The Chicago White Sox tweeted that they signed Lastings Milledge to a minor-league contract today which includes an invite to spring training. He's looking to replace Andruw Jones as the Sox fourth OFer.
Milledge is a low risk acquisition by Chitown. As tweeted by Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, his deal is for $500K if he makes the 25-man with no incentives.
Pittsburgh picked him up in 2009 along with Joel Hanrahan in exchange for Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett. The former first-round pick put up a slash line of .277/4/34 in 379 at-bats for the Bucs in 2010, and wasn't offered arbitration by the Pirates this year, making him a free agent.
He did do several things right in Pittsburgh, but his erratic OF play, lack of discipline on the bases and at the plate (6% BB rate lifetime) along with his inability to go yard wrote him out of the Buccos' future plans. The Matt Diaz/Garrett Jones duo in right offer more defensive stability and a lot more pop and run production than LM could ever project to muster.
His career line over five seasons and three teams is .269/33/167 in 1,655 plate appearances with a .328 OBP.
2 comments:
As you say, Ron, he did some things right while he was here. That's very much to his credit. Perhaps the better than average power he was thought to have when he came up was sapped by that wrist injury he had a couple seasons ago. Or---more likely in my book---maybe he's just not as good as he was hyped to be when he was in the Mets' system. In any event, he's been busted all the way down to "minor league contract with invite to spring training", which means he'd better show the White Sox a whole lot. Otherwise, he's headed for "Four A"-ville.
Will, I kinda enjoyed watching Lastings scamper around. I think he has the physical tools (I agree with you re: the wrist injury), but he needs to add some discipline to his game; he plays entirely on instinct and adreneline. He's like a puppy that keeps tripping over its paws.
If he can ever tone down and refine his approach, I still think he can be an everyday player instead of platoon or bench fodder.
That, of course, a very big if. And you're right; an overhyped guy has nowhere to go but down.
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