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John Donovan at SI.com takes a close look at Lastings Milledge and the Washington Nationals.
Milledge, speaking on his time with the Mets:
“A lot of veterans didn’t like the way I play the game. They thought I didn’t respect it, but the vets here have no problem with me. They know I respect it. They know I work hard.
“I can’t go through anything worse than I went through in New York. It only gets better from here.”
…i loved milledge’s energy, potential, and displays of emotion and excitement…i would have enjoyed watching him play for the Mets… but i also feel he needs to grow up quite a bit and definitely think his attitude played a larger role in him getting traded than anyone is letting on…
Milledge, on the Nationals chances:
“I think we’re going to compete and not only compete, but … you hear about New York can win and Philly can win. Why can’t we talk that we’re going to win the division, too? I’m not saying we will. But we’re in this thing to win the NL East.”
…see, good kid, just a little crazy…i can only imagine milledge in the New York spotlight, jawing with rollins and how that would have gone over in the Mets’ clubhouse...
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Sadly, comments like this may me think the Mets FO still hasn’t progressed past the days that Al Leiter thought Scott Kazmir’s radio was too loud. I’m going to be very open-minded about Church and Schneider and think they can help this team in ‘08 and do good things, but it was clear from day-one that the vets never liked Milledge. That dislike seemed to trickly up to Randolph and I’m sure the family-friendly Wilpons didn’t deal well with his antics either (yet they allowed him to be drafted despite his checkered past). Omar totally caved on this trade.
2 starters for a bench player who will always be in trouble and doing dumb stuff?
The only reason I was sad to see him go was that I thought he might be needed to get Santana.
Huh? Oh I get it. You’re just fakeposting.
while that might have something to do with it, I still don’t see Milledge as being able to be our starting right fielder, on a team with championship aspirations. He’s shaky in the field and any pitcher with a brain knows all he has to do is throw breaking balls and he’s an easy out at the plate. He has a lot of talent that might very well show it self one day, but as for now, he’s a talented but flawed player, without much baseball instinct either. Flashes, but I think the Mets wanted consistency, in a year they felt they had to go for it.
I agree with you generally, but I’m yet to get a sense that Milledge was traded for baseball reasons and that’s what disappoints me. It just seems as if the FO decided that the ends weren’t justifying the means with Milledge. Yet I never saw anything that was THAT outrageous from him.
Shaky in the field? He made two errors last year. I am amazed that people can throw around the word “consistency” like it means something and simultaneously ignore glaring reality. Milledge was, is, and will continue to be a plus defender.
Milledge is not a plus fielder, though he may develop into one. He often gets late breaks and takes awkward routes to fly balls, relying on his speed to make up for his poor reads. If he works as hard as he says he does, this can be improved, and will need to be, since he looks like a kid who will not be as speedy in 5 years as he is now.
At this point, Ryan Church is equal to Milledge, and I predict that Church’s offensive production will at least equal Milledge’s this year. To get Church AND a catcher who actually IS a plus defender is nothing to complain about.
Milledge’s center field defense in the minors was always above average. It would have only been a matter of regular playing time at either right or left for him to adjust. You can’t play a rookie centerfielder in right and left for a few games and then call him a bad defender when he doesn’t adjust immediately. Even Mike Cameron had trouble adjusting to right field.
you’re missing the point, what are we supposed to do, let him play right field this year while he learns it? while we’re in a pennant race? You cant’ do that. Milledge will be a good defender, but he’s not a good right fielder right now, he’s probably a good CF’er though, but that’s not what we want. I watched pretty much every game Milledge played in, and yes, he isn’t exactly a good well rounded right fielder. He’ll make a great play every once in a while because of his athleticism, but he’s still raw.
now they have that gutterslut church to kick balls around in the corner like green used to. i cant wait for millz to play like chipper does against the mets. screww the former 7&8 hitters for the nats.
Know your place Rook!
Eff Wagner and all of his sanctimonious BS. I’m getting tired of his ‘hating on his own team act.
There is NOTHING Wagner said that indicates he hates his own team….he spoke the truth and sometimes the truth hurts. Stop projecting
What’s the over under on Milledge getting a fastball to the chin in his first plate appearance against the Mets. He just doesn’t get it, does he?
Bad character guys like Milledge rarely get it, ever.
Chasing their talent is not worth it. Give me a guy with less raw talent who fits in with the team any day.
Zero. Why would they do that?
He was an annoying kid who grated a few guys the wrong way. He’s gone. Done.
I predict the kid will develop into a strong player, and will play
for 6 different teams in 10 years.
Because even after being traded for not fitting in and repeatedly breaking the rules of baseball conduct, despite his potential talent, he chooses to talk smack on the Mets in a back-handed way instead of learning from the situation and maturing.
Like another poster said above, he will never get it and will never be a franchise player for any team, even if he puts up monster numbers and becomes a perennial all-star.
I’m glad he is gone, the coked up me-me-me glamour days of the 80s Mets are long gone, and at least those teams delivered for a few years and got along with each other. Milledge was marginal talent at best with a horrible downside.
Why can’t we talk that we’re going to win the division, too?
ummm…because you’re team isn’t all the good.
But, get over this clubhouse nonsense. Talent on the field wins games, so that is how he should be judged.
You can have 25 saints in the clubhouse, but they still won’t win if the talent isn’t there.
So what if some of th evets thought he was too brash. This isn’t basketball, so it’s not like they can not pass him the ball or something.
Fans also can’t have it both ways. If the team was too placid (scared?) last year, then isn’t someone with a cocky attitude a good thing?
IMO the team was too cocky last year. They acted as though they had won the WS in 2006, and fell apart under adversity.
I’m with you, this chemistry stuff is for the most part silly. This may be a fine trade for this year, but Milledge has some real talent and I think we’re going to watch him be a star in Washington.
People who say all you have to do is pitch him a breaking ball outside to get him out give no mind to the fact that young players develop, and learn.
I hated this trade when we made it. I don’t hate it now because we did get two major leaguers for him, but I still dislike it.
It’s beyond silly. It’s downright stupid. Character is impossible to quantify in any meaningful context, especially concerning baseball. Character rhetoric is used by those who are too dumb to understand statistics. They’d prefer to make the story about the uppity black player whose gold chain is too big, or the Latino players and their crazy handshakes, or the Jewish player and what he’s going to do on Yom Kippur, or the redneck who can’t shut up. They want to talk about everything but actual baseball.
this is in the running for post of the year. well said.
I don’t recall ever bringing up his race/ethnicity… Most of us don’t like him because he threw block parties with DJs and champagne on the base paths after hitting singles and rubbed everyone in the clubhouse the wrong way.
And the 86-88 teams at least kicked arse and took names…Milledge was only potential…
… unless you have secret statistics of his bizarro world league phantom performance in another dimension of Hawkings-esque time and space to go by, his MLB performance was mediocre at best and he sucked at the corners… remember him playing the green monster in 06 during the inter-league play?
I agree on both your assessment and feelings. Milledge will be a star. In 2-3 years we will rue the day that we traded him. The trade might make sense for right now but long term… we gave up far more than we got back.
Speaking of stats, where did milledge put up ANY numbers that indicated he is going to be a star?!?!?
Please, provide solid numbers.
I’m guessing that you’re basing your “Milledge star” on your own feelings, aren’t you?????
People forget so quickly was the ‘86 team was like.
Or pretty much any other World Champion team. There are a lot of guys with bad “character” wearing World Series rings.
The 86 team won 108 games. They backed it up … they didn’t sleepwalk.
Wags will drill him. But so does everyone else in the league. He didn’t get hit once a game because everyone likes him.