3/7 v. Toronto; Milton on the hill

[gonelong]

I'm leaning toward the FCB solution with Milton. Out him as intolerably lousy. Yes it costs you almost $20 million, but the only thing worse than paying Milton not to pitch for you is paying him to pitch for you.

Obviously it would have been better to never sign him, but that is not Kriv's fault, and he has gotta clean up this mess the best he can. Ideally he would get someone to take even 1/3 of his salary.

I am not against just dropping the guy ... but I'd try a few things with him first as its not probable the Reds are going to make the playoffs this season, nor would he be holding up any young talent from getting their chance to take their knocks. If the Reds were even a 25-35% chance to make the playoffs I wouldn't even consider it.

1) Can we teach the guy something unusual? How about pitching sidearm or learning the forgotten split-fingered fastball?

2) Can we nurse him through enough outings in the 1st 1/2 of the season in order to get someone to bite on ANY of his contract? If he has 5 decent innings in, pull him before he can put the 1st two guys on in the sixth, especially if the meat of the order is coming up. If you let him in, bring in one of your better relievers to make sure he gets out of the inning without letting any of the inherited runners score.

3) Send him to Mike Marshall and tell him its Miltons last chance and his first. Get to work.

I know that seams like quite a bit of work to get 5-6M savings out of Milton, but if the guy somehow pitches 4.75 ball somebody would take a chance on him. If its not going well early, it'd be easy enough to go ahead and dump him then.

GL

[DeadRedinCT]

Just have payroll fix the "glitch" in paying Milton. Then let it resolve itself naturally.