Major League Baseball

GM: Trade market quiet for White Sox

Published Jul. 20, 2010 4:05 a.m. ET

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General manager Kenny Williams doesn't see any deals on the horizon for the Chicago White Sox. All he sees is a current market that is limited in opportunities for his first-place team.

''Right now, I don't see anything materializing,'' Williams said in the visiting dugout before Monday night's game at Seattle, 12 days before baseball's deadline for trading without waivers.

Chicago entered the day with a 1 1/2-game lead in the AL Central.

Williams says ''it's a very small group of players'' who are available and who can help the White Sox as perhaps ''tweaks'' to the roster.

And then there's the cost of potential deals.

''The price being asked for some of the players we've inquired about is, for us, more detrimental to our present and our future than we'd like,'' the GM said.

He also says he's trying not to disrupt the chemistry of a gritty team that has battled back from 9 1/2 games out in early May.

Only one team has come back from a bigger first-half deficit to lead a division at the All-Star break. The 1973 St. Louis Cardinals were 11 1/2 games out early.

''I'm very mindful of how this team has battled back and overcome the mountain and the hurdles they have to get to where they are right now,'' Williams said.

He then praised manager Ozzie Guillen and his staff for the handling of the players. Guillen said they were in good spirits Monday, despite blowing a three-run lead in the ninth inning of a brutal loss at Minnesota the day before.

''I like the fight in them,'' Williams said. ''As a general manager, you can only hope and pray that your coaching staff can get guys to play at that level of intensity. I'm very cognizant of that.''

Guillen, meanwhile, is cognizant he can't win the Central for the second time in three seasons without Bobby Jenks anchoring the bullpen. The two-time All-Star allowed four runs without getting an out in the meltdown against the Twins Sunday, and he gave up five runs in 1 1-3 innings during that series.

He had 20 saves in 21 chances entering Monday, but with a 4.76 ERA.

Guillen says Jenks will remain his closer.

''I don't want to kick a guy when he's down,'' Guillen said. ''He think he's doing a pretty good job. ... He knows my confidence is there. We need him to do a good job. For our bullpen to be the way we want to, Bobby has to be our closer. And, like I say, he's going to be.''

Guillen rested right fielder Carlos Quentin a day after he left the loss to the Twins in the sixth inning with a bruised hand. A White Sox spokesman said trainers have determined Quentin's right hand is ''battered and bruised, but not broken.''

Andruw Jones made his 26th start of the season in right field Monday.

Guillen said he hopes to have Quentin, his 19 home runs and his 64 RBIs back in the lineup Tuesday.