First of all, I apologize for not posting an update last night after I got off the phone with Scott Boras.

Anyway, I’ve been skeptical of the Twins signing Joe Crede throughout the offseason. At first, the Twins didn’t want to touch him. Then they were forced to look at other options when talks with Casey Blake broke down. Then they really had to look at all options when Mark DeRosa, a player they wanted, was quietly traded to Cleveland.

Crede started working out in Arizona about three weeks ago, and the Twins were one of the teams in attendance. Soon, we heard about contract talks and medical reports being examined. I remained skeptical because I knew the Twins always had concerns about Crede’s back, and the contract demands - a base of around $7 million with incentives to push it into eight figures - seemed to be too much. 

So Saturday comes. I call Boras, and I was pleasantly surprised that he picked up the phone. I’ve had two conversations with Boras in the last month. Before that, I hadn’t spoken with him since I was covering the Royals and his client Johnny Damon.

Boras hinted that a resolution might be near.

“I anticipate, the way things are going right now, that you might have a solution on where Joe is going.  I can’t say a definite amount of time, but I think it’s a shorter than longer amount of time.”

A couple hours later, I see an item from my man Andy Baggarly in which he writes: “I’m hearing the Giants expect he’ll sign with the Twins.”

Boras says a decision is close. Baggarly says the Giants are in concession mode. Boras also talked about how Crede wants to play for a winning team and, while some might object, this is still a good Twins team in a division that can be had. And you gotta believe Crede would love 19 18 shots at his former team, the White Sox.

 Now I’m starting to think the Twins can pull this off.

Boras claimed other teams have shown interest too, but I’m racking my brain to come up with other teams.

Texas? No. They are moving Michael Young to third.

Phillies? Maybe. But they were looking for cover just in case Pedro Feliz didn’t come back from, coincidentally, offseason back surgery. The Phillies were interested Mark DeRosa and Ty Wigginton as insurance policies in case Feliz couldn’t make it. But word is Feliz is on the field and while he’ll miss some spring games (he can hang out with Joe Mauer) he’ll be ready for Opening Day. If not, they have Greg Dobbs and Jason Donald.

Reds? They have Twins spring training-killer Edwin Encarnacion at third. If they were going to move him to the outfield I don’t see that anymore since they have Norris Hopper, Wily Tavares and Jay Bruce projected as starters with a bunch of potential backups, inlcuding Johnny Gomes and Jacque Jones.

Who else is left? I’m not sure.

Update: Milwaukee? With Bill Hall out for 4-6 weeks, the Brewers could look for help. It’s not likely though, as they have Mike Lamb to fill in.

So it could be an interesting next few days here. I’ll post updates whenever I come across some new information.

But all I’m stating for now is that this is the first time during his whole process that I think the Twins have a real shot at signing Crede.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.