially - hoping they get lucky when signing and trading for players that other teams no longer want or don't think are part of a long-term plan.

It's always worth remembering that they did win a World Series in precisely this fashion.

It's very hard to do, it's often painful and it's been a while since it succeeded.

But, for better or worse, it's just what the White Sox do.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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