What to do about Milton Bradley?

[JosephC]

The dude is having depression or something... and he is the last power hitter we have in our lineup really. If you are the GM, what do you do? Do you sell some of the farm and go for a championship? Do you call it a season with this offense?


What I would think about doing is trading Cliff Lee for a serious hot bat. We have Vargas, Fister and Felix who all have been performing extremely well.

[Igoe4Mariners]

Yeah, the guy definately has issues. I think we give him a few days off and see how he responds. If he comes back stroking, then our offense might have enough to contend.

If not, I agree we need to make a trade for a bat. The question is how. It will be tough to give away Lee while we are in the middle of a division race. I see something more along the lines of trying to package Vargas and some other minor leaguers for a middle of the order bat. Lee has just proven himself to much throughout his career to give him away so quickly.

I can see where you are going with this though. It will be interesting to see what happens.

[clarknova]

I agree that we should try to package pitching for a bat. The real question, for me, is at this point in the year, what and for who? What I mean is, if we're going to trade Lee, which I would not be adverse to given the right deal- what should we expect? I think If we trade Lee, even as a rental, we need a reliable bat. We'd obviously be dealing with a (realistically) contending team, so that narrows the focus a bit. The Orioles, for instance, are not going to deal for a guy they can't sign and won't put them into contention (three Cliff Lees wouldn't). Not that I'm suggesting Lee for Luke Scott or anything stupid like that, but really, who could we look at? Pena? He hasn't looked that great in this series honestly. Crawford?

If we're packaging another starter (like Vargas or Fister), I'd be looking for a younger player, but then you have to worry about consistency. Willingham can be a monster, but his D is suspect and he strikes out a TON.

What I think might be another idea would be to deal with someone like Houston, for someone like Berkman? They'd have to eat some serious contract, and he's a risk, but I'm just throwing ideas out here.