Sickels: Not a Rookie: Lastings Milledge

More knock points against the Church of Schneid…

For the future? My opinion about him really hasn’t changed. He has immense potential. He still has weaknesses that his natural talent covers, at least against minor league competition. He is still very young, turning 23 in April. He has flashed the skills to go with those tools, and my personal opinion is that he has a better chance to flesh out those skills than a lot of tools guys. The main thing he needs is to stay healthy.

...On pure stats my expectation is in line with what other people project. However, for some non-objective reason, I think Milledge could break out in a big way this year, with a big batting average spike. It’s just an instinct, one of those impossible to explain gut feelings. Anyway, I put the Gut Feeling projection up there along with the technical projection.

In the long run, I think Milledge will have several seasons where he is one of the best players in the league, but will also have several seasons where he is somewhat disappointing, perhaps due to injuries. Another “gut” thing, I think these seasons will be mixed up rather than a nice glide path...one bad one, one good one, a bad one, a bad one, then two good ones, that sort of thing. In short, I think he will be an occasionally outstanding, but somewhat frustrating player, who 20 years from now will be able to look back on an overall very fine career.