Crede signs

According to La Velle E. Neal III the Joe Crede signing is a done deal. The Twins and Crede danced around one another for about two months and seemed to reach an impasse a week ago when the Twins were not willing to bring their offer up to Crede’s desired one-year $7 million contract. So, the news that Crede signed for one-year $2.5 million (with incentives ranging up to that desired $7 million price-tag based on plate appearances) was practically breathtaking (you know, if you care about baseball obsessively).

On the surface the signing speaks to two major points:

1. Bill Smith has made his first great move as general manager.

2. Joe Crede believes he can be the Joe Crede of 2003-2006 again.

First off, Bryant and I debated the merits of a Crede signing at length in the last podcast but the overall feel that I had was that signing Crede was essentially a pointless move because of the potential similar effectiveness of a Brian Buscher/Brendan Harris platoon. Bryant was on the other page, in Bryant’s opinion - and probably a right opinion - the power that Crede could potentially bring to the lineup was entirely necessary for the Twins to be an improved offensive team in 2009. For Bryant, and many Twins fans, it wasn’t a question of whether or not Crede could excessively outpace the combined Buscher/Harris platoon but simply that Crede brought the greater ceiling and the greater everyday consistency at third-base.

Still, whatever you felt about Crede one thing is certain, if you knew that the Twins could sign him for a base-salary of $2.5 million the debate would be over.  Of course there was no reason to believe that Bill Smith and the Twins could finagle a Scott Boras client into a low-risk contract like this - even as the days whittled away and spring training opened the only feeling I sensed was that the Twins were most likely going to go their own way and hope for improvement from their young players.

It seems that Smith was able to wait Boras and Crede out and find a deal that basically protected the Twins in every way possible. According to Neal the deal includes incentives based on first reaching 250 plate appearances and topping out at $7 million with his 525th plate appearance. Anyone can see that the Twins have essentially guaranteed themselves of not getting hurt in this deal.

What is perhaps more important for the Twins though is the second point, what Joe Crede is playing for this year is not simply next year but for the rest of his career. In last year’s contract-year with the White Sox Crede hit .248 with 17 home runs and 55 RBI and, despite being a south-side favorite, the White Sox didn’t even make him an offer, because of his age and injury-plagued back - and it took until Feb. 21 for him to sign with the Twins, and even then the contract clearly fit the Twins needs more than Crede’s.

So, from Crede and Boras there has to be a clear sense that this year is the year to get his form back, to produce for an entire season, and then hopefully get a long-term deal for the late years of Crede’s career.

But if you’re a Twins fan consider one thing quickly: from the start of the season until he was sent to the DL on July 21 Crede hit .253 with 17 home runs and 54 RBI while slugging .471 in 90 games.

For a Twins-friendly comparison, in his first 90 games of the 2008 season Justin Morneau hit .313 with 12 home runs and 65 RBI while slugging .487.

Crede would only play in seven more games in 2008 but still his home run totals would have been third for the Twins behind Morneau and Jason Kubel; his slugging percentage tied for second, with Kubel; his RBI total would have been good for sixth.

An injured Crede, a Crede who only gets 312 AB’s, is still an insanely necessary commodity for the power-starved Twins.

What Crede and Boras are obviously hoping for - and what Twins’ fans can view as the potential ceiling for 2009 - is that Crede can take those raw numbers from his first 90 games and extrapolate them over the course of a 162 game season and get back to his earlier ‘03-’06 form, during which Crede averaged 500.5 plate appearances, 27 doubles, 23 home runs, 75 RBI, with a .260 batting average and an average of a .453 slugging percentage.

This contract may not have been a best-case scenario for Crede but it certainly is for the Twins. It is possible to imagine a lineup of Span-Casilla-Mauer-Morneau-Crede-Kubel-Cuddyer/Young-Punto/Harris-Gomez and see some legitimate worry in opposing pitchers after the first four batters have reached the plate.

A great signing for Bill Smith and the Twins that, in it’s worst form, will be a lowly $2.5 million gamble, and in its best form could be a $7 million triumph.