We’ve all been assuming that Milton Bradley is going to be traded in the offseason, but what if he’s not? What if no one wants him or what if the Cubs decide that they don’t want to or can’t afford to eat a large chunk of his contract? What then?
Carrie Muskat from MLB.com broached this subject with Jim Hendry. When she asked about Milton Bradley’s future, Henry responded:
“You deal with the cards you have now,” Hendry said. “Right now, he’s still a member of the Cubs. It’ll be a long process trying to get a roster we think is better, obviously, than what we did in the standings this year. Until people come or go, you have to play the cards you have now.”
Hendry was expected to try to move Bradley, who is owed $21 million on his contract. Manager Lou Piniella has indicated he’d like another RBI producer as well as some speed. Hendry didn’t tip his hand.
“We’ll just see how it goes,” Hendry said. “Maybe we make trades more than [sign] free agents. First and foremost, we’re not here to be critical of our own guys, but we all know we have four, five guys who are used to having better years than they had. The main requirement would be for those guys to be themselves, and I think they’d be the first to admit that.”
Okay, he didn’t exactly say that Bradley was staying put and would be a member of the 2010 Cubs. Maybe he was just being politically correct. Whatever the case, the thought of Bradley still being on the Cubs next year makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth.
Honestly, I don’t see any way that Bradley is with the team next year. He proved in 2009 what a disruption he can be in the clubhouse, so even if you think that his offensive production will rebound next year, you still have to deal with his personality. It’s worth it to the Cubs to just make him go away.
Some team somewhere will look at Bradley and think they can control his behavior while providing him with the type of environment he needs to succeed. I have my doubts that that place exists, but if some team thinks they can do it, more power to them. I’m sure Jim Hendry would love to let them give it a try.
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I wish Dave Kaplan would make up his mind. In a post on his blog, “Kap’s Corner,” dated September 27, 2009, Kap said:
The Biggest Problems the 2009 Chicago Cubs Had to Overcome were:
1) Milton Bradley
2) Aramis Ramirez’ shoulder injury that forced him to miss over 2 months
3) DL stints of Ted Lilly and Ryan Dempster
Then on October 4, 2009 (just one week later), Kap said:
First, as much as the signing of Milton Bradley was a bad idea it was not the reason the 2009 Cubs finished where they did. Repeat after me, Milton Bradley was not the reason this team is not in the playoffs.
Wait a minute. One day Kap says that Milton Bradley was the number one problem the Cubs had to deal with in 2009 and one week later he says that Bradley was not the reason the Cubs finished where they did. Kap, don’t you read your own stuff?
On October 4, he then goes on to say:
Bradley was certainly a problem in the clubhouse and his productivity was not great but there were several other problems that helped derail the season. The fact that the entire starting outfield combined for 43 HR’s and 99 RBI’s was certainly one reason that the run production was down dramatically from 2008. Add in the fact that Geovany Soto had a brutal year and that Aramis Ramirez only played in 82 games and you have two more huge components of the 2008 offense that did not perform at the same level.
The offensive production of the outfield was not even mentioned as a problem on September 27, but on October 4 it was the main problem. On September 27, Kap didn’t even mention Geovany Soto, but on October 4, his offensive struggles were listed as among the Cubs biggest problems. And where is Alfonso Soriano in all of this? He was one of the main problems – both his offense and his injury – for the 2009 Cubs, but he was never merntioned in either article.
I can’t claim to know a lot about Dave Kaplan or his writing. I haven’t followed his blog for very long and I don’t recall ever watching him on Chicago Tribune Live! or listening to him on WGN radio. But from what little I do know about him, he doesn’t seem like a very deep thinker. He tends to be reactionary and he jumps on the closest, loudest bandwagon. When everyone was piling on Milton Bradley because of his suspension, Kap piled on Bradley too. When things calmed down, Kap took the time to give the issue a little more consideration. I could be wrong, but Kap seems to just go in the direction the wind is blowing.
I’ll be the first to admit I could be wrong about Kaplan. I haven’t been following him very long, so I am dealing from a rather small sample size. What I do know is that he listed Milton Bradley as the Cubs number one problem one week, and the next week he said Bradley was not the Cubs biggest problem. It seems to me that a professional (or even just a guy writing a blog) should have more consistentcy than that.
