Castle: Teams still want to try to ‘reform’ Chicago Cubs’ Milton Bradley

Hey…there were always Prison Annies waiting for Billy Halop and his hair to be released.

I still can’t believe that, and at least one old-time baseball sea dog agreed, expressing incredulity that any team would accept Bradley without Hendry owning up to his mistake and basically paying someone else to take him off the Cubs’ hands. That way, the recipient team is protected, according to the old-timer, if they choose to release him due to typical bad Bradley behavior. The Cubs would provide the financial insurance policy.

What the reality is — there’s always an executive out there who’s overly macho, or ignorant, enough to believe he can reform Bradley with a change of scenery or a different manager handling him. Some baseball organizations like the Braves and Twins, who have run successful farm system, value character as highly as raw talent. But others simply look at numbers and Bradley’s halfway-decent offensive track record, believing on-field production overwhelms the off-the-field headaches the multiple-personalitied good/bad Milton provides any employer.

Several other team officials with whom I spoke did see a scenario where Hendry would have one or more trading partners because of Bradley’s switch-hitting record, which nosedived with the Cubs after an American League-leading on-base-percentage performance in Texas in 2008.