Quick hits: Orlando Cabrera, Joe Crede, and Andruw Jones, and the MLB Network

The Giants are reportedly interested in Crede for the second straight year.

Another slow news week, which is okay with me given that it's bowl week. I thoroughly enjoyed watching USC knock off Penn State and Ole Miss take down Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl (which is where my picture on the side was taken a year ago as Tony Temple probably rushed for another touchdown), and now it's on to the Sugar Bowl tonight—which works out well given that the Examiner publishing tool will be down from about 8:30 until tomorrow morning. 

But on to baseball. We're in a new year, and with pitchers and catchers reporting in about a month and a half, there are still a ton of free agents available. Not all of them will sign by Valentine's Day, but the big ones (Manny Ramirez, Pat Burrell, Bobby Abreu, Ben Sheets, Derek Lowe, etc.) should find homes by mid-February.

There's going to be a large number of low-level free agents who may not sign until sometime in March, though. Teams looking to add depth may take a March flier on, say, Juan Uribe for cheap.

And this free agency mess leads me into my first note:

• Orlando Cabrera is the most unattractive free agent on the market right now. No, I don't mean it in that way, but in the sense that A) no team has a gaping hole at shortstop anymore and B) any team that signs him has to give up one draft pick to the White Sox, as Cabrera was offered arbitration as a type A free agent. There are still a lot of type A free agents on the market, and some of them (namely Juan Cruz) probably will be hurt by their type A status. But none of them will be hurt to the extent Cabrera will be, because again, there isn't a team in baseball that really needs a one-year fix for their shortstop position. I still Cabrera will end up somewhere (my guess is the Royals on an incredibly cheap one-year contract), but given that there's hardly a market for him at all right now, it'll be a nervous couple of months for him. Think he regrets turning down arbitration now? Even though Cabrera likely wouldn't have played with the White Sox in 2009, he still would have got his money.
• The Giants are once again kicking the tires on Joe Crede. Last offseason and through spring training, the Giants were rumored to be where Crede was going to be shipped off to in a trade. That trade never materialized, and Crede stayed with the White Sox in 2008. The Giants are still desperate for offense, but Crede is a free agent who won't cost them anything more than a one-year deal with a possible option for 2010 at a fairly inexpensive price given the uncertainty of his health. Odds are Crede ends up with the Giants next year, but whether or not he plays remains to be seen.
• The Dodgers reworked Andruw Jones' contract to save the team $12 million. The point of this reworking is so the team can go after Manny Ramirez, but let's rewind to last offseason. I can remember some White Sox fans wishing the Sox would pursue Jones after losing out on Torii Hunter, maybe signing him to an inexpensive one or two year deal. Jones' agent, Scott Boras, somehow got him a two year, $36 million deal with the Dodgers after Jones had his worst season since 1997 with the Braves in 2007. All Jones did in 2008 was hit a robust .158 with three home runs and a .505 OPS in 209 at-bats while pocketing $18 million. I can't imagine the headache the White Sox would have had they gone after and signed Jones last year—and while there's no way they would have signed him for $18 million a year, anything more than $50 thrown Jones' way would be too much given what he did last year. Even if they only had $10 million tied up in him for 2009, it'd be enough to severely handicap their payroll. Granted, I don't think there ever was anything to the Jones-to-the-Sox hope given that he's a Boras client, but it still wouldn't have surprised me if Williams at least checked out Jones a year ago before deciding to move on.
• Finally, MLB Network for the win. It's only been on-air for 24 hours, and I'm already in love with it. It's so nice to finally have full-time MLB TV station after the NFL, NBA, and NHL all got their own networks. I've really enjoyed how they have dug deep into the archives to find interviews with Johnny Vander Meer, Carl Hubbel, Pete Rose, Jack Morris, and Rickey Henderson (I was watching a "best moments" thing on there earlier today, if you can't tell) about their respective historical records and feats. It'll be re-airing game five the 2005 ALCS and game one of the '05 Word Series on January 31 (at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m, respectively), so that'll be nice to tune in to both of those.