Why I'm joining the "DITCH BRADLEY" brigade - this organization lacks an alpha male.

That’s exactly why Bradley wasn’t a good fit for the Cubs. (He hasn’t really been a good fit anywhere he’s played, but that’s another story.) I think the Cubs thought that Milton’s aggressive (alpha male, as you put it) attitude would be something that players could rally around. But the reality is, baseball players don’t really react well to people like that. Most good teams have leaders that are, in general, quieter (think of guys like Eric Karros and Mark DeRosa, player-leaders of recent Cub teams) and don’t lead by screaming and yelling.

I disagree, though, that the Cubs needed to change their entire management structure for one player, and at that a player who wasn’t going to, by himself, make the difference in winning or losing.

There’s fault here on both sides: the Cubs for not recognizing that they couldn’t handle Bradley, and Bradley for wanting so badly to come to a place where he was doomed to fail.

… Bradley himself made a comment earlier this year that indicated he had made the wrong choice. Paraphrasing (because I can’t find the quote now), he said something like “I don’t like all the attention, I just want to do my job and go home.”

That being the case, why would you choose to play major league baseball for probably the third-highest-profile team in the major leagues (behind the Yankees or Red Sox)? Why would you want to play for a team that is on national cable TV and has a huge national fanbase? It seems Bradley didn’t do his homework very well.

I think this season would have turned differently if we had a player like DeRosa. A player leader that could be a front man in the clubhouse. You are so right about having Bradley not being in the spotlight, that is where all the warts get shown and he doesn’t deal well with the spotlight.

And Lou could have done way more to help this situation. He has been absent when it came to being the face of this team.

Agree completely and recommended.

make a very reasoned argument and I do agree all blame and boos should land with the front office.

Whether it’s Lou’s checking out or a lack of clubhouse leaders to protect Bradley from the media and himself, the organization is not prepared to support controversial individuals or slumping superstars.

rec’d

Good job Andrew.

Quiet day at the office, huh?

and caused me to think about it some, but ultimately, I am not persuaded by the argument that it’s the Cubs that are responsible for Bradley’s failure.

First of all, I totally agree with Al that it is not the responsibility for an entire organization to remake itself to fit the unique and selfish needs of a particular player.

Note that the examples given, the Patriots, Bulls and Lakers, the organization managed to convince the player to conform to the team’s needs, as opposed to vice versa. Now, I am the first to admit that this required some special handling and approach, but ultimately the player was the one that changed his M.O., not the team. For example, Moss has been close to a model citizen in New England, and everyone raves about what a model teammate he has been.

Secondly, and I think this is a significant difference, even when Moss, Rodman, Dillon, et al were having their problems, I don’t recall them throwing the team’s fans under the bus and blaming them for their problems. They may have complained about teammates, coaches, management, etc., but I don’t recall them saying their problems were because the fans abused them. This raises the bar to a different level that an organization can’t fix.

Also note, that the Patriots do an amazing job of keeping issues in house and out of the media. I’m not sure that is possible with Bradley, although the Cubs obviously have tried.

your argument by focusing on the fact the Bradley is not as outrageous as Rodman. Rodman’s antics terminated his career early.

As far as Kobe is concerned, the incident you refer to was, to date, the only really egregious incident he has had in his career, outside of some minor bickering with Shaq and Jackson. And instead of throwing gasoline on the fire, he owned up to it, apologized to the team, the organization and the fans. Do you really think Bradley would handle a similar incident the same way? And most importantly, he has not repeated that mistake.

Bradley has a long list of on field and off field incidents that follow him around. And each and every time, he refuses to admit culpability and blames everyone else for his transgressions.

And yes, Kobe gets some extra slack because he is a true superstar, possibly the best player of his generation. He has four championship rings and is a true leader, both by example and in the locker room. And, he is adored in L.A.

Bradley has NONE of those things going for him and his transgressions are far more numerous.

I don’t think even the Zen master could help Bradley and I’m confident that if Jackson had a Bradley type character on his team he would ultimately decide he was dispensable. As opposed to Kobe, or even Rodman, whose talents were absolutely essential to the team’s success. Bradley isn’t essential, or even desirable, most of the time.

I need oot get on my game.

were almost a prohibitive favorite to make the playoffs this year. Obviously won’t come close. People look for scapegoats to explain the failure. Bradley was an easy target. It was his first year here and had no success to draw upon. The fans loved DeRosa and Hendry basically traded DeRosa for Bradley. At this date DeRosa has a .715 OPS. Bradley is at .775.

Let’s admit that from top to bottom, most of our team had poor years. Would there be a call to run Bradley out of town if the team was going to the playoffs this year? Bradley isn’t a likeable player it seems. But what exactly has he actually done to make us a non-contender? Has his season done more to turn this into a bad season than Soriano or Fukudome or Soto or Zambrano or Gregg? In truth, he is the easy sacrificial lamb. But this team has many more problems to address than a guy who isn’t well liked. Piniella has a issue with Bradley and is doing everything possible to sabotage him. He and Sullivan seem to think Bradley’s departure will make things different. Maybe it will, but the team won’t immediately revert to a playoff team. Perhaps if Lou was the Piniella of old he might have helped avoid the slide this year.

…and reasonable takes on the Milton situation. And I’m a little surprised none of the more stats-minded folks haven’t chimed in to mount a forceful defense. After being stubbornly pro-Milton for just about all of the season, I guess I’d describe myself as “Milton neutral” at the moment.

I’m still hesitant to out and out advocate trading him without some clear indication that the Cubs could replace his production in the lineup. I’m also wondering whether the Cubs fanbase and media might have needed this rocky season to adjust to Bradley, just as Milton himself may have needed a year to adjust to Chicago (just as Kosuke did last year).

But maybe there is a way to finesse some moves that would put Milton in a situation more conducive to his personality (is there one?) without affecting the Cubs too too adversely. I’ll be interested in the ideas that come up once this season is put to bed once and for all.

And I am not saying that because you linked to one of my comments (although I like it!).

You have succeeded in making me think of the Milton Bradley issue in terms of the whole organization, including the fans, and you are right, there is more to be weighed here. Every organization has some high-maintenance members, and maybe we have gone over our limit. If the Cubs organization is a circus, maybe we are trying to stuff one too many clowns into the clown car.

Trying to make a list of the low-maintenance guys does give a good sanity check to this hypothesis. Lee, Ramirez, Hill, Lilly, Dempster, Wells, Marshall, Grabow…uh, are there more? Everyone else is either under-performing, injured, a rookie, or in some way needs special attention. And I don’t see any well-spoken, future-manager types in that low-maintenance list that could actually help shoulder the leadership load.

You know, I have been defending Lou all year, but maybe this is too much for him to handle anymore. I am not ready to declare that we must trade MB just yet (I still want full value from him), but you have convinced me that we need to do either one or the other — make this club lower maintenance or get someone who can handle the load.

but this season was lost due to many factors.

Honestly, I wasn’t for getting MB, the Cubs were looking for a left handed RBI guy, so from the get-go, they failed in that regard. MB is a decent right fielder and a guy that gets on base and hits better from the right side. If they REALLY wanted to get what they said they wanted, they would have gotten Dunn or ABreu or whomever.

Because of other personnel maneuvers, they were thin at 3B and LF. Over the last few years, we have seen A Ram and Sori miss a fair amount of games due to injury. Having Aramis go down for as long as he did was a major loss for many reasons that we have discussed ad nauseum.

It’s obvious that Theriot cannot play the entire season without burning out at the end. I’m not going to get into the debate whether he should be at SS at all, if he’s the best choice on the team as constructed, we have to play him there.

Gregg was a poor choice, Hendry rolled the dice to either overpay a solid closer that wanted to be here on the chance he may get hurt again or get a semi-solid guy that gives up HR’s. He lost that bet.

Marmol of 09 was not the Marmol of 08 so now we have a dilemma: what will Marmol 2010 turn out to be?

Aaron Miles. Enough said.

Mike Fontenot is not an everyday player, he is so much better spelling someone at 2B and PH’ing.

Lou made many questionable decisions this season as far as lineups and during the game, especially with the pitching staff.

I like Rich Harden, but if he hurts this team because you ALWAYS have to go to the bullpen fairly early. He’s a strikeout pitcher and that’s not good for a guy that is on strict pitch counts to baby his arm/shoulder. He hasn’t learned how to pitch to contact and get some 7 pitch innings now and then.

The Cubs went through a month or so of some terrible offensive woes that still trouble them today. We “tipped our caps” to a lot of middling pitchers this year and wasted our starters’ efforts consistently. No clutch hitting and no ability to come back late in games at all.

They could beat the Pirates and Reds all day long-unfortunately, they had trouble with the rest of the league.

The gist of all these words is that Bradley has his inherent issues that we have all read and seen, but to me, his were minor compared to the rest of this dead in the water season.

All the Cubs have to do is get rid of all of Lee, Aramis, Soriano, Fukudome, Soto, etc… and replace them with Barry Bonds, J. Jones, Hawkins, Mercker, Todd Walker, Todd Hundley, Jose Canseco, let’s keep Zambrano. Re-hire Dusty Baker. Then the Cubs can buy the Tribune and Suntimes and Herald and fire all of the sportswriters and editorialists (they can also make a big contribution to the Blago defense team in the process), and replace them with orphans, preferably jr. high age or younger, that way the reporters can also serve as the human shield of children that protect the players from such harmful negativity. Also, LF & RF bleachers will be filled with orphans who must earn their place int he orphanage based on how positive they are towards the players.

Hendry just isn’t working hard enough to create a positive environment for Bradley—I suggest he get on it right now to prevent others from giving up on such valuable player.