Fare Thee Well, Ross Choad

It's the little things that count. That's the attitude I've got to take if I want to be really optimistic about the moves the White Sox are making to set up for next year. There are no Alfonso Soriano, Julio Lugo, Daisuke Matsuzaka, or JD Drew signings. And, really, I can't complain about the White Sox not wanting to hamstring themselves with ridiculous free agent contracts. I've not had a problem with most of what Kenny's done this offseason--trading away Cotts for Aardsma, trading away a superfluous Garcia for prospects, and signing Podsednik to cheap deal for next year. Oh wait, I did pretty much hate that last move. You can't win them all.

And now Kenny has made another minor move, trading Ross "Choad" Gload to Kansas City for 6' 10" (6' 10"!) lefty reliever Andy Sisco.

First off, Kenny traded a guy in Gload who could never, ever find enough playing time. Gload seemed like a nice guy and all, taking his benchwarming status in stride, and he certainly produced when he was called upon (during three years with the White Sox, playing in about 200 games, he hit around .300). And Lord knows I couldn't get enough of yelping "Ross Choad!" every time I saw DJ run down the day's lineup card (I'm sure my fiancee will miss this dearly). But he was one of those spare parts lying around that you can just never find a use for. I hope he gets the playing time he deserves in KC, although it looks like he's cursed to another backup role.

Second, when the Sox ditched Cotts, they opened up a hole in the bullpen for a lefty. Now, gaining Sisco, we can let Boooooooooone Logan and Sisco battle it out for that spot. I don't remember much about Sisco, but I do remember thinking "Holy shit, that guy is tall and throws hard." So, basically, he's a 23-year-old Randy Johnson waiting for Don Cooper to give him the key to pitching excellence. Sisco sucked the past year in KC, where I guess maybe they gave up on him, but I like this deal because Kenny dealt from a point of strength (bench depth) for a point of weakness (bullpen). As South Side Sox points out, this potentially gives the White Sox a bunch of hard throwers down in the pen: Jenks, Thornton, MacDougal (who the Sox locked up to a 3-year contract a week ago), Aardsma, and now Sisco. I like it. A lot.