You have to love a guy like Kenny Williams.

Going into the game against the Twins today, the White Sox were 17-22. Prior to this series they had endured a five-game losing streak, which put them six games out of first place. There’s no real reason to panic at this point – after all we’re barely 25 percent of the way into the season – but it clearly didn’t sit well with the South Side General Manager.

So he picked up the phone, called San Diego and made a deal for Jake Peavy. Even though it appears as though Peavy isn’t going to accept the deal (though I think he just needs some financial prodding to change his mind), Williams deserves credit. Two of the guys they were counting on toward the top-to-middle of their rotation have started slowly. But with the addition of Peavy, the Sox would have been starting a rotation of Peavy, Mark Buehrle, John Danks, Gavin Floyd and Who Cares.

It would easily have been the deepest rotation in the AL Central, and one of the three or four deepest in the American League. The 20-1 pasting they received from Minnesota today notwithstanding, this would have made the White Sox the hands down favorites to win their division.

I’ve always heard that for a major league GM, the bulk of the workload is in the off-season. That, to me, seems like an excuse perpetuated by lazy GM’s. I realize there is a lot to do between October and April, but it doesn’t mean that once spring training ends you can just throw your feet on the desk and enjoy the season.

The guys I admire are the guys willing to make an aggressive move to help their team win, especially early on before the July and August trade deadlines add ridiculous ransoms to deals for slightly-better-than-mediocre players. I’m not talking about doing something stupid like trading Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano, but making the moves that will have an immediate and long term impact.

Take a guy like Doug Melvin and the Milwaukee Brewers. Last season he made a bold move, giving up a highly-touted power-hitting prospect, Matt LaPorta, for CC Sabathia. Then with 12 games remaining in the regular season, he fired manager Ned Yost (a move I criticized heavily at the time, by the way) and inserted bench coach Dale Sveum.

Those moves energized the team. Carsten Charles was a monster for the Crew, going 11-2, and they surged to second place in the NL Central and won the Wild Card, breaking a 26-year playoff drought. Even though Sabathia is now in Yankee pinstripes, and Sveum is no longer the manager, Melvin’s gamble worked. Winning breeds winning. The Brewers young, talented core got a taste of success last year, and they find themselves in first place in their division on Memorial Day weekend.

Kenny Williams has always been a guy willing to take a risk to get his team going. Sometimes they work, like in 2004 when he switched the team’s focus from power to pitching, speed and defense by acquiring guys like Orlando Hernandez, Scott Podsednik, Tadahito Iguchi, and A.J. Pierzynski while bringing up Aaron Rowand and Joe Crede from the farm system.

Other times his moves have fallen flat. He traded for Roberto Alomar and Carl Everett in successive years with nothing to show for it. He traded for Ken Griffey Jr. last year. The Sox won the division in game 163, but probably would have anyway.

But he’s never satisfied and he’s constantly tinkering, always looking for ways to make his team better. There are a ton of General Managers who can’t say that. And, frankly, they should be ashamed of themselves. Their fans deserve better.