Impact Report: Milton Bradley

June 26, 2009 8:50am CDT

FWord broke on the Twitter page of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Chris De Luca on Thursday that Lou Pinella is planning on giving the slumping Milton Bradley a few days to think about what ails him on the bench. Does this mean it's time to dump the struggling hitter, or is now the perfect time to pounce on Bradley's current owner with an extremely low ball offer?

Milton Bradley, OF, Cubs
6-foot-0, 225 pounds
Bats: S Throws: R
Born: April 15, 1978 (Harbor City, CA)
Drafted: 2nd Round in 1996 by the Montreal Expos

MINOR LEAGUE HIGHLIGHTS

1996 (Rookie): As an 18-year-old rookie Bradley struggled to a .241-1-12 line in 32 games for the Gulf Coast Expos.

1997 (Rookie, Low-A): Went 5-for-25 in nine games in rookie ball, but at Vermont he hit .300 with 30 RBI in 50 games to earn New York-Penn League All-Star honors.

1998 (Single-A, High-A): Split the year almost evenly at two stops. He hit .302-6-50-54-13 in 75 games at Cape Fear. He then moved on to Jupiter where he batted .287-5-34-55-17 in 67 games. Combined he scored 109 runs while stealing 30 bases and knocking in 84 runs.

1999 (Double-A): Spent the entire season with Harrisburg where he hit .329, the fourth-best mark in the league. Bradley missed 55 games on the year (29 due to injury, seven due to suspension, and 19 while he was playing in the Pan Am games). After the regular year he went to the Arizona Fall League where he batted .352.

2000 (Triple-A): He hit .304-6-29-58-10 at Ottawa before being promoted to the Expos. He was caught an alarming 15 times on the base paths trying to steal against those 10 successful attempts. He was voted the top prospect in the Expos system by Baseball America.

2001 (Triple-A): In 65 games at Triple-A spent with two organizations (Montreal and Cleveland), he hit .264-7-28-39-23 in 250 at-bats.

2002 (Double-A, Triple-A): Had two rehab assignments. Went 3-for-11 in Double-A and 6-for-23 at Triple-A. Combined he hit .265-0-4-1-2 in nine games.

2006 (High-A, Triple-A): He hit .194-2-6-4-1 in eight games of injury rehab work.

2007 (Triple-AAA): Went 0-for-5 on a rehab assignment.

MAJOR LEAGUE CAREER

2000: Made his major league debut on July 19 and had a forgettable rookie season batting .221-2-15-20-2 in 154 at-bats.

2001: He started the year with the Expos but was moved to the Indians at mid-season. He hit .223 with one home run in 220 at-bats with the Expos and just .222 in 18 ABs with the Indians.

2002: Suffered an orbital bone fracture and also had an appendectomy which led to two stints on the DL. Over 325 at-bats he managed to hit .249 with 48 runs scored. He walked only 32 times leading to a poor .317 OBP.

2003: Had the best season of his young career with a .321-10-56-61-17 line over 101 games. However, he missed the last six weeks of the year due to a lower back contusion. Amongst AL hitters with 450 plate appearances, Bradley was fourth in average and OBP (.421).

2004: The only 500-plus at-bat season of his career in his first year with the Dodgers resulted in a .267-19-67-72-15 line. He also struck out a career-high 123 times though that was somewhat balanced out by a career-high 71 walks. Was ejected from a game on September 28th when he argued with a fan and umpires resulting in a suspension that took up the last week of the season.

2005: Missed 85 games due to injuries to his right ring finger and patella tendon in his knee. He had surgery on the knee on September 7th to end his season. In between injuries he hit .290-13-38-49-6 in 75 games.

2006: In his lone full season in Oakland he suited up for 96 games hitting .276-14-52-53-10. However, he spent two stints on the DL in the first half of the season that limited him to just 94 at-bats before the All-Star break. After the break he hit .300-11-44-40-8 in 257 at-bats.

2007: Split the year between the Athletics and the Padres, and once again was injured all year, finally blowing out his knee during a hissy fit at first base with an umpire. He appeared in 61 games totaling 209 at-bats as he hit .306 with 13 home runs and 37 RBI in that limited work.

2008: Had by far and away the best season of his career hitting .321-22-77-78-5 in 414 at-bats. Bradley finished third in the AL in average, first in OBP (.436), fourth in SLG (.563) and first in OPS (.999).

TEAM REVIEW

The Cubs, foolishly, gave Milton Bradley $30 million over the next three years to man right field for the club. We say foolishly since he had appeared in the field for more than 100 games only once in the past four seasons as he spent the majority of his time on the DL or at the DH position. However, the Cubs felt they needed a left handed bat in the middle of the lineup, Bradley fit the bill as a switch hitter, and the plan was for Bradley to team with Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez and Geovany Soto to drive the middle of the Cubs offense. Lee has been on fire of late but it took him a long while to get going, and the same can be said of Soto. As for Ramirez he has spent a lot of time on the DL with shoulder injury, and though he has remained in the lineup on almost a daily basis, Alfonso Soriano has also really struggled which led the team to fire its hitting coach Gerald Perry (he was replaced by Von Joshua).

PERSONAL REVIEW

2009 stats: .241-5-16-24-0 in 166 at-bats

So far this season Bradley has missed time due to a strained left quad, a right groin strain and a strained right calf. He has also been fined and suspended for a confrontation with umpire Larry Vanover. All told, Bradley has appeared in 55 of the Cubs 69 games, but given that he has appeared in more than 120 games only twice in his nine seasons, that's actually a fairly positive total. Still, it's impossible to count on a player who is as likely to end up on the trainer's table as he is to hit a double into the gap. Since 2002, a span of seven seasons, Bradley has averaged 100 games and 354 at-bats a season. It doesn't matter how good you are skill wise if you only appear in two-thirds the action.

Given his struggles with staying healthy, it still might surprise people to learn the following data points about the switch hitter.

1- Bradley has only one season of his career in which he picked up more than 420 at-bats (he had 516 in 2004).

2- Bradley has hit over .300 twice with a .321 mark in 2003 and the same total last season (career .278).

3- Bradley has hit more than 20 home runs only one time in his career (he had 22 last season).

4- Bradley has never had 80 RBI in a season (his high is 77 from last season).

5- Bradley has never scored 80 runs in a season (his high is 78 last season).

6- Bradley has failed to steal even seven bases in three of the past four seasons.

Add that all up, and at his best, the absolute zenith of his production, he has hit 22 home runs with 77 RBI and 78 runs. Heck, Kevin Millar hit 20 home runs with 72 RBI and 73 runs scored last season.

History is not on Bradley's side in terms of him showing any type of ability to stay in the lineup long enough to be a significant factor despite his obvious skills. As to his efforts this season, let's draw a comparison. First we will list his performance in 2007, then 2008 (his career best effort), then this season's work, before finally listing his career mark in a variety of categories.

Walk Rate
2007: 12.9 percent
2008: 16.2 percent
2009: 14.0 percent
Career: 12.1 percent

Since the start of the 2006 season there has been only one season in which this number has been above his current 14 percent mark, and that was in his career season of 2008. What a shock.

Strikeout Rate
2007: 19.6 percent
2008: 27.1 percent
2009: 22.3 percent
Career: 21.5 percent

Oddly, his strikeout rate was the second highest that it has ever been in his 2008 campaign (it was a hair higher at 27.3 percent in 238 at-bats in 2001). Therefore, how was he so successful in '08? We'll get to that in the discussion of BABIP below.

BB/K
2007: 0.78
2008: 0.71
2009: 0.73
Career: 0.64

A pretty stable skill set is flashed here as he has been spot on the past two plus seasons and just a hair better than his career mark as he has grown as a hitter as he has matured (we are obviously not speaking to his attitude which remains as childish as ever, but merely his growth on the field).

BABIP
2007: .329
2008: .396
2009: .282
Career: .324

Bradley's career mark is a strong .324, showing that he clearly possesses a skill set better than the average major leaguer that usually ends up in the .290-300 range. Therefore, it is clear that luck has not been on his side early this season. However, Bradley also hasn't been hitting the ball on the line as often as he has in the past with a 19.7 percent LD-rate, below his 21.1 percent career mark. Still, his .396 mark in 2008 is the number that really stands out here. Even with a 24.7 LD-rate, an eBABIP would be about .370 for that effort, so there is just no way that anyone should have been fooled into thinking that he had suddenly morphed into a .320 hitter. That .396 BABIP mark, the best in all of baseball last season, simply isn't a sustainable level for anyone, even Ty Cobb (.378 career BABIP).

G/F
2007: 0.92
2008: 1.20
2009: 1.49
Career: 1.36

That 0.92 mark in '07 is the worst number of Bradley's career, and the only time in his career that he has been below 1.20. Adding up his effort last season and this year, we don't end up being too far off his career number.

HR/F
2007: 18.3 percent
2008: 21.2 percent
2009: 12.2 percent
Career: 15.2 percent

Obviously his production in this category is down this season, but we aren't even half way into the year so he could easily return to his career levels. To that end, his current FB-rate of 32 percent is almost spot on his 33 percent career mark, so when he starts to convert a few more fly balls into long balls, this number should return to "normal."

PREDICTION

So what do you do with this guy? Certainly there is every reason to believe that Bradley's production will improve moving forward, that is if he can stay on the field and, while on the field, avoid flipping out, or "going postal" as they say. Still, with his extensive history of injuries of almost every kind he is an extremely high risk commodity to depend on. Throw in the fact that he is coming off what is obviously a career season, and the Cubs should consider firing whomever it was that said 'let's offer this guy $30 million.'

Bradley's current owner is likely in one of two camps. (1) He/she thinks that Bradley is a piece of refuse and is either ready to dump him for some flunky off the waiver-wire or he is hoping that someone, anyone, will make him/her a halfway decent offer for Bradley's services. (2) He/she thinks that there is little point in moving Bradley since there is no way that like-talent will be gained in the return. As such, this owner may just decide to sit on Bradley and hope against hope that he is somehow able to return to production and health in the second half. Which category do you fall into?

Either way, there is simply no way to predict an overnight return to prominence from this outfielder. Bradley certainly might be productive in spurts moving forward, but the cold hard truth is that he simply isn't someone that should ever be viewed as anything more than a fifth outfielder in deep mixed leagues as his career shows him to be one of the most frustrating players to own in all of baseball.