The Athletics have officially signed Coco Crisp to a two-year, $14MM deal that includes a club option for 2014, the team announced. News of the agreement ended 24 hours of rumors and speculation about Crisp's destination. He decided to return to Oakland despite interest from the Orioles, Cubs, Cardinals and many other teams.
The deal will pay Crisp $6MM in 2012 and $7MM in 2013. The A's can exercise a $7.5MM option for 2014 or pay the center fielder a $1MM buyout. If the A's trade the Steve Comte client, he gets a one-time bonus of $250K.
MLBTR's Tim Dierkes ranked Crisp 21st among MLB free agents at the beginning of the offseason. The switch-hitter led the American League with 49 stolen bases in 2011, hitting .264/.314/.379 with 27 doubles as Oakland's center fielder. The California native seemed to prefer West Coast teams, but explained in September that he was also looking to play on a winner and find a good "financial situation" for himself.
Crisp joins Michael Taylor and Josh Reddick in the Athletics' new-look outfield. Josh Willingham signed with the Twins and David DeJesus signed with the Cubs, leaving Billy Beane, David Forst & Co. with the unenviable task of filling out an entire outfield. The A's sent Jai Miller to the Orioles today and may still be on the lookout for outfield depth.
ESPN's Buster Olney first reported the agreement. Jim Bowden of ESPN.com and MLB Network Radio heard from an unconfirmed source that Crisp was nearing a deal with the A's (Twitter link). Photo courtesy Icon SMI.
now there’s a shocker
This is the worst surprise ever.
Strangely the Carlos Silva signing was more riveting news of the day.
jesus…overpay
i liked him as an A for the last two years, but not sure if this is such a great move, considering it’s another 2 injury-prone, low obp years, at $7 million, which i feel is a little too expensive
Uh, the A’s can’t pocket all that revenue sharing, they gotta overpay someone, might as well be an everyday CF.
Exactly.
Oh, come on… He at least deserves a couple million for his hair…
Until Oscar Gamble sues him for 14.95 Million for copyright infringement…
So much for wanting to win.
Trade Andrew Bailey who was predicted to get 4 million so you can give Crisp 7 million. Hmmm…..
well, they also traded gio who was set to get $4 million, cahill who’s set to get $3.5 million and breslow who was going to get over league minimum, so that point in kind of moot
Just futher proves my point with those comments. Why trade all that talent, especially Bailey who IMO they didn’t get nearly what they could have in return and turn around and guarantee Crisp 15 million? Yeah, there’s an option for the 3rd year with a 1 million buyout (or 7.5 to pick it up)
well as pete said, he’s more or less a stop gap for Green and Choice right now, they’ll trade him away for some prospects at the deadline, if he’s healthy and plays well
Bailey is an injury prone closer, the market for those is not good and I’m a huge fan of Reddick, who will play everyday and is a lock to have a better WAR than Bailey+Sweeney combined, as well as 2 teenage C+/top 25 prospects.
Boston fans apparently have no idea how shot Sweeneys knees are. Getting rid of him and whatever salary he gets is icing.
Yeah. I was really high on Sweeney at one point. But it became frustrating over the last couple years to never see him reach his potential. I know he worked really hard, and has really bad knees. But I always thought he’d be better at the plate than he turned out to be.
I’m sure Fenway will help his numbers. But he’ll definitely still be a role player (albeit a good one).
I honestly cant see him having much more of a career. Those knees are chronic, he wont be on the field much…
Probably not. But I think he’ll make them a good late-inning defensive replacement, and pinch-hitter against righties.
What??? How could you possibly be viewing any of the A’s recent trades as if they were only done so that they could reallocate the funds toward a player like Crisp?
The Crisp signing has absolutely *nothing* to do with their recent trades. Those trades were all about their need to rebuild, and nothing more. To suggest otherwise is ludicrous.
As a matter of fact, even if they had kept all the players they just traded, they still could have afforded to re-sign Crisp. Their payroll budget will probably be under $60M this year. But even if they still had Cahill, Breslow, Gio, Bailey and Sweeney, they still could have signed Crisp and had a payroll of approximately $51M.
4M for 40 innings vs 7M for 130 games. Makes sense to me….
4 million for a good player
7 million for an average player
plus, the guy they got for bailey is set to be a 4th outfielder now.
Cowgill and Taylor are definitely not ahead of Reddick on the depth chart. No idea what youre talking about…
i think that if they are going to see value out of taylor, they have to play him this season. reddick isn’t good enough to lock a starting spot, as i see it, but i suppose it was my mistake in saying this. still, he’s not exactly a bright player, and my main point its not about how many games you play, its about the value of the player, and coco crisp is not worth that kind of money.
I think Crisp, Reddick, Cowgill and Taylor all get 400+ PAs this season. I think youre low on Reddick, he has excellent power and can play good defense. I expect him to replace Willingham except play much better defense. If he didnt have a 3.0 WAR at the end of the year I’d be shocked. He’s the surest bet out of the three young guys there imo.
I think that his power isn’t going to take off in oakland because of the park. its hard to project what he’s going to be like because he’s had such short stints in the bigs, but he needs to meet his expectations if the A’s hope to get value out of the bailey trade. it’s going to come down to who they want to throw out there opening day i guess
Cowgill and Taylor are definitely not ahead of Reddick on the depth chart. No idea what youre talking about…
Spring Training. My bet is one of Cowgill or Taylor starts in the minors.
Is there any way Crisp stays healthy? I think Cowgill and Reddick spot him in CF and then Taylor and Cowgill platoon in LF, and Reddick and Taylor in RF. They really do have enough playing time for all 4.
Oh yeah. They easily have enough playing time for all 4. And a fallback plan if the young guys can’t do it.
As somebody else said above I could see all 4 getting over 400 plate appearances.
agreed. they overpaid big time.
And also b/c the last thing the A’s need is another low OBP low SLG outfielder. They have droves of those
Meh, as long as they play good defense its more important. They were a better team when they went defense-heavy, and stunk last year when they bought in Willingham and Matsui.
Uh what?
Wow. Who cares. Coco Crisp holding people hostage on a decision. This is definitely slow times for rumors.
VERY good deal for Crisp. They def. overpaid in years and dollars. As for the A’s- someone signed with them!? Holy crap! Good for them, too, I guess….
He won’t last more than a year if he can stay healthy. He might not even last 3 months if he hits well. Good deal by Beane to get a CF who plays good defense and might have good value in bringing in a prospect.
Extremely dumb.
He’ll easily be worth his contract plus more.
that’s assuming he stays healthy
I believe that applies for anybody..
Soooooooo glad it isn’t us paying him that…
Don’t speak too soon. There’s about a 5% he finishes this contract in an Oakland uni.
Ok… I don’t care what the A’s do with him, I’m just glad Cards didn’t waste 7 mil on this guy.
But thats my point, they definitely could still trade him and his 7 mil to the cards.
heard the A’s are still trying to sing ryan ludwick or cody ross also can some tell me why
now that they signed coco, i doubt they go for those two
Coco, Cowgill, Reddick & Taylor will most likely be the OFs on the opening day 25 man. Interesting bunch.
well i have heard they were going to sign coco and ryan ludwick or cody ross and that cowgill or taylor will be the 4th outfilder and the other one will start out in aaa so we will have to wait and see also on the espn insider it says the A’s are in talks with ludwick
So the A’s OF is now Reddick, Crisp, and one of Cowgill/Taylor? With a small amount of innings from Chris Carter?
Beane has indicated that Taylor hasn’t earned his way onto the Major League roster yet. I wouldn’t be shocked to see the A’s sign another free agent outfielder
it’ll be reddick in left probably, coco in center for sure, and taylor in right, with cowgill spelling all three at times, probably coco the most often
Carter will never set foot in an OF again, he’s strictly a DH.
Brandon Allen might get a handful of innings though, he’s also a DH but only Ibanez-bad in LF. Carter is the worst of all time out there.
Jack Cust was pretty bad too. I remember once or twice seeing a fly ball hit right at him and he couldn’t squeeze it-bounced right out of his glove. I just felt bad for the guy.
Yeah that was rough, but his first couple years were so sweet when he was mashing. Such a bummer he lost his power.
He’s worse than Adam Dunn or Manny Ramirez? I’ve never seen him play, but that’s hard to believe. You could throw a blind man in the outfield and he would catch more flyballs than Manny would have.
Chris Carter plays LF like a 45 year old Fred McGriff. Its just wrong.
And you take that back about Manny, he has the high five play to his credit. He wasn’t terrible just stoned all the time.
Well all I know is what I saw when he was on the Dodgers. If you hit a fly ball to left field which forced Manny to move, it was going to get down. The only good news about that was that he couldn’t cut off any throws from the left fielder since that meant he would have to get into position to cut it off.
Allen actually played great defense at 1B. That is partly why 1B is his to lose. He has a good glove, not as good as Barton ’09, but has much more offensive upside than Barton.
Since Oakland isn’t going to win next year, I wouldn’t be too upset about having Carter in LF though. Its not like his defense is what is going to cost the A’s a playoff spot. With some luck, maybe he figures it out by the end of the year and can become a 1B/LF option.
The A’s have an open DH spot, what youre saying makes no sense. Carter or Allen are definitely battling for that spot. Barton has a 5 WAR season under his belt and tried to play when he needed extensive shoulder surgery last year. If his shoulder is fine then 1B should be handed to him on a silver platter. He gets on base and plays outstanding D. You don’t throw a guy who really didn’t do anything other than hit 6 HR last year there over him.
Allen is too strange to lock in. He has maybe the most power in the league, and isnt totally bad at 1B, but he just looked lost at the plate last year. The only hope is that Chili Davis figures him out and he turns into a scary masher, he’ll either be that or Sam Horn, but I’d say there’s a 80% chance he’s the latter.
The A’s also have Kila now too…lets not forget. If I’m doing depth charts I go Barton-Allen-Kila at 1B, Carter-Allen-Kila at DH. Allen’s most likely starting at AAA unless Barton’s shoulder isn’t right. ST shall see…
Barton’s got the most upside IMO. Barton won’t bash a lot of HRs, but if he’s swinging an OBP approaching .400, he’s got a ton of value and is hands down the best 1B candidate of the 3.
I couldn’t agree more. I refuse to believe that 2010 was a total fluke for Barton. Especially after the news broke that he was playing injured last season.
I’d love to see Barton back at 1B this year, with Carter at DH.
Just glad my ChiSox didn’t sign him, they’re always linked to his mediocre self and it drives me nuts.
Isn’t everyone on the Sox pretty much “mediocre”. Crisp would fit right in.
As long as this doesn’t hurt the market, Rays still have 2 gaping holes and other ares where they have a guy who can stand there and play (or crouch, in Molina’s sense) but they can easily improve at SS and C, they simply only “need” a 1B and DH.
When Coco turns into Figgins… then all the complainers are warranted in their complaints.
this was such big news i received three texts from mlbtr alerting me to it
I got four.
It’s very annoying because it’s sending as two messages for each ‘new alert’
lol at your name, nice. reminds me of “manbearpig,” but not sure where that’s from.
south park
Why have I gotten 4 texts for this?
Okay we get it. You got more texts than anyone else about it.
Bully for you
This would be a lot funnier if I said it a bunch of times but I mentioned it twice making your comment kind of pointless and very dumb.
Bully (?) for you, too.
Overpay? Perhaps. I’m more concerned about the years. Assuming he’s healthy, big assumption… one would think that Green or Choice would be ready to take over starting in 2013.
Like someone else said, the A’s have to spend money on someone though. You might as well add Crisp who will be the veteran leader in the outfield to teach to the youngsters. Weeks and Crisp at the top of the lineup was very effective last year.
Anti-climatic just got underrated.
I wonder what Crisps trade value will be at around the trade deadline with the receiving team getting 1 1/2 seasons
Crisp decided to take biggest offer and hopes to get traded.
If he stays healthy and hits even close to average, he’ll be traded to a contender in need of OF help by the deadline. One of the shrewder moves Ihave seen Beane make this off season. Most of what he has been doing just seems to boggle the mind. But then again, if Bailey breaks down in spring training and Cahill shows all of his warts in Arizona, Beane will look like a genius.
the a’s will most likely be horrible this year..but at least they’ll have that bangin’ afro in center again
oscar gamble hair day once a month!
I’m not a big Crisp supporter but I don’t see this as an overly awful baseball move. Crisp has had equal to better WAR numbers over the past few seasons and is essentially the same age as both Cuddeyer and Willingham who got more years and money. Crisp got market value in today’s baseball market. He also had similar WAR numbers (though doesn’t posess the obvious upside) as Adam Jones who is about to get very expensive and would cost a boatload of prospects. Surprised more teams wouldn’t take the chance on a two year deal for coco.
I’m just glad he didn’t have a show telling the world what team he chose.
I bet he has a cool press conference that showcases whatever strange new piercings he might have now.
That would just be epic.
Wow… Crisp is not a 7 per player. What an awful signing for the A’s. I though they didn’t have money to spend…
dont think the A’s are done in talks with ryan ludwick,cody ross and connor jackson will probly sign one of them as well and out of all them i would rather have ludwick he has a little power atleast
Ugh to all 3 of those guys, but I can see it happening. This is the depth chart right now:
1B: D Barton, B. Allen, K. Kaaihue, A. Rosales
2B: J. Weeks, A. Rosales, E. Sogard
SS: C. Pennington, E. Sogard
3B: S. Sizemore, A. Rosales, E. Sogard
C: K. Suzuki, A. Recker, J. Donaldson
LF: C. Cowgill, J. Reddick, M. Taylor, B. Allen
CF: C. Crisp, C. Cowgill, J. Reddick
RF: J. Reddick, M. Taylor
DH: C. Carter, B. Allen, K. Kaaihue
Oakland also has Green, Parker, Choice, Mitchell, Cardenas, Peterson, Spina & Norris who could all feasibly make the jump to the bigs in 2012, thats a large part of the 2013 core for sure though…
“Ugh to all 3 of those guys”
lololololol
I cannot adequately express the massive amounts of malaise Conor Jackson’s skills as a ballplayer bring.
Do not want any of those guys. Crisp makes sense since he’s a center fielder. None of those others do.
Anybody know offhand how Michael Taylor ended up in Oakland? His b-r page has his last transaction as being part of the Halladay Phi/Tor trade, but doesn’t mention anything further….
He was part of the trade it was a 4 way trade. We sent Brett Walace to Toronto for Micheal Taylor
it wasn’t a 4 way trade. the phillies traded lee seperate and toronto just flipped for wallace.
A’s traded Brett Wallace for him.
coco cripes…
they should’ve just kept rajai davis, he does the same things and doesn’t cost $7 mil per
I like the move as an A’s fan. We needed at least one legitimate Major League baseball player in the field.
Does this mean the A’s will lose 95 games instead of 100 games?
welcome back coco!
I REALLY don’t want to use primarily WAR to evaluate players, but all this talk about Crisp being an overpay is really really misguided.
2010: 3.3 WAR (in 75 games)
2011: 2.2 WAR
Guy’s an league average, if not above average, player. He’s getting paid less than what an average player should expect to get on the FA market (about 9MM/yr using 2010 market values, definitely higher now).
His value is in his defense and not only what he provides at the plate. Even 100 loss teams have to field a team.
Yeah. The going rate for a ‘Win Above Replacement’ is generally around $5M. So as long as he can produce a 1.5 WAR each of the next two seasons, this deal will be worthwhile. And he’s certainly capable of doing that (and more), even when you account for likely DL time.
This was a good signing. With all the rookie pitchers set to debut for the A’s over the next couple seasons, it’ll be important for them to have the best defense possible. And Crisp offers good range and years of experience at a key defensive position.
I also believe his OBP will improve this season, even if its only by 15 points, or so. Especially if Chili Davis is as effective at coaching switch-hitters as he says he is.
projected lineup:
1. Crisp cf
2. Weeks 2b
3. Suzuki c
4. Carter dh
5. Barton 1b
6. Sizemore 3b
7. Reddick rf
8. Taylor lf
9. Pennington ss
i didn’t get to see many a’s games last year, but is that at least close to what they would do if the season started today?
You nailed the players but I hate that batting order. I’d go
1. Weeks 2B
2. Barton 1B
3. Crisp CF
4. Carter DH
5. Reddick RF
6. Sizemore 3B
7. Taylor LF
8. Suzuki C
9. Pennington SS
Reddick, Sizemore and Taylor might end up being the same player. 20 HR, 800 OPS are their current ceilings. If that happens the A’s will be much better than people expect, but reality is they’d be lucky if one of them gets there.
the a’s traded off all their guys for a bigtime crop of prospects but then they couldnt just pocket all that money. their payroll was at 23 mil b4 this move so i think its fine. its only 2 years. they should get one more stopgag player then wait for all these new guys to emerge. maybe a joel pineiro for 4 mil who can be flipped at the deadline for more prospects. they definitely movd up to the top m2 or 3 minor league rankings after the last 2 months
Not a bad deal by any means… but don’t get the logic behind this move at all
The CF market is kind of grim. If any other teams’ CF gets hurt and they need a stopgap veteran not locked into a big contract, Crisp fits that bill to a tee, and Beane can get more prospects to add to the farm.
why do none of you have brandon allen in your line ups he will beat out carter and barton he will be in the lineup
Not if he cant get on base he wont. I do think an Allen who OBPs .330 is one that plays everyday though, I like him but he has a lot to prove.
Why are people so offended by Coco Crisp getting 2/14? If healthy he is easily worth $7 million a season. That being said, other than trade bait, I don’t really see the point in Oakland signing him, they have 3 players at MLB level who could possibly play CF (Taylor, Reddick & Cowgill) and a few in the minors, it’s not like they are even going to sniff a winning season in the AL West for the next few years…
Still… if Crisp’s OBP gets up to around .330 and his; defense, avg and baserunning/stealing all stay good, he’s going to fetch something from a contender at the trade deadline.
It just feels like the A’s are in a sort of limbo right now, they need to know what’s happening with the team’s location and then have a plan of action. At the moment it’s just:
1. Acquire talented prospects.
2. Let prospects develop until their price gets too expensive.
3. Trade developed prospects/keep undeveloped ones.
4. See Step 1.
Forever on a loop. They need more money… end of story.
what’s up with MLBTR keep reposting old news?
the deal went official today, before it was just in the makings. makes sense to up it one more time now its actually happened.
My interpretation: Even the MLB thought the A’s were being too cheap, so they forced them to spend money.