I think I've pretty well established, both in this blog and in the print column, that I'm a skeptic on Joe Crede.

And yet, as I look at my rankings of third basemen, I feel pretty certain that Crede is one of the top 10 third basemen in MLB. Not top five, certainly — he doesn't belong with David Wright or Evan Longoria, much less Alex Rodriguez — but really, is he any more injury prone than Chipper Jones, Scott Rolen or Troy Glaus (who is already out for the first couple weeks of the season, at least)?

It's an odd group, this year's third baseman — besides the handful of established stars, there are a bunch of rehab projects (Crede, Jones, Glaus, Mike Lowell, Rolen, Ryan Zimmerman, Hank Blalock, Eric Chavez), the guys who always seem a few days away from losing their jobs (Jorge Cantu, Edwin Encarncion, Josh Fields, Pedro Feliz) and the guys whose reputations are seldom matched by production (Adrian Beltre, Alex Gordon, Garrett Atkins).

One odd thing this spring — I don't think there's anybody moving a third baseman to a middle infield spot this year. Generally there's somebody doing that — last year, for example, the Rays shifted Akinori Iwamura to second base— and in the STATS game, that sort of thing opens up an opportunity to add those double play points I carried on about in the second base post. This year teams are moving people from the middle of the field to third base — Mark DeRosa with Cleveland, Brandon Inge with Detroit. (DeRosa spent most of 2008 playing second base, and Inge got most of his PT behind the plate.)

An uninspiring crew, all told.

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