It didn't seem right from the start. The New York Daily News reported that the White Sox had offered former Yankee Bobby Abreu a one-year, $8-million deal. But, why now?
The White Sox have spent the off-season cleaning house and shedding payroll. There was never-ending talk of moving Jermaine Dye which hasn't panned out, and that move would need to happen for Abreu to find a spot on the Sox roster. Also, everything that the Sox have done this off-season has been to gird themselves for not only the economic problems of the country, but also for the money that they will have to inevitably shell out next season when arbitration and free-agency hits on several of their players. But now, they're supposedly offering eight million to a 34-year-old who has plateaued in recent years? Not only that, it was leaked to a paper in New York, not Chicago? Nah. Just wasn't right.
NBC Chicago's Paula Farisconfirmed that the story was in fact, a fabrication. Kenny Williams mentioned to MLB.com that Abreu would make a great addition to the team, but:
The funny thing about Williams' unneccessary shot at blogs is that it was not a blog that started the discussion of Abreu to the White Sox, it was a mainstream media source. The New York Daily News, that didn't try to confirm the rumor before running it, a task that wasn't too difficult to accomplish, as both Paula Faris and the Daily Herald did. The only role that blogs had in this saga was questioning a rumor that seemed a little off.
