Milton Bradley: As Seen on TV

(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Many questioned the signing of Milton Bradley when the Cubs made the deal official on Jan. 8. The Cubs were looking for a way to balance out their lineup and were willing to take a risk on a player with all of the talent to take them to the next level, but with a history that might not let that happen.

Bradley made all of the right statements before, during, and after the Cubs Convention. It appeared he had finally taken the steps in his maturation process to become the baseball player that many always thought he had the ability to be—especially after his 2008 season.

The Cubs spoke highly of Bradley throughout the winter and repeatedly told the story of how he courted the Cubs, and even Jim Hendry made a big deal about pointing that out back in January.

Spring Training began and other than a delay at the beginning of an extremely long stay in Arizona, Milton Bradley hit the cover off the ball and appeared to be on the right track to helping the Cubs win games when the year began.

Once the season started, Bradley did not hit, and the injuries started piling up, seemingly one after the other. And the fears that the oft-injured Milton Bradley would spend most of the year in the dugout started to be realized.

After 54 games ,the Cubs are not playing good ball, despite being two games over .500. The Cubs once high-scoring offense has gone south due to several factors—and one of them is Milton Bradley.

As was pointed out over the weekend, individual numbers in the game of baseball can be blown out of proportion, but it is the team's win-loss record that matters at the end of the day.

A National Baseball writer recently questioned if Milton Bradley was the worst offseason signing of the year. This article is not meant to focus on which player the Cubs should have signed last winter. This article is meant to highlight the numbers with Milton Bradley in the lineup.

No one can speculate about how the Cubs might be playing if they would have signed either Raul Ibanez or Adam Dunn, this is just meant to point out Milton Bradley's effect on the current team.

Milton Bradley's lack of production

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