Musing about baseball when I should have been doing something else (you won't be surprised to find out that this a fairly frequent activity for me), it struck me that Nick Johnson and Milton Bradley have more in common than might occur to you at first. Both (rightly) have reputations as frequently injured players. Both also have (justified) reputations as good defenders at their respective positoins, although injuries and age have sapped a fair bit of that ability. Most significantly, perhaps, both are excellent hitter whom, despite not always showing the power expected for their positions, more than make up for it with the ability to seeming OBP .380-.400 in their sleep. So here's to a brief look at two DH/DL types whom (as an aside) I believe are a bit miscast in the NL, as, despite decent defensive skills,  DHing a bit more frequently might keep their valuable bats in the lineup more often. 

Milton Bradley

#21 / Right Field / Chicago Cubs

Height: 6-0

Weight: 225

Bats: B

Throws: R

Born: Apr 15, 1978

Nick Johnson

#20 / First Base / Florida Marlins

Height: 6-3

Weight: 235

Bats: L

Throws: L

Born: Sep 19, 1978

Both players have had their ups and downs, and I don't want to get to much into that stuff. Both have bounced through a few different teams for different reasons.There's nothing too deep here, I just thought it was an interesting juxtaposition, and hey, if it weren't for useless ruminations, would blogs have ever been invented?

Some of Milton Bradley's career numbers:

OBP: .372
wOBA: .358
ISO: .173
UZR/150 CF: 6.6
Career UZR/150 RF: 8.4
Career UZR/150 OF: 6.8
Career O-Swing: 17.5%
Career BB%: 12.3%

There's always a "buzz" around Milton Bradley, and frankly, I just don' t have the energy to get into it one way or the other. I'd rather talk about his baseball ability.  For all the grief he's taken this season, he's actualy played pretty well. Using  "my" technique for figuring out whether a player is above or below average, Bradley is actually slightly above average and on his way to earning his salary this season. If you want to find the real culprit in the Cubs outfield, look at Alfonso Soriano. True, Bradley's oufield defense has fallen off a bit this year, but he's actually back to being right around average. And, no, a .799 OPS with 12 home runs (as of the moment) from a corner outfielder might not look great at first, until you realize that he's still rocking a .387 OBP and a .354 wOBA. I hear rumors that the Cubs desparately want to move Bradley. Whatever... I don't know everything that's going on with him and the Cubs, but the guy can still play at a high level. I'm not sure what the Cubs would get back that would  help them more than having Bradley in RF more days than not.

Some of Nick "The Stick" Johnson's career numbers:

OBP: .402
wOBA: .372
ISO: .175
UZR/150 1B: 3.3
O-Swing: 13.5%
Career BB%: 15.9%

Johnson has had a nice bounce-back season after missing all of 2007 and most of 2008 with injuries. His defense this year (and keep in mind small-sample size caveats with defensive stats -- as a general rule, 3 years of defensive stats are roughly equivalent to one year of offensive stats when it comes to measuring true talent) at 1B has dropped to -6.2 UZR/150 from his previous level of between 2 and 10 runs above average. His isolated power (ISO = SLG-BA) is down to a measley .115 after three seasons of .190, .230, .211. Age and injuries may have taken their toll there... and yet Johnson has put up a 2.3 WAR so far this season as an above-average player because of... you guessed it... a monstrous .429 OBP that supports his .377 wOBA. As of this writing, Johnson has been about 21 park-adjusted runs above-average. Even in tonight's game, "all" he did was walk twice... and score twice. It will be interesting to see if he's valued properly in the offseason, his first in free agency.

That's it. Like I said, nothing too deep. Just two frequently injured guys who don't look all that impressive until you  look at it in the context of wOBA (and WAR). I would love to see them both on the same team hitting #1 and #2 or #2 and #4. They'd be taking walks and hitting doubles while a bunch of people act surprised that the team is scoring so many runs.