A’s sign Crisp to one-year deal with 2011 option

Coco Crisp and the A’s were reportedly close to a deal over the weekend and they just made it official. He gets a one-year contract worth around $4.5 million and the A’s will have a team option for 2011. When healthy Crisp is a solid starting center fielder, batting .266/.338/.390 while rating 20 runs above average defensively over the past three seasons, but he was limited to just 49 games in 2009 because of a shoulder injury that required season-ending surgery. Plus, in Rajai Davis and Ryan Sweeney the A’s already had a pair of capable center fielders who’re both significantly younger and cheaper than Crisp. Perhaps after years of struggling offensively the A’s have decided to forget about scoring runs and simply trot out the best possible outfield defense, in which case a Davis-Crisp-Sweeney alignment would be amazing at keeping opponents off the board. Or maybe general manager Billy Beane just has another move on tap that involves Davis or Sweeney going somewhere for a bigger bat. Either way, I’m not sure that the 30-year-old Crisp is a particularly good fit in Oakland.