Oodles of Oops

Twenty days ago we asked "if anyone at the Tribune has the cojones to say, at minimum, 'Gee, maybe we were wrong'" in their relentless criticism of Ken Williams' winter trades. Well, today Phil Rogers doesn't go quite so far as to explicitly admit he was wrong, but he does say the converse: "Oops! Maybe Sox got it right."

Rogers focuses on the trade of Brandon McCarthy to Texas for John Danks, but he admits the trade of Freddy Garcia to Philly is also showing more upside for the Sox, even if Gio Gonzalez and Gavin Floyd haven't worked out their kinks yet. (Rogers doesn't mention two other promising trades: Ross Gload to the Royals for Andrew Sisco; Neal Cotts to the Cubs for David Aardsma and Carlos Vasquez.)

Phil Rogers gets a well-deserved Cubune Watch golf clap for the mea culpa, but the Tribune still has some work to do on its humility and its research. Cubune Watcher Brett Balantini writes of Rogers' column, "I don't think I've ever seen a (Tribune) article--game writeup, feature, column--that is so positive.... My second reaction is where was this column and this reaction over the winter? Where was the research that unearthed a pretty big nugget, that the Tigs were stunned when we got Danks for McCarthy? Where was the statement that scouts/execs see Danks with more upside than McCarthy?"

We'd also like to see the meatier mea culpa due from Dave van Dyck and Mark Gonzales, who have conducted a private war on Williams' trades, complete with espionage, including a premature report of Buehrle's departure (never corrected), a false controversy (never defused), and erroneous predictions of fan unrest (which never materialized).