Dear Milton Bradley, Do Shut Up

Let's cut to the gravy and check out what Crazy Uncle Milton said after being asked by the Daily Herald if he liked his stay in Chicago.

"Not really," he said. "It's just not a positive environment. I need a stable, healthy, enjoyable environment. There's too many people everywhere in your face with a microphone asking the same questions repeatedly. Everything is just bashing you. You got out there and you play harder than anybody on the field and never get credit for it. It's just negativity.

"And you understand why they haven't won in 100 years here, because it's negative. It's what it is."

"And you undersstand why they haven't won in 100 years here, because it's negative," says the player with a .257 batting average.  Milton Bradley needs to just shut up and play baseball

An idea how the Cubs should handle the situation after the jump.


If it is true that he is taking himself out of the line-up, the Cubs should do good on themselves and put him on the disabled list and call it a day.  Cot's Baseball Contract's states that there is a clause in Bradley's contract that would allow the Cubs to buy out the third and final season of his contract if he ends the season on the disabled list or is not on the active roster on April 15, 2010.

And to think, the Cubs thought they had problems with their last right fielder that wore the No. 21.

Bradley made $5 million this year and is owed $20 million more coming over the next two seasons.  According to his baseball-reference.com salary data sheet, he's made upward of $17 million in his career, so that means that he should be able to take the hit on any fine levied for him not talking to the fans or media.

It's a risk he should be willing to take.

Immensely talented, there is a reason Bradley is playing for his seventh team since coming to the majors.  His ego is too big to handle.  And it is not as if Chicago sports fans have not embraced ego-maniacal troubled stars over the eyars.  The Bulls won three championships with crazy Dennis Rodman, but a lot of the credit for corralling Rodman's outbursts were the leadership of Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson.  The Cubs don't have a Jordan-like leadership figure in the clubhouse, because if they did, they would not be 11 games behind the Cardinals in the standings.

And that is where part of this whole fiasco is an indictment on Lou Piniella as a manager.  Once upon a time, you couldn't mess around in Lou Piniella's clubhouse.  He ran things the Yankee Way.  Love 'em or hate 'em, the Yanks have 26 World Series pennants, including one this century.  They're obviously doing something right.  Hell, Piniella won a World Series title in Cincinnati, managing a robust clubhouse and out managing Tony La Russa in the process.

However, this is much more of an indictment of how bad of a general manager Jim Hendry is.  It has been easy to stockpile on Hendry's poor decision making in 2010.  Some fans will tell you trading Mark DeRosa was the Cubs' biggest mistake, but talk to those guys after the three young pitchers Chicago received from Cleveland all get to the majors.

Other than the foolish acquisition of Kevin Gregg, Hendry's biggest mistake was miscasting Bradley as a middle-of-the-lineup run producer when Bradley has never been able to do that in his entire career.  The contract isn't to heavy in money or to long in length like Alfonso Soriano's deal.

But with the way Bradley has acted in Chicago, it seems like an albatross.