In an entirely non-surprising move, Joe Crede filed for free agency at the end of last week.

We all remember the young Joe Crede, so full of promise and so unwilling to produce consistently unless absolutely necessary. “Captain Clutch” sure annoyed a lot of us, but at the time it didn’t seem to matter because, well, the Sox were still just kind of the achingly average baseball team they were from 1996 to 2004. When Crede became a legitimate superstar in 2005 and 2006, it suddenly seemed possible a Sox prospect could live up to the hype. This was all before the back problems and the agent and misunderstandings in the press and whatnot, and now we see how that all worked out.

Crede once said that if his agent – Scott Boras – ever did anything that put him on the way out of Chicago, he’d find a new agent. At the time this sounded nice, but then what happened? Not the back surgery and extended visits to the disabled list, but the contract situations: Crede and the Sox both had several opportunities to ensure theirs was a lasting relationship, but instead the two kept negotiating one-year deals starting with the 2005-2006 offseason. If that didn’t best signify an impending breakup, it’s hard to say what would.

For reasons unknown, Crede will still probably get a hefty contract from someone else this winter, probably from a team with a little money to throw around and not much to lose. Someone like. . . the 1996 through 2004 White Sox.