Milton Bradley 2011 - the Bad, the Ugly
=== The Bad ===
Unthinkable that Bradley should ever post his 160-170 OPS+ seasons again.
Why? It's not only his stats that are down, but also his underlying skills. "It's one thing to be a clubhouse cancer when your skills are intact," writes Shandler. "It's another when your ... AVG ... xAVG ... OBP ... SLG ... BB% ... CT% (K%) ... and EYE are all in steep decline."
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Still: Bill Clinton's influence is down. Down compared to whose? Compared to mine? :- )
Bradley started from a 168 OPS+ and he'll be down. Fine. Keep it in perspective. 120, 130 OPS+ seasons may (probably will) ensue, if and when he ever has any fun playing ball again.
This has obviously been Jack Zduriencik's position on Milton Bradley all along: nurture him, hope you can get him right, because if you can, the man can still hit.
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=== The Ugly ===
You want ugly? Milton Bradley was shed for a 2/$28 (or whatever) pitching albatross after 2009 .... and Bradley's value is far less right now than it was then. If the captain of the Exxon Valdez had a much worse season the following year, what would you suppose happened... and would anybody want to schedule him some playing time at the helm of a ship...
If Bradley's state-of-mind couldn't be repaired with the fresh start and friendly crew he absorbed at the start of 2010, how does it get repaired now? Is Eric Wedge going to repair it?
Shandler's right again: "Upside? Yes. A good bet for recovery? No."
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=== Dr's Prognosis ===
The silver lining is, it doesn't cost the Mariners much to try.
They bring him to ST in March, and if he can find some joy in baseball, great: maybe they've got a .370 OBP left fielder with power. Or: if Bradley sinks without a bubble, well... it sounds terrible, but they move on.
Baseball history is full of players who battled personal demons: some made spectacular comebacks; others (literally) died. Joey Votto left the Reds in 2009, for longer than Milton Bradley left the Mariners (voluntarily) in 2010. Votto came back the next year and won the MVP.
Nobody would bet on Bradley in 2011 if they didn't have to. That's a given. But neither is he a writeoff, not if you're committed to his salary. All he needs is his head right.
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Right now, the career arc of Bradley's mental health doesn't look good for March. But don't kid yourself that you know where his head will be next week, much less next month.
How do you know whether he'll go see a hypnotist he connects with? How do you know whether he'll surf across a Buddhist blog and become a student of the Dalai Lama? How does anybody know he won't just go, "Ah, fuhgeddaboudit" and decide, like Bobby Fischer once did, that the best therapy in the world is the sport he excels at?
It is the psychological arc, not the physical arc, that the Mariners are watching. That is the one that will drive Bradley's 2011 results.
Best wishes to him,
Jeff