{"id":460,"date":"2011-04-07T15:51:17","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T19:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=460"},"modified":"2013-10-11T10:20:12","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T14:20:12","slug":"hows-that-milledge-trade-looking-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=460","title":{"rendered":"How&#8217;s that Milledge trade looking now?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_995\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/BurnettSean_Stock.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-995\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-995\" title=\"BurnettSean_Stock\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/BurnettSean_Stock-300x197.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"197\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/BurnettSean_Stock-300x197.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/BurnettSean_Stock.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-995\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is the only time i&#8217;ve ever seen Burnett&#8217;s hat on straight. Photo: masnsports.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>6\/30\/2009: The Nationals and Pirates announce a trade:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Nyjer Morgan<\/strong> and <strong>Sean Burnett<\/strong> coming to Washington<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lastings Milledge<\/strong> and <strong>Joel Hanrahan<\/strong> going to Pittsburgh.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To Nationals faithful, the 6\/30\/2009 trade with the Pirates was a serious talking point.\u00a0 It was the first major trade of the <strong>Mike Rizzo<\/strong> era after a contentious spring training that deposed <strong>Jim Bowden<\/strong>.\u00a0 At the time of the trade, Milledge was sitting in AAA Syracuse after <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/millela02.shtml\">having hit .161 in April<\/a>, and Hanrahan was busy <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hanrajo01.shtml\">compiling a 7.71 era<\/a> while blowing as many saves (5) as he had successes as our closer.<\/p>\n<p>We all know what happened next: Morgan came over, slotted into center field and had a career season.\u00a0 And Burnett settled into the bullpen and gave us better-than-loogy performances that continue to today.\u00a0 Milledge hit significantly better for Pittsburgh than had been hitting for us, and suddenly Hanrahan found the plate again and has morphed into a half-way decent late-inning option for the worst team in baseball.<\/p>\n<p>At the time though, pundits far and wide talked about how the Pirates &#8220;fleeced&#8221; the Nats in the deal.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s one take from a <a href=\"http:\/\/content.usatoday.com\/communities\/fantasywindup\/post\/2009\/06\/68493247\/1\">USA Today columnist<\/a>, and here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2009\/06\/pirates-trade-reactions.html\">MLB Trade Rumor&#8217;s round up<\/a> of the typical analysts and their comments like &#8220;easy win for the Pirates.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I remember thinking at the time that baseball pundits seemed to constantly be in love with Lastings Milledge.\u00a0 Nobody could see who he was as a player (immature, egotistical, uncoachable) or see his lack of accomplishments (he has a career 91 OPS+).\u00a0 All they could see was his age and his &#8220;potential.&#8221;\u00a0 (Hmm, reminds me of how Jim Bowden looked at *every* prospect)\u00a0 Meanwhile, Hanrahan was somehow valued higher than Burnett despite the fact that he had a 1.9 whip for 2009 (as a closer!\u00a0 That&#8217;s nearly two baserunners per inning for a guy you&#8217;re entrusting to finish wins) and he was a righty.\u00a0 Burnett was an effective lefty and remains that way today.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway.\u00a0 When Milledge was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.post-gazette.com\/pg\/10337\/1107986-63.stm\">non-tendered<\/a> in December and then subsequently got into <a href=\"http:\/\/hardballtalk.nbcsports.com\/2010\/12\/13\/lastings-milledge-got-into-a-big-fight-while-playing-winter-ball\/\">a massive brawl<\/a> in the Venezuelan Winter League, I didn&#8217;t see any mea culpas from these pundits.\u00a0 The Pirates, probably the worst-run team in baseball and with one of the smallest payrolls, didn&#8217;t want to gamble with a probably salary in the $1M range on Milledge turning it around for 2010.\u00a0 He only lasted four at bats for the White Sox, <a href=\"http:\/\/hardballtalk.nbcsports.com\/2011\/04\/07\/lastings-milledge-designated-for-assignment\/\">who DFA&#8217;d him<\/a> today.\u00a0 He&#8217;s officially worn out his welcome for four teams now (New York, Washington and Pittsburgh and Chicago) inside of 5 seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, Milledge&#8217;s counterpart in the trade Nyjer Morgan was similarly jettissoned at the end of spring training when he lost out his starting center fielder job to <strong>Rick Ankiel<\/strong>.\u00a0 Morgan was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masnsports.com\/the_goessling_game\/2011\/03\/nyjer-morgan-traded-to-brewers.html\">traded to Milwaukee<\/a> for a low-A player (<strong>Cutter Dykstra<\/strong>) that <strong>Keith Law<\/strong> described as no better than an &#8220;organizational player.&#8221;\u00a0 So now the trade looks more like Hanrahan for Burnett and Dykstra.\u00a0 Who is winning now?\u00a0 Burnett has been great for us, and while he&#8217;s not a 95-mph flame throwing back of the bullpen type he has been nothing but consistent, continuing to give better-than-loogy performances and now he seems slated as the closer-for-now.<\/p>\n<p>There was so much vitriol in the blogosphere aimed towards the Nationals front office for this move that I feel like bringing it up.\u00a0 I havn&#8217;t seen too many mea culpas out there from the same people who flamed the Nats at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>6\/30\/2009: The Nationals and Pirates announce a trade: Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett coming to Washington Lastings Milledge and Joel Hanrahan going to Pittsburgh. To Nationals faithful, the 6\/30\/2009 trade with the Pirates was a serious talking point.\u00a0 It was the first major trade of the Mike Rizzo era after a contentious spring training that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1803,507,121,110,491,129,122,179,108],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball","tag-cutter-dykstra","tag-jim-bowden","tag-joel-hanrahan","tag-keith-law","tag-lastings-milledge","tag-mike-rizzo","tag-nyjer-morgan","tag-rick-ankiel","tag-sean-burnett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17818,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions\/17818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}