All in the family

Kenny Williams is a nonconformist. When other GMs zig, he zags. Just when you think you’ve got him figured out, he goes an does something crazy.

Take the recent amateur draft. Williams made a pick that only a father could love. Literally.

From Keith Law’s ESPN Insider draft blog:

The worst pick of the day belongs to the White Sox, who took GM Kenny Williams’ son in the fifth round. Kenny Williams Jr. is a senior at Wichita State who doesn’t even play every day and who was ruled academically ineligible for the 2007 season. He’s a good athlete and at least a 55 runner, but he’s 22 years old, played in 12 games in total prior to 2008, and wasn’t on most teams’ draft boards, although two or three other teams appeared to have had him inside the 10th round. It is hard to imagine that he would have been their 5th-round pick if his name was Kenny Smith, but the White Sox liked Kenny Jr.’s athleticism, something that was relatively scarce in this draft’s pool of college position players.

In baseball circles, this is called pulling a Schuerholz .

Seriously, Kenny, family is family, but this is insane. Most kids get punished for getting F’s. Your son was declared academically ineligible while playing varsity baseball at Wichita State, which means he basically didn’t show up for a day of class, and you reward him by drafting him five rounds earlier than anybody else was even considering? That’s some backward parenting, if I do say so myself.

Maybe you should ask Ozzie Guillen for some parenting advice. That guy knows a thing or two about tough love .