I'm Sorry Milton: I Meant to Say "Massive Disappointment Relative to Expectations"

Milton fouls off an orange before taking a called third strike.

I'm sorry Milton. I was a bit harsh. I may have had a few too many beers last night and thus, didn't really choose my words carefully. You don't really "suck", per se. As Mr. Wesley points out, you're just doing what you've always done throughout your career.

Really, it's our fault that we put these high expectations on you. Nevermind the huge contract we signed you to in the offseason. Nevermind that you signed with the Chicago Cubs, not the Washington Nationals. You're just going about the business of Milton being Milton...a highly overrated, injury-prone, walk machine with a bad attitude. We knew that coming into the season, and should adjust our expectations accordingly.

That said, relative to your career numbers, you still suck.

So Chip Wesley, an avowed Milton Bradley apologist (second only to Brant Brown...we've tried unsuccessfully to stage numerous interventions) and stat nerd, counters my argument by comparing him to Fontenot in a positive light, as if to say, "b-b-but he's way better than Mike Fontenot!"

Yeah dude, he should be. Me using Fontenot as part of my comparison was to show how terrible he is. There are literally dozens of other crappy journeymen that I could have used in place of Little Mikey Horse N' Phone to demonstrate how putrid Mr. Bradley has been.

So we can agree on this: Milton Bradley is better than Mike Fontenot. Mike Fontenot is also only making $430,000 this year and wasn't even expected to start at the beginning of the year. Milton was the Cubs' big free agent signing. Were the expectations that fans placed on him unfair? Sure they were. But this is Chicago, not Pittsburgh or Kansas City. If he wanted to fly under the radar he should have stayed in San Diego or Oakland.

So really the only stat which Mr. Wesley has to backup the argument that "Milton Bradley doesn't suck" is his OBP. And since his batting average is terrible, basically what that means is that he doesn't suck because he walks a lot. We could have signed a midget for a lot less than $10 million a year to go up there and draw walks. And if we hadn't signed Bradley (and I imagine we wouldn't be any worse off as a team if we hadn't), we would have had the money to go add an impact player at the deadline. Sigh. I blame Big Jim for that one though.

Anyway, I can counter with his deficiencies in the following categories (even compared his own uninspiring career numbers): batting average; an OPS - take that stat nerd! - that is his lowest in 7 years and that is lower than the OPS of Bobby Scales and Sam Fuld; runs scored (way too low given his superhuman ability to get on base!); RBI (b-b-b-but...SHUT UP); the ability to ever get a clutch hit; overall power numbers; on pace to match or break his career high in strikeouts in even fewer AB; a .210 BA versus lefties; and here's a real doozy...a slugging percentage that ranks 14th on the team (!!), trailing Jeff Baker, Ryan Theriot, Reed Johnson and Carlos Zambrano.

Other than that, he's been money. Like I said Milton, I was way too harsh. Go get em champ.