posted on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 10:16 PM
by
Jim
All aboard
Joe Crede and the White Sox
agreed to a one-year, $4.94 million contract -- a steal, especially if Scott Boras was
seriously angling for $8+ million. More importantly, the Sox avoided the arbitration process, which didn't seem likely but yaneverknow.
It seems to me that both parties have gone to great lengths to measure their words, and an arbitration hearing would basically demolish all of that foundation-building -- or maintaining, rather.
I find slightly strange the amount of hand-wringing over Crede's future with the Sox, especially considering that he won't be a free agent until after 2008, and he has a lot of question marks. Most of them deal with his back, but he still has to prove that April-September 2006 represented a new level of performance for him.
At the very least, the Sox now have their 25-man roster under contract for 2007, although it's always subject to change between now and the end of Spring Training.