Can Lastings last?

Originally posted by Mark Leff on Apr 12th, 2008 at 5:31 PM.

The Mets once had a lot of faith in Lastings Milledge, believing he showed a lot of promise as a future 5-tool player. More than that, multiple teams had talked about sending star players to the Mets in exchange for Milledge, including Dontrelle Willis and Manny Ramirez. But after a brief major league stint and some seeming behavioral problems, the Mets gave up on Milledge, and so did most of the majors. Few teams showed interest in him and the Mets ended up shipping him off to Washington.

If the early season is any indication, the Mets made a mistake. Milledge has a .289 average over only 11 games, with 5 RBI on a team averaging only 4 runs per game. Hardly Willie Mays, but Milledge is only 23 years old. It is early in the season. To what extent can Milledge keep up the good numbers?

Most projection systems give Milledge around 10 home runs and 50 RBI in 2008. Bill James has the most faith in Milledge, projecting him to hit 15 home runs, drive in 65 and hit .294. While I lean more towards James’s projections in my own projections on Milledge in 2008 (.281 average, 15 home runs, 71 RBI, in part because I expect Nationals Park to play like a hitter’s park), I would not advise anybody in a mixed league to pick him up. In deep NL-only leagues, Milledge might have value in 2008, but likely not elsewhere.

But what about the future? Does Milledge have value in keeper leagues? In spite of what the Mets may have felt about Milledge, I foresee a good career for the new centerfielder in Washington. His troubles are similar to those of any player his age: plate discipline. In his 440 career plate appearances, Milledge has walked 26 times and struck out 86 times, making for a BB/K ration of 0.30. I hardly feel the need to justify the value of plate discipline, but it’s worth pointing out that among the few players who had more walks than strikeouts in 2007 were Albert Pujols, Todd Helton, Gary Sheffield, Vladimir Guerrero, Chipper Jones and David Ortiz.

How many times has a young hitter struggled with his discipline and gone on to an excellent career? It is a consistent reality of young prospects, and it is among the problems for Milledge, who, with a small adjustment to his attitude, could learn more selectivity at the plate.

Of course, his problems with plate discipline do not alone demonstrate that Milledge has a positive future. What convinces me that he does is his ability to make solid contact. His career line drive percentage (line drives per balls put in play) in 22.1%. By contrast, the league leader in LD% in 2007 was Michael Young with 27.2%, and in 2006 it was Ryan Howard with 21.9%. Milledge is the type of player – fast and versatile – that is best advised to make a living off of line drives. He knows how to hit them, but he does not yet know how to force pitchers to throw him strikes. If he learns not to swing at bad pitches, he will get plenty of pitches to hit and hit plenty of line drives, about 75% of which land for hits according to the Hardball Times. Mix that with good speed and Milledge will make for a talented player.

Milledge’s 2008 will be decent for a player of his age. His future should be well above average.