Milton Bradley Gone too, According to Piniella

A day after basically admitting that the Cubs aren’t going to retain Rich Harden, Lou Piniella also indicated – again without saying anything definitive – that Milton Bradley has played his last game for the North Siders.

“Our general manager Jim Hendry had to do a tough task of sending [Milton] home [on Sept. 20], and I’m sure it wasn’t very pleasant for him,” the Cubs skipper said in a radio interview, referring to Hendry’s decision to suspend Bradley for the season after his controversial remarks about the fans and team.

Piniella then went on to outline exactly how disappointing Milton was on the field, saying, “The big thing with Milton this year was the fact he drove in 40 runs.

“We needed a big bat to put in the middle part of our lineup, and we thought Milton would be the one. And it just didn’t work out, for whatever reason. So we move forward from there and now we try to find somebody else. And I know Jim will work very hard at it.”

Hopefully the “somebody else” Hendry pursues will actually fit the profile the Cubs have in mind, and will not, like Bradley, be a patient, top-of-the-order hitter who has never been a big RBI man at any time in his career.

Honestly, why the Cubs thought Bradley made sense as a middle-of-the-order guy is beyond me.  They must’ve just been so desperate for a bat that they fooled themselves into thinking Bradley could be remade as a run producer.

Bad gamble.

Even if he’d somehow managed to keep his shit together, he was never going to be what the Cubs needed.

Adam Dunn was what they needed.  Instead they got A Damn Dunce.