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Milton Bradley

Johnny Dickshot
Jun 21 2007 12:16 PM

DFAed by the A's (he had a clubhouse thingy recently but not a bad one, peeps say).

Details:
[url]http://tinyurl.com/336dc5[/url]

Gwreck
Jun 21 2007 12:18 PM

Acquire him NOW!!!

IIRC, it typically takes Bradley a little while in a new place before he goes completely nuts. Decent chance to take for the rest of the year.

On the crazy scale, I think he is somewhere crazier than Jose Guillen but not quite as crazy as Carl Everett.

Edgy DC
Jun 21 2007 12:20 PM

If they move him for a catcher, they can try and pass Cust off in left and keep Piazza on the bench.

metsmarathon
Jun 21 2007 12:22 PM

i'd make a play for him.

Edgy DC
Jun 21 2007 12:26 PM

What's your play?

Send 'em Castro and pitcher?

metirish
Jun 21 2007 12:26 PM

I'd do it,good bat and decent glove....didn't he play for the Omar in Montreal?

metirish
Jun 21 2007 12:34 PM

His wiki page needs updating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Bradley

sharpie
Jun 21 2007 12:36 PM

Omar traded him away.

metsmarathon
Jun 21 2007 12:39 PM

well, im not sure what their needs are over in oakland. i'd be mostly interested in putting in a waiver claim on him, and if that doesn't work out, then oh well.

i'm not sure that castro is what oakland needs, seeing as they have kendall and piazza there already. perhaps an outfielder, but i don't think i'd send a good one. heh, maybe ledee...

castro + unnamed pitcher sounds high for me, unless said pitcher was scott scheoneweiss :p

on the whole, i don't know if we have a good match on what to send back, only that i'd entertain discussion on the matter.

Edgy DC
Jun 21 2007 12:45 PM

Jason Kendall has been filling no needs this summer, and, if you think about where the A's are when they're ready to change the plan in asking Mike Piazza to come back from the DL and strap his equipment back on, I think catching is a need.

metsmarathon
Jun 21 2007 01:00 PM

good points. still, the plus a pitcher is a bit steep, i think.

seawolf17
Jun 21 2007 01:21 PM

metirish wrote:
His wiki page needs updating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Bradley

Considering that page says he died in 1911, I don't think he's a fit for the Mets right now. Sure, he's still younger than Julio Franco, but I don't see how he helps us otherwise.

vtmet
Jun 21 2007 05:21 PM

seawolf17 wrote:
="metirish"]His wiki page needs updating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Bradley

Considering that page says he died in 1911, I don't think he's a fit for the Mets right now. Sure, he's still younger than Julio Franco, but I don't see how he helps us otherwise.


They used the wrong Milton Bradley link at wikipedia, that's the game maker, the ballplayer's link is:

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Bradley_%28baseball_player%29[/url]

metirish
Jun 21 2007 05:44 PM

Dude like thanks man....

cleonjones11
Jun 21 2007 07:15 PM

We already have Milton Bradley...his name is Lastings Milledge.

If Castro is traded do you really want Mike Defelice up?

vtmet
Jun 21 2007 08:16 PM

cleonjones11 wrote:
We already have Milton Bradley...his name is Lastings Milledge.

If Castro is traded do you really want Mike Defelice up?


I'd trade LoDuca long before I traded Castro...I'm not real crazy about LoDuca's pitch calling, and not real crazy about a singles hitter that can't run, walk, score or drive in runs...being able to "move Reyes over" is not that great of an accomplishment, IMO...a catcher's main purpose is to handle the pitching staff, and I haven't exactly been impressed lately...

Kendall is under achieving this season in his walk year...Schoeneweiss is not doing so well...Rumor has it that Beane likes Heilman...Mets pitchers are doing lousy, despite Loduca's hitting...A's pitchers are doing well, despite Kendall's hitting...WATP: LoDuca; Heilman and Schoeneweiss for Bradley, Kendall and a pitcher (don't know enough about the A's non-top pitchers to come up with a name)...

Edgy DC
Jun 21 2007 09:25 PM

A lot of things here.

  1. I'm not advocating trading Castro. I'm trying to suss out what those who want to acquire Bradley are willing to offer and what they think it'll take.
  2. If, by trade or injury, Castro became unavailable, I'd hope the team would call up Sandy Alomar, Jr., and not Mike DiFelice.
  3. I don't think it's accurate to describe Paul Lo Duca as a singles hitter.
  4. The notion that Lo Duca "can't run, walk, score or drive in runs" is
    1. mostly untrue,
    2. partially redundant, and
    3. to the extent that it is slightly true, in no way distinguishing him from Castro.
  5. not being impressed "lately" by the pitching staff is hardly a fair way to judge Lo Duca's performance.

vtmet
Jun 22 2007 04:47 AM

"Singles" hitter is an exageration, but is their a more accurate term for a guy that hits almost .300 but has a slugging percentage of .370? And how is Castro different? His slugging percentage is .459, which is .113 points higher than his batting average...and he's got 13 RBI in only 61 at bats, vs LoDuca only having 19 RBI in 227 at bats...

And in leau(?) of the Marty Barrett trade, why isn't a catcher accountable for a total breakdown of his pitching staff at the same time?

Edgy DC
Jun 22 2007 06:14 AM

vtmet wrote:
"Singles" hitter is an exageration, but is their a more accurate term for a guy that hits almost .300 but has a slugging percentage of .370?


Yes, particularly since he had 39 doubles in only 124 games last year.

vtmet wrote:
And how is Castro different? His slugging percentage is .459, which is .113 points higher than his batting average...and he's got 13 RBI in only 61 at bats, vs Lo Duca only having 19 RBI in 227 at bats...


I'm familiar with those numbers. I'm referring to the notion that Lo Duca "can't run, walk, score or drive in runs" when he is clearly better than Castro at running and walking.

vtmet wrote:
And in leau(?) of the Marty Barrett trade, why isn't a catcher accountable for a total breakdown of his pitching staff at the same time?

Nothing has "totally broken down" and any blame that reflects on him for the last three or four weeks should be taken with the credit reflected on him for the season up until then.

Both offensively and defensively, you're working with an unfairly narrow data set. I've argued and will likely argue again for a wider role for Castro, but give Lo Duca a break.

iramets
Jun 22 2007 06:54 AM

Edgy DC wrote:
any blame that reflects on him for the last three or four weeks should be taken with the credit reflected on him for the season up until then.

Here's the true crux of this endless dispute:

1) Who gets the credit for a pitching staff performing well above (or well below) average? The pitchers themselves? The pitching coach/resident genius, for teaching them how to pitch? The manager, for slotting them into games and/or roles with consummate intelligence? The GM, for assembling the staff? The starting catcher, for calling brilliant pitches? The backup catcher, for bring down the ERA of the staff despite that dumbass starting catcher? Jesus Christ? (I just always wanted to thank Him for something.) The point is that any of these figures, including Jesus, could be doing a piss-poor job, but in the context of the others doing above average jobs (or even one doing a great job if that one is actually the one responsible, which we don't know) Mr. Piss-poor will get the credit from some observers for causing a great performance.

and to lesser degree,

2) What constitutes a meaningful sample? When samples get beyond meaningful, they're often no longer relevant. I.e., if you were trying to argue that A's should make Mike Piazza their starting catcher today, his BA and his percentage of runners thrown out in 1997 are as relevant as his bride's cup-size, so there's such a thing as "True, but irrelevant" or "actually destructive to a logical discussion." (This goes back to my earlier point about the arbitrariness of deciding cutoff points for "relevance" and "irrelevance." If you're arguing for victory, and not in open-minded pursuit of the truth, then your decision to label certain facts "irrelevant" may suit your argument's convenience rather than logic or reason.) So you could easily have stats cherrypicked to demonstrate that LoDuca now sucks (the Mets' W-L record and ERA over the last two weeks) or that he's a fabulous catcher (same stats for last year). Is last season going far enough back? If we look at Lo Duca's staff ERAs for three or four years running, or his whole career, does that tell us more relevant information or less relevant information about his catching abilities this morning?

metirish
Jun 22 2007 07:09 AM

Instead of Bradley I'd like to see Omar trade for Nady,Pirates are going nowhere,and we know he's a good fit.

Nady is a FA after the season.

iramets
Jun 22 2007 07:11 AM

metirish wrote:
Instead of Bradley I'd like to see Omar trade for Nady,Pirates are going nowhere,and we know he's a good fit.

Nady is a FA after the season.


You giving them back Perez and a reliever? Or do you want them to admit publicly that they're taking it up the ass?

Edgy DC
Jun 22 2007 07:17 AM
Edited 3 time(s), most recently on Jun 22 2007 07:23 AM

All that is pretty much true, but, in (1), there is a logical nail to hang your coat on. I don't know who among your suspects gets the blame for the staff's struggles in recent weeks. We can all blame the person we're predisposed to blame. The truth remains that the blame must be apportioned among the suspects (including Jesus), but even then our prejudices will influence the ratios of the portions.

but

It remains that if a guy argues that Lo Duca's got the recent failures of the staff hanging over him --- whether I agree with it or not --- the guy's got to logically credit Lo Duca for the staff's longer success.

On (2), I don't know what constitutes a meaningful sample. Obviously, there is a lot of relativism between relevant and irrelevant, where most arguments occur. But I know that last year is more meaningful than 1997*, and that four weeks doesn't unmake a decade-long career's body of work --- especially regarding something as sublimated (and controversial right down to it's very existence) as the effect of a catcher on his pitching staff.

*Although, even that can be deceptive. Clearly, last year (2005) didn't matter much to Jose Valentin in 2006 because he was injured in 2005. But it did matter in a hard-to-measure way regarding his likeliness to be injured again.

metirish
Jun 22 2007 07:17 AM

I'd give them Heilman straight up,then he can be a starting pitcher again.

OlerudOwned
Jun 22 2007 08:35 AM

I really hate the thought of considering it, but if we're talking stopgaps, Bernie Williams really didn't have a bad season last year.

duan
Jun 22 2007 11:49 AM

I'm not going to condone any of Milton's actions, having said that, if you could get to talk to him, sit him down (and I get the sense that Willie & Carlos Delgado are the kinda guys who are good at this stuff) and say
Listen here fella, this is a hell of a career that you're prepared to throw away. New York's the biggest stage in the world and if you're prepared to come here, keep your nose out of trouble and work hard you'll be great, if you don't the media will make your life hell - are you up for the challenge?

I'd have him over Green/Chavez in a heartbeat.

Edgy DC
Jun 22 2007 05:55 PM

Something's wrong. Paul Lo Duca just drove in a run.

Elster88
Jun 22 2007 06:57 PM

Can we please just keep that asshole off our team? I like the guys on our team. Except Mota.

seawolf17
Jun 22 2007 07:03 PM

And Milton Bradley is now a [url=http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2913711]Royal[/url], so I s'pose this is all for nothing.

Gwreck
Jun 22 2007 10:42 PM

Not so fast. [url=http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070622&content_id=2043699&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb]Bradley-to-Royals deal Voided[/url]

metsmarathon
Jun 23 2007 01:07 PM

i could probably start a new thread with this, but instead of a guy like bradley, why shouldn't the mets be interested in acquiring a ken griffey jr.?

i mean, i realize that our outfield is already pretty darned old, but he would push alou to the bench, immediately improve our offense and do fairly good things for our defense, and allow gomez to maybe go back down to AAA to continue seasoning. it also solves a portion of our outfield puzzle for next year, and perhaps the year after.

we also have enough outfielders down on the farm that, even after sending, say, milledge, to cincy (and im not claiming that is my preferred package - only that i haven't really thought it through yet), we would have ample insurance for if/when jr got hisself hurt again.

he's playing very well, and isn't all too expensive for the next 2-3 years, with only $6.5M for next year and his '09 option.

Gwreck
Jun 23 2007 04:36 PM

Unfortunately, there's probably about a 0% chance Griffey waives the no-trade to play in NY.

Edgy DC
Jun 23 2007 08:33 PM

I'm not advocating that deal, but I wonder if it isn't maybe above zero.

Elster88
Jun 23 2007 08:45 PM

iramets wrote:
="metirish"]Instead of Bradley I'd like to see Omar trade for Nady,Pirates are going nowhere,and we know he's a good fit.

Nady is a FA after the season.


You giving them back Perez and a reliever? Or do you want them to admit publicly that they're taking it up the ass?


Shouldn't be a problem. Only the Mets follow the CYA policy.

metirish
Jun 23 2007 08:52 PM

I've never understood how any athlete no matter the sport would void a trade to a team that gives him a legitimate shot at winning,any athlete that does that could never be considered among the best to have played his sport,at least not to me.

Edgy DC
Jun 23 2007 09:16 PM

I'll disagree.

Ernie Banks was a great major league ballplayer. Danny Heep wasn't. It's a team sport.

It can even be argued that a truly great player would prefer to use his skills to elevate the team he's on to greatness, rather than move to a great established situation.

metirish
Jun 23 2007 09:41 PM

Any player that avoids a situation like Griffey might if he were traded to NY in my mind is not a great player...

Edgy DC
Jun 23 2007 09:55 PM

Heavens, why so strict?

First of all, it's indisputable that Ken Griffey's a great player. If he never does anything again, that's the truth.

Second of all, he grew up in Cincinnati rooting for the Reds. Would you not see a greatness in a man saying, "This is my city, my team. This is the championship I want. It'll be mine and it'll truly be ours, not somebody else's show that I bought into."

And buying in is where it's at. What's greater?:

  • Getting involved in a startup company in somebody's garage and helping to take them to the top of the Fortune 500, or

  • Buying in to a company when the stock was near peak value, sticking with it a year or so, get 10% or so back on your investment, and patting yourself on the back.


Seems to me the former situation is far less likely, and far greater.

metirish
Jun 23 2007 10:47 PM

Edgy you make great points and perhaps I am being a bit strict,but I just don't get why a guy like Griffey would not want to be traded to a team with a chance at a WS,isn't that what a great player would want,that chance to win it all,and to not take that chance because he doesn't like the NY "pressure" or whatever it is about this city I think that looks bad on Griffey...

Edgy DC
Jun 23 2007 10:57 PM
Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jun 24 2007 10:56 AM

]isn't that what a great player would want,that chance to win it all,


All players have a chance. The truly great make the chance greater.

]and to not take that chance because he doesn't like the NY "pressure" or whatever it is about this city I think that looks bad on Griffey...


Even if that were true, do you really think he'd say that?

What most made Wade Boggs great: his 157 OPS+ in 1986, his 173 in 1987, his 168 in 1988, or his 97 for a world champion in 1996? Or was it signing with the Yankees in 1994 after he had his first poor year, and the Yankees were passing the Sox in division dominance?

Because I think what he did can be called weak, and not great at all.

iramets
Jun 24 2007 01:53 AM

Elster88 wrote:
="iramets"]
="metirish"]Instead of Bradley I'd like to see Omar trade for Nady,Pirates are going nowhere,and we know he's a good fit.

Nady is a FA after the season.


You giving them back Perez and a reliever? Or do you want them to admit publicly that they're taking it up the ass?


Shouldn't be a problem. Only the Mets follow the CYA policy.


You must forgive me taking some amusement from the colossal arrogance of Mets' fans. You do a deal with the lowly Pirates, give up one player, get two, the least of whom turns out to be a budding star, and you turn around and say to the Pirates, "Uh, by the way, that guy we gave you in that deal? You remember, the one where we totally raped you? Yeah, sorry, 'bout that, sorta. Anyway, you remember the guy we gave you? Yeah, I know we didn't exactly give him to you, but whatever. Anyway, the point is we'd kinda like him back. Turns out we could, uh, sorta use a righthanded OF bat around now. Yeah, he is going pretty good, glad that's working out for you, at least, but the point is...Huh? You want something back? Cool, how about like a AA middle relief guy? Is that cool? OK, maybe an MLB guy,come on, put that down, I was kidding with the AA stuff. OK, like I don't know. David Newhan? How about Scott Schoenweis? Schoenweis was pretty good with the Angels, though, so we'd need a throw-in on your part. Like maybe that Gorzeloony kid you got? Toss him in, and you got yourselves a deal."

And you know what? Some Met fans read this and think "Yeah, Nady and Gorzelonny for Schoenweis, that's fair..."

metsmarathon
Jun 24 2007 09:49 AM

i think that's a bit too high a price to pay, ira...

and has griffey really said anything lately about not wanting to play a) for a winner b) in new york?

or are we just reading too much into his actions and motivations from the last time around, way the hell back in 1999?

Edgy DC
Jun 24 2007 11:03 AM

]And you know what? Some Met fans read this and think "Yeah, Nady and Gorzelonny for Schoenweis, that's fair..."


¿Quien?

iramets
Jun 24 2007 11:09 AM

Edgy DC wrote:
]And you know what? Some Met fans read this and think "Yeah, Nady and Gorzelonny for Schoenweis, that's fair..."


¿Quien?


Not you?