"Goodbye", For Now, To Lastings Milledge

By Joe Janish
Posted Thursday, April 12, 2007

Mike Pelfrey is scheduled to join the Mets on Friday the 13th, which most likely will turn out to be an unlucky day for Lastings Milledge.

Milledge is the odd man out on the 25-man roster once Pelfrey assumes the fifth starter spot, so he will probably be reporting to AAA New Orleans. Two weeks ago, Mets fans saw this day as preposterous, based on Milledge’s spring batting average, which was double the output of the old, slow, and terrible Shawn Green. Writers, bloggers, pundits, fans – in fact nearly everyone following the Mets was asking: How can the Mets keep Green on the roster with Lastings ready to burst on the scene? Are they crazy? Green is finished! His bat is slow! His defense is horrendous! He’ll never hit the ball out of the infield!

Of course, spring training numbers mean nothing. The Opening Day bell rang, and the real Shawn Green showed up in the orange and blue. Impatient Mets fans are finally seeing the slender rightfielder in the midst of one of his hot streaks. He has been and remains a streak hitter; he’ll go a week without touching the ball, then go a week looking like an All-Star. Not long ago, he strung together enough hot streaks to be considered one of the most feared hitters in the NL.

Granted, Shawn Green will never hit 49 home runs again, and it’s doubtful he’ll carry a team on his back the way has in the past in other cities. However, he will give the Mets at least a .280 average, somewhere between 15-25 homers, and acceptable, if unspectacular defense. He’ll also take a lot of pitches, get into deep counts, serve as a good situational hitter, and run the bases with intelligence and average speed. Finally, he’ll play hard and exhibit a team-first attitude. In short, Shawn Green will fill the #7 hole in the lineup quite well, and will be an able contributor to the Mets’ 2007 postseason hopes.

Still, there are many who want to see Lastings Milledge cutting his teeth at the Major League level in 2007, rather than languishing in the minors for another year. The arguments include: He’ll hit better than Shawn Green, he’s faster and therefore more valuable on the basepaths, he’s a better fielder, he’s ready now and he’s the future, so why keep him down?

Any of the above might be good arguments if we were still in Port St. Lucie. In the small sample that was spring training, Milledge did appear to fulfill all of those points. However, if you take away March, none of the above are valid points.

First of all, Milledge has not shown enough – yet – to indicate that he’ll hit significantly better than what we expect from Green. Even during the downside of his career, Green should be able to put up the numbers mentioned earlier – about .280, 15-25 homers, somewhere around a .350 OBP. This assumption is based on Green’s career numbers and the last three years in particular. Though his power has diminished, Green has still maintained his ability to put the bat on the ball and get on base – and there’s no reason to believe his productivity will drop significantly from what he’s done in recent years. He can be counted on to be an above-average 7th hitter, and if he really did fix the glitch in his swing, he may well be the best #7 in the National League.

Milledge, on the other hand, is a crapshoot right now and hasn't had a chance to prove that he can hit at the major league level. At age 22, Lastings shows raw ability, but has not yet been able to translate that into on-the-field performance.

Rushed to the big leagues last year, Milledge batted .241 with 4 homeruns, 22 RBI, 12 walks, and 39 strikeouts in 166 at-bats. It’s a small sample, to be sure, but it’s hardly overwhelming. A larger sample comes from his AAA numbers: .277 average, 7 homers, 36 RBI, 43 walks, 67 strikeouts. Again, not exactly "outstanding". Nice numbers for a 21-year-old in AAA, but nothing to get particularly excited about. Certainly nothing in those numbers to indicate that he’s ready to take MLB by storm.

His fast track to the bigs is part of Milledge’s need to stay down for another year of seasoning. In the minors, Milledge has not had the opportunity to truly dominate at any level for a significant length of time. Rarely – if ever – do you see a player his age (22) earn an everyday MLB job without dominating minor league pitching. In recent memory, you can point to Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, David Wright, Albert Pujols, Hank Blalock, Joe Mauer, and Rocco Baldelli as players who won an everyday job at age 22 or younger. All of those players, however, showed previous indications of immediate success. Wright batted a hair under .300 at both the AAA and MLB level when he was 21; Mauer mashed at over .300 at every minor league stop, then hit .305 in his MLB cup of coffee at the age of 21; Blalock batted .307 in AAA as a 21-year-old, one year after hitting .380; Cabera hit .365 as a 20-year-old in AA, performed admirably later that year in the bigs and postseason, and hit .294 in MLB the next year. Rocco Baldelli forced himself onto a very bad Tampa Bay team as a 21-year-old after hitting .333, .371, and .292 at three minor league stops the year before. Pujols was a manchild and freak of nature that cannot be used as comparison in this situation.

Even the player Milledge is most compared to — Gary Sheffield — had proven his point by demolishing AAA pitching at a .344 clip when he was only 19. Comparatively, Milledge has not shown remarkable numbers in the high minors, other than a .337 average with 4 homeruns in 48 AA games. Had he hit at that clip over a full season in AA, or had built on that with a similarly strong season in AAA last year, he might merit consideration for the Mets rightfield job. As it stands right now, however, he needs to prove that he can hit AAA pitching over at least 70-80 games. Why allow Milledge to take his lumps at the ML level when the Mets already have a very capable veteran in place? If the Mets had someone like Timo Perez in a corner outfield spot, or didn’t have Endy Chavez as their fourth OF, it might be a different story.

Still, people point to Milledge’s speed and fielding as assets, and reason that these skills make him much more valuable than Shawn Green. Again, the raw skills are evident, but have yet to translate. For example, though he stole 13 bases in AAA last year, he was caught stealing 10 times; a 56% success rate is not an acceptable rate at any level, and is indicative of Milledge’s need to learn to harness his speed. There’s no question he can run faster than either of the Mets’ starting corner outfielders, but there’s a big question as to whether he’ll run the bases as intelligently as Green or Moises Alou. The stolen base percentage aside, Milledge made several glaring baserunning mistakes during his Major League stint last year. Because good baserunning “instincts” come from experience, it’s not like Lastings will wake up one day and be a smart runner – he needs to play, regularly.

Similarly, Milledge has the potential to be a fabulous defensive outfielder – but he’s nowhere near there yet. We can point to his nightmare in Fenway last year as an example, or ignore it completely, and it’s still apparent that Milledge needs more innings in the field. Like baserunning, fielding is not something you learn overnight. Using his speed, he might get to more balls than Green or Alou – but how many will he overrun? How many fly balls will he misjudge? How many times will he overthrow the cutoff man, or throw to the wrong base? How often will he take a poor route to a ball in the gap, or misplay a ball rebounding off a wall? Do the Mets want – or need – to endure Milledge’s misplays when they have veterans who won’t usually make those mistakes? Wouldn’t it make more sense to allow Milledge the time to learn in the minors, where the pressure is not as great and the mistakes not nearly as magnified?

As it stands right now, Shawn Green is the Mets’ starting right fielder. He is batting near .400 at the moment, and showing enough skills for people to forget the idea that he’s finished – at least, for now. Green will cool off, of course, but what he’s showed in the first week of the season has bought him at least two months of regular playing time. With that in mind, Lastings Milledge will not have the opportunity to develop any of his skills sitting on the bench, occasionally starting an afternoon game against a lefty or entering games as a defensive replacement in the late innings. Rather, he needs to be playing everyday, in AAA, for two reasons: first, to hone his raw abilities, and second, to have the chance to mash AAA pitching, and make good on his spring quote “I have nothing to prove in the minors.” This way, if and when one of the Mets’ corner outfielders falters or becomes injured, he’ll be ready to come up and contribute.

Oh, there’s another reason Milledge needs to go down, and go down now. The Mets other wunderkind, Carlos Gomez, is currently playing every day in New Orleans, and batting over .400 as their third-place hitter. If he keeps up that kind of production, he’ll leapfrog over Milledge on the depth chart before you can say “Danny Haren”. Sitting on the Mets’ bench doesn’t help Lastings’ cause – he needs to start playing and show the Mets he’s still their top prospect. Or not.