Posts tagged ‘Joe Crede’

The best pitching staff in the American League figured to have at least one All-Star right? How about the best hitting catcher not named Joe Mauer? Or the guy with more home runs than Manny Ramirez, Vlad Guerrero, Magglio Ordonez, and JD Drew? Or the hot-shot rookie immigrant who’s hit .358 since June 1? Surely one of them merits consideration for the All-Star team, right?

Well, no. AJ Pierzynski, Alexei Ramirez, John Danks, Gavin Floyd, Matt Thornton, Bobby Jenks, and the rest of the White Sox all joined with the Final Vote runner-up Jermaine Dye in finalizing thier plans for a four-day vacation next week. Carlos Quention and Joe Crede will represent the Sox in the Farewell to Arms at Yankee Stadium.

While it would’ve been a great source of pride to place two or three more deserving Sox players on what is (in theory) supposed to be a squad of 2008’s best players, it’s not the worst thing in the world to let a surprising team take four full days to rest and recharge before what is certain to be a bare-knuckle brawl in the AL Central during the second half. As play wrapped up after tonight’s 4-1 loss to Kansas City, (where the Sox continued to prove that down is up in 2008 - after consecutive stinkers from Jose “I’m Distracted by My Mancrush on Pablo Ozuna” Contreras and Javy “Did I Really Strike Out 10 Guys in My Last Start” Vazquez, two games the Sox managed to win via late-inning comeback, Mark Buerhle takes a shutout into the 8th inning and LOSES) the Sox are now 53-38, 2.5 up on Minnesota and 7 ahead of the Detroit Tigers with 71 games left to play. After a recent run which has featured up-and-down performances from the starters and a small but significant dip in the bullpen, let’s just get the Pale Hose through this last series in Arlington before a well-deserved break. They’ve already beaten down one set of expecations, now it’s time to rest up and get ready to take down another - the expectation that they can’t possibly keep this up through the end of the year.

Make Mr. Capone proud, Chicago. JD’s looking to make his third All-Star team and join Q and Crede at The Stadium.

Hey, everybody else is doing it! Want proof? Click here & here to get the expert analysis before moving on.

Now, I will fully cop before things even start to being biased. The one thing I stipulate is that I tried to gauge all performances and pick the team in what I call an “immediate context” - as in, if MLB declared that Chicago had to pick one baseball team to play a game tomorrow, a game Chicago had to win in order to continue its existence as a city, who would I want on it? As such, current (like, say, the last two weeks) performances trumped fond memories of Opening Day. So, without further ado, the humble picks of Soxcast for who mans each position on a Chicago Dream Team…

Catcher: AJ Pierzynski, White Sox. Probably the overall toughest call; Geovany Soto is in the middle of a fine campaign and so is the Polish Wonder. How then to break the tie? If we need just one guy to throw out a runner late, we’d probably be making a defensive switch for Soto. But as it is, AJ’s left-handed swing has produced a .308 average and .442 slugging percentage along with the veteran savvy needed to handle a pitching staff everybody had written off before the season started. Soto may very well be on his way to fame as the next great power-hitting catcher, but for this exact moment our vote is with AJ.

First Base: Derrek Lee, Cubs. He kind of wins by default now, doesn’t he? Even if Paul Konerko hadn’t been on the DL, it wasn’t much of a contest. Neither player got off to the start they desired, but Lee has rallied himself while Paulie has battled injury and hard luck throughout the year. Here’s hoping PK gets it back on track after he returns.

Second Base: Alexei Ramirez, White Sox. So many candidates - Ramirez, Juan Uribe, Ronny Cedeno, Mark Fontenot, Mark DeRosa, Pablo Ozuna…wait, not Pablo. But remember, we’re picking the Dream Team that would go out and represent Chicago tomorrow, and we’d be foolish not to pick a guy who’s batting .390 in the month of June to go with some fine (though still rough) glove work. DeRosa’s our first man off the bench if needed.

Shortstop: Ryan Theriot, Cubs. Theriot has the bat, Orlando Cabrera the glove. And yet, there can only be one. Tie goes to the younger in this instance, but given another two weeks Cabrera would probably unseat the Cajun; OC’s average has risen every month, rising from .216 (April) to .265 (May) to .370 so far in June, why’ll Theriot has slipped a little each week from his .340 hot streak in the first month.

Third Base: Joe Crede, White Sox. I take it back. This was the toughest call. Ramirez has a better average, Crede better power stats, and they both have a sub-.950 fielding percentage (Crede the more egregious violater right now with 13 errors.) This is one position where I think my Sox bias is fully coloring my choice, but remember I’m picking the team as if it was one that I were betting the farm on to win a game tomorrow - and if you watched the 2005 playoffs you know how clutch with the bat and the glove Crede can be when it’s all on the line.

Outfield: LF - Carlos Quentin, Sox; CF - Reed Johnson, Cubs, RF - Jermaine Dye, Sox. Quentin wins in left by default with Soriano on the DL, otherwise he’d have been the fourth man. Nick Swisher’s got all his “gamer” bravado and Brian Anderson finally stopped pouting and started playing, but Johnson has them both solidly beat straight up. And in right, it was again the most recent performance that tipped the scales - JD is hitting .292 with 5 HR in June, while the big import prize Kosuke Fukudome has struggled with a .241 clip and is now fluxing thru the Cubs’ lineup.

Starting Pitcher: Many solid candidates, but there can only be one. Remember, I want this guy ready with his ‘A’ game for tomorrow. It probably would’ve been Zambrano, but that MRI throws a wrench into it. Vazquez has concerned me in his more recent starts, and the youngsters Gallagher, Floyd, and Danks have exceeded expectations in their respective roles. Buehrle has been stellar in 6 of his last 8 outings, but he will always be prone to a big inning. So, the pick is…wait for it…Ryan Dempster. I’m shocked too. But Dempster’s been as solid as anybody in the NL and doing it while often waiting for runs to come in behind him. In an emergency stand-by role I’d have (in order) Buehrle, Jose Contreras, & Zambrano pending the test results.

Closer: Bobby Jenks, White Sox. Yeah, I know, we’re all supposed to give Kerry Wood extra credit for doing something nobody counted on him to do - make it two whole days without a freak gasoline fighting injury (Zoolander reference, for those who don’t follow). But Jenks’ has been every bit as dependable in closing 16 of 19 opportunities alongside a 1.91 ERA. If we’re putting together a whole bullpen, I definitely want them both (save for strikeouts, the numbers are almost identical for each man) but my own biased fan opinion tells me to put the ball in Bobby’s hand needing three outs for a championship - because he’s been there before.

If it’s February, it must be Spring Training in Tucson. The Sox final year of workouts in their old Tucson Electric Park digs before relocating to their shiny new facility in Glendale has no shortage of plotlines, from Ozzie’s promise to be “back to being Ozzie” to Bobby Jenks’ decision to go with long hair and the annual debate over what exactly a ‘hang-wuff-em” is. But those are all questions for another time and place. As Spring Training kicks off in earnest (pitchers and catchers were due Saturday, with a number of positional players such as Joe Crede, Josh Fields, AJ Pierzynski, and Brian Anderson showing up ahead of the mandatory reporting date this Friday), here our five storylines worth paying close attention to:

5 - The Back End…Will it be Gavin Floyd & John Danks in the last two rotation spots, as everybody seems to expect, or can one of the remaining prospies (Lance Broadway, Charlie Haeger, Adam Russell, Jack Egbert, or even the always popular ‘Unknown’) earn their way onto the roster? Wild card factor - who arrives in a probable Crede trade.

4 - Grinding Back…Last season the top two spots in the order were plagued by injury and inability to do some of the fundamental “little things” required to win. Can Orlando Cabrera & Nick Swisher right the ship by bunting, sacrificing, getting on base, stealing bases, and creating scoring chances for the middle of the lineup?

3 - Outfield Shuffle…The Sox now have a depth of outfielders, but who’s going where? Ideally I’d like Swisher in left, but Carlos Quentin’s a natural LF and there just is too much roughness around the edges on Jerry Owens. What about Brian Anderson? All these things need to be sorted out in time. Personal prediction: it’ll be Dye (RF), Swisher (CF), Quentin (LF). While Dye & Swisher will be out there no matter what, that third spot is still up for grabs, so anybody could grab it with a good spring.

2 - Second Base is Up For Grabs…Juan Uribe, Danny Richar, newly-signed Cuban defector Alexei Ramirez, & Pablo Ozuna each have a hat in the ring. Richar didn’t do enough last season to nail down the job, but I’m all for giving it to him and seeing what he can do over the course of a full baseball season. If Uribe REALLY lost a lot of weight and attacks from the first spring training game on, it’ll likely be him. An unknown variable that could alter the Sox thinking: how well/fast Ramirez picks up MLB pitching. If he mashes the ball during spring and/or the minors, his time could be sooner rather than later; if he flops that’ll be one less candidate for the bench.

1 - Endgame at Third…The day Sox fans have been dreading for almost three full years may finally be at hand. Joe Crede is an unrestricted free agent after 2008 and there appears to be no room for negotiation between Kenny Williams & Scott Boras, which is very unfortunate but also incredibly predictable. The two sides haven’t had any concrete discussions on the matter, which makes you hope they could work something out if they ever got down to the bargaining table, but the reality is that right now the Sox see Josh Fields as ready to play everyday. And not as an outfielder. That makes a healthy Crede highly valuable trade bait considering the Sox need both the kind of 3rd/4th starter pitching talent he could bring in, or a stud prospect or two to resupply their farm system. A new report in the Chicago Tribune suggests that a deal with the Giants could be in the works, but it would likely be Crede for prospects, not Crede for Noah Lowry (as has been speculated). Either way, a final decision at third is the last (and biggest) question for the Sox to come up with an answer to before breaking camp.