Rowand Still Hoping For Crede To Giants

TWO IDEAS:

Josh Fields, Lance Broadway and Juan Uribe for Matt Cain.

Giants get a legit power prospect, a decent stopgap shortstop and second baseman, and a good pitching prospect. The White Sox get a potential top of the rotation starter to fill out the rotation with Buehrle, Vazquez, Danks and Contreras.

OR

Paul Konerko, Joe Crede and Juan Uribe for Matt Cain and Dave Roberts.

If the White Sox want Cain, they're likely gonna have to give up a lot for it. In this deal the Giants add a lot of hitting, and suddenly become a more complete team.

The White Sox would be a very intriguing team with either of these moves. If they made this move, which I prefer to the previously stated one, then they could contend for a wild card or something at least.

CF Roberts
SS Cabrera
DH Thome
1B Swisher
RF Dye
3B Fields
C Pierzynski
LF Quentin
2B Ramirez/Richar

Rotation: Buehrle, Vazquez, Cain, Danks, Contreras with Floyd as the spot starter

Lincecum or Cain for Konerko? Even Sabean knows better than that. Two excellent young pitchers--for each of whom they've fielded offers of young hitting studs--for an aging, declining, one-dimensional slugger? There are no THREE players on the White Sox roster for whom I'd trade either Lincecum or Cain.

If I'm the Giants the discussion starts with Swisher and Crede.

To give up Cain, which I wouldn't do if I were them, wouldn't involve Konerko(wrong side of 30)or Uribe(wrong side of good).

Bbbj...
The Giants are going to start with Brian Bocock at SS until Omar gets back. Similiar player....great glove not so good bat.

I wanted Crede in the beginning, but his S.T. is making me believe his back may not be healthy as said.

I would love to have Konerko, but we don't have the pieces to make it work.

"..readers seem to agree with Mr. Rowand: acquiring Crede is a great move for either team?" True only if by "either team" you mean the White Sox and whichever divisional rival *doesn't* trade for Crede's bad back, 90 OPS+ bat and Boras association.

Z4cy, I can't believe anyone ever wanted Crede. His hitting has been below-average in four out of five years. He's Pedro Feliz, but more expensive and with an injury history. I wasn't sorry to see Feliz's putrid bat go. Why would any fan want another 3B who can't hit?

ggph, Frandsen can't handle short to save his life. The team has made as much clear, not that anyone with eyes to see ever thought he could defend that position. He makes Jeter look like a good defender, and that's just sad.

Konerko can hit, but he's not young, he has a no-trade clause and he plays the weakest defensive position on the diamond. Sure, I'd pick him up on a lopsided trade, but that isn't going to happen. I would not trade value for him to get the Giants from 70 to 75 wins this year.

yeah, but Feliz on 2 years while giving nothing up is better than Crede on 1 year while giving something up. I think thats the point, and their lack of interest in bringing back Feliz makes interest in Crede questionable ~ well, unless the cost is absolutely minimal.

Their lack of activity on the FA market shows that the team is more interested in seeing what they have in the kids than to try to form a resemblance of a club. They had Dallas in the offices with the intent of him manning 3B, but didnt even want to offer like 1M to a guy off back problems apparently (I mean, thats what he got from Fla). They could have had quite a few stop-gap 3B had they shown much interest, or signed a guy like Feliz to make it easy and just trade him or make him a bench guy in 2009. Instead they passed everything up, and the talk of Crede seems more like "well, if it costs nothing in value going to the ChiSox maybe we can do it, but its something we really dont need so we wont be paying too much". The ChiSox saying "we'll just hold onto him until his value goes up" leads this making sense, dont ya think?

And I’m sorry, but Crede is a low BA and even lower OBP guy with huge FB tendencies being rumored to some of the hardest to hit in parks who are in a division where 60+% of his games will be in SD, LA & SF and another 5-10%-ish in Col & Arz where they have vast OFs. If I was Crede I would be begging not to be traded to this division, you see what it did to the Feliz value afterall… I don’t know if the teams are thinking this and lowering his value because of it, but his being in one of these parks while being off a situation where he missed so much time anyway ~ well, I really don’t think it will be pretty…

Crede - .259 lifetime BA.

Actually, yes.

What else is going to predict his next-year's batting average better than his previous major (.259, 2433 AB) and minor (.292, 2761 AB) league track record?

.292 over nearly 3,000 AB isn't even so bad, and yet here you hang your hat on a few hundred AB in 05 and 06. Why? The man is a bad hitter. His contact abilities aren't the issue: his limp, little, below-average hitting is.

I mean, seriously. His last two full seasons should say that he'll be at least a league average hitter. And now he's not playing with a hurt back. His glove makes him an adequate all around third basemen. The Giants want him as a long term piece.

By "adequate", I mean in about the 45-50th percentile or so. But that's your opinion.

I'm not saying he'll get better, but that he got better at age 27-28 and that was when he broke through and became a league average hitter.

And loads of players get better as they approach 30 and older. Guys like Jermaine Dye, Casey Blake, Torii Hunter have gotten better since hitting that plateu. It isn't automatic Crede will get worse as he gets older, and I predict he'll maintain league average hitting at least for a few more seasons. A player's peak year is age 29 on average

http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/index.php/2004/03/age-and-batting-performance-in-mlb/

and since he missed his age 29 season, I think he will decline into seasons either at age 28(2006) or in between 06 and 05(slightly above league average).

And Crede's surgery improved his back and cleared up the problem. It isn't like he just rehabbed.

Rowdy,
What else should teams look at who are interested in Crede? He has committed several errors already as well.
Of course he says he is fine. He wants to play. Back injuries reoccur very easily.
And if Sox want "something" in return as you say, they should except the Giants offer, whatever it is....

Giants are going to suck with or without him, so NO WAY they give up any real value. Sox may want to keep him anyway, Fields is also batting sub zero in S.T.

If I was a Sox fan I would be very nervous about this year. With Quentin and Richar hurt it looks like Uribe and Anderson will start. KW also hinted that he might send Fields down and start Crede at third.

If they start the season with Uribe, Crede, AJ, Cabrera and Anderson in the starting lineup, their team OBP might be worst than last year.