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I have to admit, it took me a while to write this, because I love Joe Crede. Not in that way, silly, but in almost every other way that involves a modern-day baseball fan. When Crede first arrived with the White Sox, in 2000, he was a ballyhooed two-time minor-league Most Valuable Player, and statheads wanted him to succeed, because his stats suggested he would succeed. He had an undeniable upper-cut swing, however — the scouts were dubious about him making it in the majors — and he spent two years shuttling between the Sox and AAA before he arrived to stay in 2003. Even in 2004, however, he struggled, batting a humble .239, and although it’s commonly forgotten, he was shopped early in 2005 for the Oakland Athletics’ Eric Chavez, whom many Sox fans insisted the team simply had to have to complete a championship roster.
All that said, Sox General Manager Kenny Williams was right to let Joe go to sign with the Minnesota Twins this off-season. Not because Crede was represented by agent Scott Boras, a longtime fly in the ointment to Williams and Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, but because it simply made sense in the current baseball monetary environment. Crede had suffered through back troubles requiring surgery the last couple of seasons. That doesn’t mean he should be put out to pasture — he may yet excel — but with Josh Fields in the wings, even as a vastly inferior fielder, all baseball common sense suggested the Sox should let someone else take the risk with Crede and go with the younger, cheaper Fields. Even the touted spring annual Baseball Prospectus, working from nothing but statistical probability, predicted Fields will have a better season this year than Crede (20 homers, 61 RBIs, and a .236 batting average to 12 H, 44 RBIs, and .241).
