Title Does Dictate Behavior
Posted by Bill Baer on Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Forgetting the number of outs in the inning: when cute-’n-cuddly Larry Walker does it, it’s hilarious. When the erratic Milton Bradley does it, it’s a disgrace. We’ve assigned Milty a reputation and stigmatized him for it, so that nothing he does will ever live up to our standards.
If you hadn’t heard, Bradley did not have a great day yesterday, despite knocking in a pair of runs for the Cubs:
He lost Jason Kubel’s pop-up in the sun for a single, couldn’t catch Michael Cuddyer’s RBI bloop double, made a baserunning blunder and, most egregiously, flipped the ball into the stands after catching Mauer’s one-out sac fly.
Fans even booed Bradley when he was robbed of a hit on a diving catch by left fielder Delmon Young.
He’s also been part of some interesting events in previous seasons, such as when he tore his ACL arguing with an umpire, or that time he hunted down a Royals broadcaster.
Bradley has had, and now has added to a bad reputation — mostly his doing. All of his faults are magnified. It really isn’t a big deal that he forgot the number of outs in the inning. It happens. Baseball players make mistakes. Heck, the game is about who can make the least mistakes. But it’s Milton Bradley, so we can draw all kinds of crazy psychoanalytical conclusions and pretend like he is guilty of committing several federal crimes.
The treatment of Bradley by the media, Cubs fans, and baseball fans in general just disproves what Randal said in the movie Clerks: title does dictate behavior. Or, more specifically, Milton’s reputation dictates the perception of his behavior. Bradley can do no right at this point; he is irreparable. Right now, he’s that temperamental outfielder for the Cubs with a .714 OPS. Last year, he was that temperamental DH for the Rangers with a .999 OPS. It didn’t matter how well he performed on the field.
This is the storyline that we as fans want, though. We would much rather see two teams of nine Milton Bradleys square off than two teams of David Ecksteins. Remember, besides the whole hunting-down-the-broadcaster thing, everything Bradley has done has been done before. Others have flipped the ball to the fans with less than three outs; others have engaged in heated arguments with umpires; others have dropped easy fly balls. None of them, however, did it with the flair of our temperamental Cubs outfielder.
When we talk about Milton Bradley as a great athlete but a poor person, let’s not forget that this is the person we as fans are partially responsible for creating. We chastise Bradley for his antics but would not know what to do with ourselves if easy-to-hate entertainers like him disappeared. Let’s quit the double-talk and just admit that, when he’s healthy, Bradley is one of the most entertaining baseball players in the game today. And if he could go ahead and pull a few more gaffes, that would be terrific.
Ok, I’m one of those jerks who has, “assigned Milty a reputation and stigmatized him for it”. Watched him carefully in Dallas last year and came to the conclusion he’s just one great big man-boy! “It’s never my fault” kindaguy! Ok, baseball is full of them, so, what makes Milty different. I’ll try to take some of the emotion out of it.
Going into the ‘09 season, Bradley had a lifetime average of 318 AB’s (2867/9) per year, with a standard deviation of 155. Considering he was hired by the Cubs for his offensive abilities, I’m going to ignore defensive contribution. With so few games played defensively last year in Texas (less than two dozen in the OF), that’s pretty easy to do! So, $10M/per year, divided by 318 AB’s equals $31,391 per at-bat. Couple that with his lifetime hitting average of .280, that equals $112,113 for each hit! I chose to ignore OPS for this exercise, as well as, the fact he’s 30 and all performance stats will begin to decline. Now, let’s have some fun and fully load his ten-meeeelllyon dollars into his home run output. That will cost the Cubs around $873,786 for each home run, when you add up his 9 years, 103 total home runs, thus averaging 11.44 home runs per year (standard deviation = 6.95).
This year his AB run rate is only slightly ahead of his 318 annual AB average. Currently, his batting average is .226, w/ 5 home runs. I’m not going to turn these 2 1/2 month stats into ‘09 projections, nor will I apply a dollar value to them. All of us know that real time $$ value is exponentially shoddier. However, I will conclude that MB deserves some of the crap he’s getting from fans. IMHO, this was a really really bad deal for the Cubs and a really really good deal for that great big man-boy. There’s just no bounce-to-the-buck when you try to generate any value to the equation! Ok, I’m done!
ChopperJim
But whose fault is the contract? Certainly not Milton’s — he didn’t hold a gun up to Jim Hendry’s head and demand it. The Cubs specifically sought Bradley when they could have gone after Raul Ibanez, Pat Burrell, or Adam Dunn.
That Bradley has played poorly and not lived up to his contract is a mistake to be blamed on the Cubs front office for offering so much money to an injury prone cantankerous player.
According to FanGraphs, in his nine previous seasons, Bradley had been worth $75.6 million, averaging out to about $8.4 million per season. He was given two years, $20 million from the Cubs, so they slightly overpaid for someone coming off of a career offensive year as a DH in a hitter-friendly ballpark.
Bill, I agree, with almost everything…
You’re right, it’s not Milty’s fault. In fact, I’m green with envy – wish I was in his shoes. Additionally, I’m in total agreement with the other three options. If a casual fan like myself can look up a general history of AB’s over the last 5 years or so (AD = 400+, RI = 600ish, Burrell = 500+), I remain puzzled why they paid Milty sooooooo much.
That’s where we don’t agree; I think $10M per year (and his first multi-year contract) is way too much for Milty based on his previous performance. As stated; it’s a really bad deal for the Cubs, a really good deal for Milty. The low batting average, the low number of AB’s, the antics and the poor value were all predictable by any casual fan. The Cubby’s brass has to get smarter. I think we agree on that too.
I agree with Bill’s post, and the “bad guy” syndrome is maddening. I had the same reaction when Bradley had his incident in LA a few years ago, where he was dumping baseballs onto the field. If someone else had done that, it would have been “fiery”, and “shows he cares”. Not so, Milton… it just reinforces the typical fan’s belief that he’s and idiot, or nuts, or both.
Heck, I found myself almost defending Barry Bonds to my friends, and this was before the steroid issue came to the fore… back when he was just ripped for being a “surly jerk”. Well, gosh, he doesn’t interact well with reporters? Oh no! He still clearly has a love for the game of baseball, seemed to give 100%, was an elite talent, and respects the history of the game, having been a part of it with Mays and his dad, and talking about it a lot.
Another thing I love is how “(group X) always plays good, fundamental, baseball.” I posted about that on Unfiltered a couple weeks ago. It’s nonsense. Worse, a reputation can impact a player’s livelihood in so many ways, not the least of which is being more likely to get flagged for an error.
The tail does wag the dog, sadly.
Anyway, $10mil is chump change if Bradley hits, and as radio personality Dan Bernstein here in Chicago is fond of saying, “October doesn’t care”…. in this case, it doesn’t care how many regular-season games he plays. If he’s ready to suit up for the playoffs, it will be money well spent, ditto with Harden. Those were two high-risk players Hendry committed to, but the potential rewards are enormous.
Also, unlike other Cubs, Bradley draws walks… probably better to use PA in any analysis of his “availability” stats.
It’s the “Good Guy/Bad Guy” syndrome. Certain guys are designated as “Good Guys” and certain designated as “Bad Guys”. No matter what happens, they can’t seem to shake that label.
Think of how differently in the off-season Milton Bradley would have been treated after a DUI incident compared to how relatively unscathed Joba Chamberlain went. Somehow when you are a “good guy”, a relatively indefensible action like drunk driving can be defended. Bradley would have been destroyed.
I met Bradley and interviewed him last year. He was an amazingly gracious and respectful guy with the media that day. It was also the day he was selected to the All-Stars. That being said, Bradley was very emotional and nothing but positives came out of the clubhouse about Bradley from the players. I can’t say the same about the group of media waiting for Bradley to finish up his shower.
I wonder how K-Rod “hunting down” another player will be treated after the incident today. It seems like K-Rod is one of the “good guys” so he’ll probably get a pass for basically doing the same thing Milton Bradley did a year ago.
It’s doubtful Bradley can do anything to get off the “bad guy” list… very few do. (Randy Moss maybe?) But the “good guy” list is almost good for a lifetime… look how long it took Roger Clemens to fall to the “bad guy” list.
I feel obligated to note also that Bradley’s boneheaded move of flipping the ball into the stands had ZERO IMPACT on the game. The run was scoring from 3rd, the batter moved to 3rd base on the “overthrow” (into the bleachers), and was stranded there.