Today we heard rumors from Buster Olney of ESPN that a possible landing spot for Milton Bradley is with the San Diego Padres.
According to Olney the Cubs will have to eat all but $2 - $3 of the $21 million Bradley is owed over the next two seasons in order to move him.
Olney also said that the Texas Rangers apparently are not interested in having Bradley back at any price. After he hit .321 with 22 home runs in a Rangers uniform in 2008, the fact that they don't want him back says volumes about both the Bradley the player and Bradley the teammate.
This leads to a slew of questions.
- Regardless of price, do the Padres really want a guy that has so clearly demonstrated on team after team that he is NOT a team player?
- With a young Padres team, would Bradley's contribution with the bat be enough to overcome his damage to team chemistry?
- Would Bradley be an upgrade over Blanks or Headley offensively?
Bradley has hit.257/.378/.397/.775 in one of the league's best hitters park this season. His time in SD was much too small of a sample size to draw anything concrete from.
For his career Bradley has hit .277/.371/.450/.821 on 7 teams in 10 years. Good but not great.
Headley has hit .266/.342/.408/.750 in THE hardest park in baseball to hit in. For his career Headley has hit.266/.340/.410/.750.
Blanks has only played in 54 games at the ML level, so the sample size is too small to infer to much, but it is pretty widely held that Blanks is the best hitting prospect in the Padres system and has 30+ home run power. To say he can hit at least .257 with 12 home runs is a pretty easy leap of faith.
Bradley has played more than 100 games in the field only twice in 10 seasons.
Headley has never been on the DL and has played in 145 games this season and 91 in 2008.
Blanks is currently on the DL with plantar fasciitis. How he will fair physically cannot be guessed, but playing in as many games as Bradley is not hard, considering he has only started 885 games in 10 seasons.
So to answer question #3, Bradley would not be much if any upgrade over the players already on the Padres roster.
The Answer to question #3 pretty much answers question #2.
If Bradley would not provide much if any upgrade over the players currently on the team offensively, then his performance would not e enough to overcome his detrimental effect on team chemistry.
And that leads to the logical answer to question #1.
NO. The Padres should not trade for Bradley regardless of the cost.
The Cubs could give him to the Padres for Chadd Hartman and pay 100% of Bradley's salary for the next two seasons and it would still not help the Padres be a better team in 2010 or 2011.
That's my take, now what do you think?
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