Phil Watch: He Said It Was Inarguable

Sit back and relax. Grab a soda, maybe a sandwich. We're going to be here awhile.

I think it's going to be the longest Phil Watch ever.

It's been a bit tough to keep up with the Proustian prose and Norman Mailerian output of Phil this last week.

Heck, we've had four entirely unoriginal columns from Phil on Alex Rodriguez just in the last ten days alone. Apparently he didn't feel heard the first time, second or third time.

But Crede was signed by the Twins two days ago so, as usual, Phil takes what should have been a perfunctory column about Crede's value, age, back issues, defense and World Series memories, brings it to stupid-ass heights and proudly declares him a game and division changer.

Let's get started.

You can argue that Joe Crede has been the White Sox's best ballplayer since he arrived in Chicago to stay in 2002. The point is inarguable since 2005, when Magglio Ordonez fled to Detroit for reasons of money and health.

Shit! Bustin' out of the gate! Direct, efficient and absolutely wrong. Two for three but that third one's always a stickler. Fucking truth. Always muckin' me shit up.

Let's look:

2005

Crede: 96 OPS+ (100 is league average), 2.1 Value Wins, .252/.303/.454

Konerko: 136 OPS+, 4.0 Value Wins, .283/.375/.534

Dye: 118 OPS+, 2.5 Value Wins, .274/.333/.512

The term 'ballplayer' that Phil uses isn't accidental. He's trying to be all sly and shit by insinuating that Crede's defense made up for any offensive shortcomings in any given year.

In 2005, Crede's UZR/150 was a pedestrian 6.2 for someone considered a borderline great defensive third baseman. In fact, it regressed from the year before in what should have been during his prime age years. Also, Value Wins factors in defense.

Verdict: Not only arguable, but wrong.

2006

A healthy Crede had a fantastic year in 2006. Really. Just a great freakin' year for him. But...

Crede: 107 OPS+, 4.1 Value Wins, 20.0 VORP .283/.323/.506

Thome: 155 OPS+, 4.7 Value Wins, 62.7 VORP .288/.416/.598

Dye: 151 OPS+, 3.2 Value Wins, 64.5 VORP .315/.385/.622

Look at the VsORP. Putting Thome aside for a second, Dye had a ridiculously good offensive year in 2006. If he had been a league average fielder that year, he would have generated 5.6 Value Wins, something that would have put him in the top 5 in the league. Value Wins figures a player's total output in every phase of the game with positional adjustment, fielding and replacement value relative to every other player in the league. It's very effectively trying to build a better beast.

Now, Thome put up 4.7 Value Wins even with the positional adjustment of DH taking 1.4 runs off that total. Thome played a full season in the field with the Phillies in 2004, playing just above league-average (1.8). Take his physical ailments into account and aging, he would have sinked below league average if he would have played first base for the Sox that year. Still...he did play a half-win better than Crede in 2006 and if he had played first, he would have played close to two wins better, with everything factored in.

Verdict: Entirely arguable and I go with Thome.

2007

The first two years of Phil's little 2005-2008-Crede-Is-The-Best-Sox-Ballplayer argument were not only arguable but pretty much wrong.

2007 is as rotten as dumpster juice poured over a nice piece of wagyu.

Crede: 49 OPS+, 0.1 Value Wins, -11.0 VORP .216/.258/.317

I'm not even doing comparables. Those are abysmal by any standard when it comes to standardized standarding standards.

But hey, he had a 23.9 UZR/150...in 46 games.

Verdict: Wrong in the wrongest way that wrong can be possibly wrong.

2008

Crede: 98 OPS+, 1.9 Value Wins, 6.2 VORP .248/.314/.460

Quentin: 148 OPS+, 4.7 Value Wins, 51.3 VORP .288/.394/.571

Thome had 2.2 Value Wins and Dye had 1.8 last year. Now, Crede had a spectacular April and June in 2008. In fact, I would argue that what Crede did in April helped the team that was a question mark get through what was considered a tough part of the schedule at the time.

But c'mon. Quentin was Quentin last year. 51.3 VORP vs. 6.2. The Sox were a .500 at best without him.

Verdict: Wrong, wrong and wrong with a side of wrong.

SO...a cogent argument, though not by me, could be made for 2006 only. And I didn't even do pitchers.

But with the other years...

...With Crede migrating from the defending champion Sox, the Twins become favorites to win their fifth division title in eight seasons under the brilliantly simple Ron Gardenhire. They could move into the status of clear favorites if general manager Bill Smith finishes a second deal he's been working on for weeks — a sign-and-trade deal to acquire free-agent reliever Juan Cruz without losing his second-round pick.

We know that Phil has the new Baseball Prospectus handbook (or a website subscription). He's been belching out statistics from the site anytime he needs something to back up his musings all spring training.

In fact, just yesterday, in one of his 8,000 columns on A-Rod, he told us:

Baseball Prospectus assigns Rodriguez a 46.1 VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) rating. That's higher than either of the heralded newcomers, CC Sabathia (43.6) and Mark Teixeira (38.5).

Do you know what the guys at BP 'assigned' Crede? 1.0 VORP. One. With a ceiling of 2.7.

So according to BP, Crede will contribute one run above a replacement player next year with a ceiling of 2.7 runs over a replacement player output, offensively (VORP doesn't take into account defense). Not league-average. Replacement level. A team populated with replacement-level players would win 25 games on average over a 162-game season.

So...Crede is essentially a replacement player offensively with his defense being the X-factor. He's coming off two back surgeries so you can't, with any degree of certainty, predict that he will be the same defensive player he was before the injury. Heck, you can't even really predict defense for a healthy player with any degree of accuracy.

To wit: Aramis Ramirez, throughout his career, has repeatedly put up fielding run numbers in the negatives. Inexplicably, he had 11 fielding runs in 2007, a number that surpasses every fielding run total Crede has ever produced except 2006 (15.6 FR).

You make sense of that and I'll give ya a little sum'un-sum'un.

The fact is you can only ballpark defense with a good sample size and demonstrated health (bad will most likely be bad and good will probably be good with a decent sample size). But even then, it's a fairly big potential production range.

Phil doesn't cherry-pick, though. Fuck VORP when it gums up the works. Did I mention Crede's projected VORP was 1.0?

Twins officials downplayed Sunday the chance of acquiring Cruz. Perhaps they were still in shock after actually seeing Crede in a Minnesota uniform.

Holy Shit! Joe Crede's in camp! I'm speechless! Where are the disciples? I'm a huge Bartholomew fan!

BTW, here's the comparables for Crede that BP compiled:

I don't know about you, but I shit my pants every time Steve Buechele walks into a room. And Ed Sprague? For-get it.

Before signing Crede, the Twins had done almost nothing this winter. Smith pursued Casey Blake unsuccessfully while adding only Luis Ayala and knuckleballer R.A. Dickey.

So...the signing of...Crede...makes them the...favorites? And Juan Cruz makes them...clear favorites?

But the signing of Crede, along with Nick Punto's move from third base to shortstop, should give the Twins the kind of solid infield that once backed Brad Radke, Johan Santana, Kenny Rogers and a young Kyle Lohse.

Heck yeah! Add Crede's 1.0 VORP to Nick Punto's -3.9 VORP and you've got yourself a stew goin'.

Third base, like power hitting, had been one of the White Sox's regular edges over Minnesota. The last time Crede was outplayed by a Twins third baseman was 2004, when Corey Koskie hit 25 home runs. But the measure of Crede has always been his glove as much as clutch hitting.

There's no such thing as a clutch hitter, Phil. Seriously, look it up. I'll have an entire post on this soon, right after the BRE TOA 3, brought to you by VUUUUUUCCCCC!

It's entirely random. There is clutch hitting, to be observed after the fact. "Team X was a great clutch-hitting team last year." But you can't say a particular player is a clutch hitter year in and year out. Seriously, pick any random player and check out all the relevant clutch-hitting statistics over the course of his career. They're typically right in line with his overall production and vary wildly year to year.

Crede's averages by year (RISP, 2-out RISP, Late & Close, September)

2005: .286 .232 .289 .371

2006: .343 .351 .237 .179

2007: .298 .292 .296 DNP

2008: .271 .190 .220 .250 (1-4)

He's all over the map. Take 2006 out of the equation, the year Crede was at the absolutely prime production age of 28, and he was pretty average, only better in relation to himself. That doesn't make him a clutch hitter when he's a below average offensive player overall. It's just making up for his crappiness by being less crappy. And that's no way to go through life.

While Crede was limited to 97 games by recurring back problems, he and the other Sox third basemen, Josh Fields and the also-departed Juan Uribe, had a league-high 378 assists last season, 73 more than Minnesota got from Brian Buscher and six other third basemen. Mark Buehrle figures that number would have been higher had Crede been able to go the distance.

Do the Twins get to sign Fields and Uribe as well?

Oh, and Phil's using assists? They also had the second-most total chances, 80 more than league-average (coincidently, the Twins were league-average) and committed the most errors (33) with Crede booting 20 of them in 'limited action' last year.

With agent Scott Boras setting a year-at-a-time contract pace, Crede never had a multiyear deal with the Sox. He would have been in line for a big contract this winter if not for the back injury, which limited him to 144 games over the last two years.

I know! Teams are just throwing money around this year! It's insane. Look at all the money a guy Baseball Prospectus says will have a VORP 22 times greater than Crede got.

C'mon. What would a team give a 31 year-old third baseman with a career .306 OBP and 98 OPS+...even without the back injury...even not taking this economy into account.

What? 4 years/$40 million? Big money?

What the point of all the speculation anyway?

Crede without a bad back is a guy you want on your team at a reasonable price, especially if he learns to walk more as he ages. Absolutely. I don't hate Joe Crede.

But in this realm, on this Earth, in this time, on this temporal plane, Joe Crede has a bad back.

Because of Crede's back, as well as the availability of possible replacements in Fields, Dayan Viciedo and Gordon Beckham, his departure hasn't caused as much angst for Sox fans as it may have. They see almost all players as disposable parts, in part because Ozzie Guillen produced a championship in the first season after the loss of Ordonez and Carlos Lee.

Disposable? Has Phil ever talked to a Sox fan? I got into a debate with one last year because he thought Nick Masset was untouchable. (Cripes, a ton of them bemoaned the loss of Uribe. This same shit happened after the Angels won the series in '02. Everybody was untouchable, even if they sucked stinky chicken ass. But I digress.)

Ordonez, another Boras client, suffered a knee injury in 2004 that allowed him to play only 52 games. It severely damaged his free-agent value the next winter, but Boras put together a creative deal with the Detroit Tigers, who have gotten 73 home runs and 346 RBIs from Ordonez the last three years. He played only 82 games in '05 but has since raised his average to 135 games since leaving Chicago.

I've seen Magglio Ordoñez, watched him play, seen his statistics. Mr. Crede, you are no Magglio Ordoñez.

Boras believes Crede can make an even better comeback, with a second surgery last fall finishing the repair that the one in 2007 started. The artificial turf at the Metrodome won't be ideal, but Boras doesn't expect it to be a major issue.

Well shit, if Boras says so.

And on to Phil. 'Isn't ideal' is what Phil offers today. Just three weeks ago, Phil offered this:

The Twins continue to talk to Joe Crede, but would 81 home games on turf make sense for a guy with back problems? He'd be a better fit in San Francisco or Houston.

What's changed in three weeks? Oh, we here at Phil Watch remember, Phil. Even when you don't.

If Crede stays on the field, he will make the Twins better. They were essentially intact after winning 88 games a year ago, so if they are better they have to be the favorites.

Okay. The Twins are a fine little team. And Crede's a fine little addition with moderate upside. But regressing to the mean may be the mantra in the Twin Cities this year.

They hit .305 with runners in scoring position last year, nearly 20 points higher than the next-best team. Heck, they hit 26 points higher than the two teams - Cubs and Angels - that won the most games in each league last year. Ain't happening again, my peeps.

They hit .276 the year before with largely the same lineup, .296 in 2006 and .271 in 2005.

See! Clutch-hitting is not predictive and largely random.

You. Don't. Bank. On. It.