The White Sox want to retain Kevin Youkilis despite declining his $13 million option earlier this week.

Chicago paid Youkilis a $1 million buyout rather than exercise the option.

New general manager Rick Hahn said during a radio interview with ESPN-1000 that he explained the decision to Youkilis.

"This is the first time Kevin has had a chance to be out on the open market, and he’s got a young family out on the west coast, and he wants to explore what’s out there. But he knows there is no confusion in his mind about our desire to bring him back. So we’re going to stay on that, stay in communication. It’s not a great time to be a club in the free-agent market looking for a third baseman, the player pool is not real deep, so I expect Kevin will be popular, but we’re going to be in on that until the end, I think," Hahn said.