Time for the Sox to tap out – KW says start the fire sale!

It was finally a day of admittance.

Forget what he told the players in a closed-door meeting a few weeks ago, White Sox general manager Ken Williams knows it's time for changes, and changes are coming.

"Some changes need to take place,'' Williams insisted before Wednesday's game with Detroit. "I don't know what and I don't when but some changes need to take place. Things aren't happening the way that we envisioned and when they don't happen the way you envision you've got to make an adjustment.''

Asked about a timetable on how quickly there could be player movement, he pointed out that the Sox are hostages of when other teams feel it's time to deal.

"I guess I'm not so much on my own time line as I am on other clubs' time lines,'' Williams said. "It's still the early part of June and a lot of clubs are trying to figure their situations out and determine whether they're in it or not in it or what kind of money they have to spend. There are a lot of variables that go into the mix so even if I want to do something, it's not always in my control. And even if something does arise, you always run the risk of, particularly in our case where there's a lot of desirable players that people seem to want  ... why we can't put it together is a mystery to me. But other teams seem to want our players so I have to gauge whether something that comes along sooner is better off for our mix and chance to get in it or wait and be a little patient until July when kind of all the information is in and people are bidding against one another for our players.''

Baseball Economics 101.

"It absolutely is [about economics],'' Williams said. "But the more the summer wears and the closer we get to July 31, teams start to realize whether they're in it or not and the economics of their situation becomes a little clearer.''

There seems to be a certain amount of clarity in the clubhouse, as well.

"I don't know if we're going to stay with the same guys or not,'' outfielder Alex Rios said. "I try not to put much thought in it if it's going to happen or not, but this is a business. We all know that.''

As far as full-fledged fire sale, that's not in the cards. It's about trying to lighten the load on the S.S. South Sider first, getting rid of the free agents-to-be and other inflated contracts.

"You just try to do the best you can in a given year and in '08 we made the playoffs,'' Williams said. "Last year wasn't so good and this year, so far, isn't what it was supposed to be. I guess the good thing about that is there are a number of players out there that are young players that have high ceilings and a lot of potential. So, we're not talking about tearing something down. If we do something it will be along the lines of shuffling the deck with the expectation that we're going to add impact guys to help us win.''

But first comes the "tearing'' down stage. In other words, admittance that mistakes were made.

"It is what it is,'' Williams added. "I have to listen. It's not that I want to, but I'm not blind.''