Baseball Musings: Tale of Two Outfielders

December 01, 2007

Tale of Two Outfielders

Lastings Milledge and Melky Cabrera are both seasonal age 23 in 2008. Lastings career MLB line is .257/.326/.414 in 115 games. He's stolen four bases in eight attempts. Cabrera's career MLB line is .275/.340/.388 in 286 games with 25 SB in 35 attempts. Why are Mets fans so upset with Milledge leaving, and why are Yankees fans so willing to let Melky go?

Other teams weren't that interested in Milledge:

Since the Mets' season ended in a historic collapse, Minaya has been seeking a front-line starter. The Mets have had trade talks with Minnesota about Johan Santana, with Oakland about Dan Haren and Joe Blanton, with Florida about Dontrelle Willis and with Baltimore about Erik Bedard.
In each dialogue Minaya offered a package of players and prospects. He said dealing Milledge, who hit .272 with seven home runs in 184 at-bats last year, would have no impact in any of those ongoing discussions.

"Before we made this trade, we checked around with some of the teams and said, 'Will this compromise or hurt the possibility of getting the trades done with the players we're talking about?'" Minaya said. "They said, 'No, you have enough players to do a deal without that player involved.'"

Posted by David Pinto at 08:44 AM | Players | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Melky has played two full seasons in the majors and has never put up a league-average OPS. He's never really been a dominant hitter anywhere. He's starting to look like he is what he is.

Milledge was jerked around and never given much of a chance by the Mets at the major league level. He improved significantly in his second major league tour, and was an excellent hitter at every level of the minors. Fans have the impression that the Mets dislike him for reasons that have nothing to do with his on-field performance, which brings back memories of the catastrophic Scott Kazmir trade.

Posted by: Sylvan Migdal at December 1, 2007 09:54 AM

Two words.

Austin Jackson.

Posted by: Yankee Fan in Chicago at December 1, 2007 11:06 AM

It isn't losing Milledge that hurts. It's what we got back in return and why it seems he was moved in the first place: an apparent dislike of his attitude by our stupid owners.

Posted by: JC at December 1, 2007 02:22 PM

It's true that Milledge hasn't hit in the majors anything like his composite minor-league .305/.385/.479. A corner outfielder who puts up a .864 OPS in the minors is certainly worth a look, though the number doesn't knock your socks off in a high-offense era.

Everybody's saying that D.C.'s new stadium will be a pretty severe pitcher's park due to nefarious wind currents through the open center field. I'll be interested if Milledge can raise his .740 major-league OPS in the park.

My guess is that he'll make some progress with regular play but won't crack .800. I don't expect him to put up eye-popping numbers that will embarrass the Mets brass. Maybe the Mets brass is thinking the same thing.

Posted by: Casey Abell at December 1, 2007 06:31 PM

By the way, Melky Cabrera is a prime beneficiary of New York Overrating Syndrome. Put him in almost any other city and nobody would ever have heard of him. I doubt he would even be starting on many teams.

Posted by: Casey Abell at December 1, 2007 06:49 PM

C'mon Casey, that's a bit of an exaggeration.

Melky had a poor season at the plate last year, and so expections should be downgraded, but going into the season you had a 21 year old cf who had a decent season the year before, had shown discipline at the plate, hit .280, and the hope was, given his age, that he'd develop some pop.

Last year the discipline went out the window and he was consequently much poorer at the plate, but he played a good cf, and showed a cannon arm that led baseball, iirc, in assists, some of them spectacular.

Perhaps his discipline will come back and he'll become a .300/.380 hitter, in which case he could get away with a .400 slugging in cf, and be a perfectly fine cf for most teams in the league, perhaps not the Yanks, whom, I suspect, will take advantage of any interest in him to deal him. Gardner looks like a better 4th outfielder given his speed, and Ajax looks like the cf of the future.

You want to talk overrated btw? Check Boston, where a guy who put up a .740 ops in AAA is considered untouchable -- oh, and he's a year older than Melky but took two years longer to reach the bigs.

Posted by: Yankee Fan in Chicago at December 1, 2007 07:01 PM

Melky Cabrera's minor-league OBP was .347. His major-league OPS is .340. We're talking about over 2,500 plate appearances in the majors and minors combined. He's suddenly going to improve to .380? Um, okay.

To be honest, I don't even know if he can get his SLG to .400, with a .388 career mark in the bigs. Like I said, New York Overrating Syndrome is in full bloom.

In fact, I think Ellsbury is also a bit overrated, but his minor league OPS was 86 points higher than Cabrera's.

Posted by: Casey Abell at December 1, 2007 07:30 PM

Got to get my abbreviations right. Cabrera's major-league OBP, not OPS, is .340.

Posted by: Casey Abell at December 1, 2007 07:32 PM

Casey, while i agree that Melky and possibly even Ellsbury is overrated to some extend by some, if you simply throw around minor league numbers to judge a player's future you'll get bite A LOT.

Miguel Cabrera career minor league line:
286 /.346/ .431

Robinson Cano career minor league line:
278 /.326 /.425

Carlos Beltran
268 /.343 /.436

There are other factors, one is clearly age, and in this case Melky does score pretty well, as he's significantly younger than his competition in just about every level and he faired decently.

I think the fair judgement on Melky is. at worest, he's a pretty good gap filler / 4th OF, and he has enough upside to concievablly improve to a above average player. the later may or may not pan out. but the former still has plenty of value.

Posted by: RollingWave at December 1, 2007 08:40 PM

Kind of funny that you mention Cano and Beltran. They have career major-league OPS numbers of .835 and .850, respectively. They're decent hitters but hardly fantastic in a high-offense era.

They're both good gloves and, of course, they both benefit from the New York media machine.

Posted by: Casey Abell at December 2, 2007 07:36 PM

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