General Manager Neal Huntington and the Pittsburgh Pirates were very busy before the midnight deadline to tender players contracts Thursday night.
Both shortstop Ronny Cedeno and pitcher Jeff Karstens were signed to contracts, while pitchers Ross Ohlendorf and Joel Hanrahan were both tendered contracts. All four moves were expected.
In a move that came as a bit of a surprise, outfielder Lastings Milledge was non-tendered, making him a free agent. It’s a tad surprising, but totally understandable why the Pirates made the decision.
Milledge brought a great attitude and gave a tremendous effort. Often you wonder why the other eight guys on the field didn’t look like they gave the same type of effort as Milledge. However, with all of the hustle came a lot of mental mistakes and short comings.
Left field at PNC Park was way too tough for Milledge and right field wasn’t a walk in the park either. He was also hands down the worst base runner in the majors.
Milledge wasn’t terrible at the plate. He hit a respectable .277 at the plate and was fantastic with runners in scoring position, but he didn’t offer up enough power and just isn’t a run producer. In the end, Milledge just didn’t produce enough to be tendered a contact.
I thought there was a chance they would tender Milledge and keep him as a fourth outfielder, but you can find bench players as free agents.
So was acquiring Milledge a bad trade? Absolutely not. I will take Hanrahan’s power arm for Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett any day of the week. Milledge was worth taking a shot on. He has shown at times that he has a wealth of talent, but like so many young players, he has had trouble bringing it out on a consistent basis.
So where do the Pirates turn for a right fielder in 2011?
John Bowker will get a real long look. After the way he performed late in the season he deserves one. In essence, Bowker made Milledge expendable.
There is also the possibility of acquiring a power hitting first baseman and moving Garrett Jones to right field.
Then there is the worst case scenario, and that’s the Pirates don’t move Ryan Doumit and give him a lot of starts in right field. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
Instead, look for the club to improve by going outside the organization. Huntington has said that they will look to improve at shortstop, first base and right field. They have the young talent to do it, so I look for the Pirates to be aggressive when the Winter Meetings come around.
If a smart baseball deal emerges, Huntington won’t be afraid to pull the trigger.
So far the Pirates have been linked to a couple of shortstops in Tampa’s Jason Bartlett and Minnesota’s J.J. Hardy. Either could be a possible upgrade, but I’ll talk about that next week.
There are also several big named free agents the Pirates have been linked to including Lance Berkman, but I will break down those scenarios in my next article.
For now, it looks like Lastings Milledge couldn’t take advantage of perhaps his last real shot as an everyday major leaguer.
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