Lastings Milledge and the Danger of Personal Favorites

I'm a bad scout. This is something I've always known about myself, and it's probably time for me to just come out and admit it in a public forum. My name is Nick Nelson, and I don't know anything about transferable talent beyond a fantasy baseball team.



Allow me to explain. When I was about 19, my family moved to Norfolk, Virginia, home of the Tides. While they are now the AAA affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles, back in 2006 they were a New York Mets affiliate at the same level. Playing for them was a hotshot 21-year-old outfielder from Bradenton, Florida by the name of Lastings Milledge. He wasn't much of a power threat, but God had blessed this kid with what seemed like solid plate vision and plus speed. He was all those clichés everyone talks about. Fast, gritty, guts out those ground balls, always gets his uniform dirty. Et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum. I got his prospect card from a vendor at Harbor Park and eagerly awaited his call-up. It came at the end of May. I was right. This kid was going to be a star.

Milledge as a Met. credit: alpineinc (Flickr)

Let's just say I won't be getting any calls from Major League organizations any time soon. Milledge played a total of 115 games for the Mets over two seasons (2006-2007) before being traded to the Washington Nationals in the offseason. There were reports of him being a bad clubhouse guy. Reports of letting the spotlight get to him. In 2007, he dropped a guest verse on a childhood friend's rap song, using lyrics that are unprintable on a family blog. The Mets, wanting to avoid needing a parental advisory for their fandom, issued a statement saying, "We disapprove of the content, language and message of this recording, which does not represent the views of the New York Mets."


This might have been the death knell. He would go on to play in more than 100 games only twice in his career (138 in 2008 with the Nationals, 113 in 2010 with the Pirates), and was out of the league entirely after just two games with the White Sox in 2011. He still plays internationally, manning an outfield spot with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, where he has been since 2012.

Now, of course this doesn't mean he failed. He played a children's game and was paid handsomely to do so. He turned a sport into a career, something that countless boys and girls across the world dream of doing. Even if his Major League career was a brief six seasons, that's still more than most baseball players will ever see. I understand that. I do. But I also know that I thought this kid had star written all over him. I saw him as a late-round sleeper in a couple years, and I expected to see his name on t-shirts in no time. He had an MLB career, but I had expected an All-Star career.

I'm Fern, and all of my favorites are Wilbur. credit: Hanna-Barbera

There are lessons to be learned here. You can't like a guy just because he has a "good look." A few games in the minors aren't enough to think he'll "be somebody." Perhaps the most important, though, is this: baseball is a business, and business should never get personal. As a fan, sometimes you have to divorce yourself from the idea of holding onto all of your favorite guys if you want to win. I'm trying to hone my craft a little more finely, but I've certainly bought a few player t-shirts that have gotten me into a bit of embarrassment. Sorry, Kosuke Fukudome, Junior Lake, and end-of-career Derrek Lee. My lesson to you? Pick favorites, but temper expectations. Picking a favorite player can sometimes feel a bit like trying to make pets of the animals on a farm. They're yours for a while, but there is always a shelf life.