Hamlet's Milledge

Last week, the Mets traded outfielder Lastings Milledge to the Nationals for outfielder Ryan Church and catcher Brian Schneider. Simply put, this is a terrible trade for the Mets. Omar Minaya panicked, and shipped away perhaps the best young asset to be produced by the New York farm system of late, a farm which has quickly grown fallow.

Let's examine the players in the deal. Easiest to analyze is Schneider, because offensively, he is a sure thing: he can't hit. Schneider put up a line of .235/.326/.336 (AVG/OBP/SLG) last year in 408 at bats, and .256/.320/.329 the year before in 410. He was just marginally better than replacement level last year, with a 2.3 VORP. Yes, Schneider's home park was one of the worst for offense in the majors, RFK stadium, but Shea Stadium is not much easier. And far more important than the park effects of Schneider's move is the fact that he'll be 31 next year. Moving to the wrong side of 30 is a dangerous proposition for any hitter, but especially for a catcher--the wear and tear associated with the tools of ignorance normally adds several years to the playing years of backstops, who are often prone to steep drops of the offensive cliff once they reach their thirties.

No one's talking about Schneider's offense, but it's important to emphasize how bad it is, because no amount of defense can make up for the value taken away by his bat. The argument from most about Schneider revolves around the fact that he is superior defensively, and that and his capacity to handle the pitching staff makes him a game-changing force. While Washington's undermanned staff did overperform in 2007, there's simply no evidence to say that Schneider had anything to do with that, or even that catchers are able to impact games with their game-calling ability. As far as his defense goes, there's also reason to believe he's slipping. Whereas the defensive metrics developed by Baseball Prospectus's Clay Davenport indicate that he was indeed an elite defensive backstop from 2003-2005, over the last two years combined he has saved only five runs more than the average catcher. Those five runs are worth about a half win--certainly not nearly enough to overcome his offensive ineptitude. Schneider should be a backup for Ramon Castro on the 2008 Mets, but given Castro's chronic inability to stay healthy, it's clear that he'll be pressed into more time than will be conducive to the Mets' chances at capturing the NL East.

Church is a much more useful offensive player. He has career averages of .271/.348/.462 in about 1000 at bats, almost identical to his line from last year in 470 at bats. Church is also a solid outfielder, and still several years from free agency, which makes him a valuable commodity. However, he isn't young--he'll be 29 next season--and he's had trouble staying healthy throughout his short career.

Furthermore, Milledge will be just 23 next year, and he's basically already the player that Church is, putting up a line of .272/.341/.446 last year in 184 major league at bats. Those numbers were a great improvement upon his rookie year of 2006, when he hit .241/.310/.380. Milledge is a tremendous athlete with a great deal of upside--his PECOTA-forecast top-20 comparables list includes Grady Sizemore, Carlos Beltran, Gary Sheffield, Vernon Wells, and Andruw Jones. Church is not getting any better--his VORP is projected by PECOTA to decline each year going forward--whereas Milledge is on the upswing, with the chance to be an impact outfielder for years during his prime.

Of course, the issue with Milledge is his supposed attitude problem--the prevailing opinion in the Mets clubhouse and front office was that the youngster is too arrogant. This was evidenced by Milledge high-fiving fans after hitting his first major league home run two years ago, and several other occasions in his brief time in the bigs when opposing teams have taken exception to his celebratory actions. But really, who cares if Milledge is arrogant? It has absolutely no relation to his value as a baseball player. The connection between team chemistry and winning is one that has been fabricated by the press. Short of legal issues relating to Milledge's behavior, the only factors that should have influenced Omar Minaya's decision to trade the young outfielder are performance-related. Sadly for Mets fans, however, this appears to not have been the case.

Minaya traded Milledge at a point when his value was extremely low. If the team was set on trading him, why not wait until the middle of next season, and hope that his play raised the interest back up to the point where the Mets could get equal value. Instead, Minaya traded him for a non-hitting catcher--with the team already having two capable backstops in Castro and Johnny Estrada--and an older, injury-prone version of Milledge without any of the upside.

So far, it's shaping up to be a long winter for Mets fans.