re: Is Milam a big leaguer?

Altuve has major pop in his bat. Milam shows some power at the plate. Milam is a long way from Altuve.

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Bump around in A/AA ball and be like Tommy Tanks? SURE

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lol, bump around?

guy has 1 full season in the minors under his belt. LSU fans have no clue how pro baseball works. It never fails reading some of these ignorant comments

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You can still make it to the majors as a subpar hitter. Hell Austin Nola was sub-.240 in A/AA and barely cleared .250 (with poor slugging) in his minor league career. You’ve just really got to be consistently special elsewhere and in an org that really wants you

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1) Austin Nola didn’t make the bigs until he moved to catcher. It’s the one position now you can make the bigs and bounce around without being a very good hitter. The prototype at SS is much different than it was in the 80s. They’re typically much bigger and it’s become an offensive position. Smaller guys who don’t hit really well can get their foot in the door occasionally, but they’ll be relegated to utility duty and have to bounce around a lot—very few of those guys stick around one organization very long.

2) Milam is a pro 2nd basemen. His size limits his range at short, and I’m not sure if he’s got an MLB SS arm. He’s made a few awesome throws from deep in the hole this year, but he’s also had some pretty weak ones that turned routine outs into bang bang plays.

Somebody in another thread mentioned he had a torn labrum. No idea if that’s right or not, but it would make sense. I “played”—by that I mean I practiced while redshirting—a season in college with a torn labrum, and it’s a motherfricker. You can occasionally rare back and make a big league throw from the hole, but it just hurts too much to do that consistently. And it affects your hitting too. We saw it with Tommy Tanks late in the ‘23 season when he was just missing fastballs up in the zone that he would normally crush. If you’ve aggravated it, that pain is always in the back of your mind and can slow you down just a tick. But when everybody’s throwing 95+, you can’t afford to be slowed down, so you wind up having to start your swing just a bit early, which can lead to chasing balls out of the zone, especially up. Again, we saw that with Tanks a bit towards the end of the season. And it’s much worse if it’s your back shoulder, which would help explain Milam being so much better left-handed. (It seems like he is this year more than previously, but I don’t have his splits and realize he’s always been better from that side of the plate.

I got sidetracked there, but I don’t know how a torn labrum—if he has one—would affect his draft status or his decision to potentially come back. (The surgery is a pain in the arse to recover from, and most of his offseason would be spent rehabbing instead of getting better. So I don’t know that coming back would even really help him unless MLB teams were scared of it and he fell way past where he may have expected to go).

3) Regardless, even if he projects as a 2B in the pros, he’s definitely good enough to play SS in case of injury, as a spot starter, just like overall utility guy. I’m sure he can play 3rd too. And that versatility has value.

4) Hitting .250 in high A/AA is not the same as hitting .250 in college, even in the SEC. But he never really has looked overmatched, the lights never too big, maybe that’s just who he is no matter the level of competition. If he hits .250 and gets on base at a .350 clip in the minors, his versatility—including being a switch hitter could get him in the door. And I think if he makes it, he could bounce around for several years.

He’s just really hard to project. He might not ever get above AA. Or he might have a 10-year big league career. Guys like him do have value and clubs like to have at least one on their team. But I don’t think he’ll ever be an every day player barring injury to someone ahead of him. But who knows? I’m a Braves fan, and after Dansby signed with the Cubs, they have run some dog shite guys out there at 2B (when Albies is hurt) and SS that I think Milam can be every bit as good as in 3-4 years. We’ll see. I’ll be pulling for him.

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Bump around in A/AA ball and be like Tommy Tanks?

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More like AA/AAA. A lot of AAA guys are lifetime minor leaguers. Guys with real pop in their bat or live arms for pitchers often skip AAA. Guys like Milam, with great fielding skills who lack one or two metrics they look for in the Majors, get stuck there a lot.

He has the skills but not the measurables. Maybe as a 2B, too many balls get past him that should be stopped. He’s quick but not fast.

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but not the measurables

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Size doesn’t matter in baseball unless you let it matter.

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Not enough pop

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Ironically think this is what hurt his season.

His approach now is trying to show he has power. It’s a mistake and has killed his BA.

I am more curious about his makeup. He’s clearly a dirt bag when he wants to be. but we’ve seen him not run of hits multiple times over his career. You wonder what exactly makes him tick sometimes.

Yes