Daily Dose: March 21 - How much is that glove worth?

Well - since I couldn't get out to see East/West baseball today because of SNOW! - ugh - I have nothing else to really talk about.

Sure, I could talk about the three Sweet 16 and one Elite Eight team in my purely-for-entertainment-purposes NCAA pool that lost on Thursday, but I won't.

I'm going to throw my 2 cents in about the Joe Crede/Josh Fields situation on the Southside.

Most Sox fans love Joe Crede. I'll never forget leaving Irish Fest on the Southside and a drunken fest-goer hanging off a light pole yelling "Joe Crede!" at passing cars - if that's not love, I don't know what is.

But here's the thing: Joe Crede is a career .259 hitter. You read that right. .259. He only has a career .305 OBP. And since becoming the full time third baseman in 2003, he's missed an average of 17.8 games per year before losing 115 games last year with the back injury.

18 games a year doesn't seem like much, but he's been trending downward: 2003 (11), 2004 (18), 2005 (30) before a rebound year in 2006 (12). The thing is, he doesn't miss time because he needs a day off. He misses time because he has the back of a 50-year-old.

I like Joe. I think he's one of the top 2 or 3 glove men in the entire game. He's a clutch hitter, but not a consistent one. So how much is that glove worth?

Is it worth having Pablo Ozuna or Alexei Ramirez playing 3B 12-30 times (or more) a year? Is it worth sending Fields to Charlotte, or to the bench, or to left field. Especially when Fields can easily hit .259 at the major league level.

I don't know - so I'm asking you - how much is that glove worth?