But Lastings Milledge was inexplicably one of my favorite Pirate acquisitions in Neal Huntington’s tenure. After being unceremoniously released in favor of Matt Diaz, he’s labored in winter ball for a while. Today that paid off for him as the White Sox signed him to a minor league deal. He’s 25…I mean that as both “only” 25, as in he’s still got time to figure it out and “he’s 25,” as in I doubt he’ll ever live up to his former top prospect status. Still, I wish him the best of luck. I still like L-Millz.

While Milledge has mostly been a disappointment in terms of him being the player scouts thought he would be when he was a top prospect, he’s also 25 years old and had been hitting better than Church.

To boot: Milledge’s line on the season has been .276/.347/.392. While the slugging is underwhelming, he’s finally been hitting for power in limited duty, hitting three homers, seven doubles and a triple over his last 100 plate appearances. His slugging percentage in those plate appearances has been a respectable .470. Combine this with a decreased strikeout rate and an increased walk rate, and two of the biggest knocks on Milledge in his career thus far seem to have righted themselves: he’s hitting for power and showing a disciplined approach at the plate.

Church, meanwhile, has a .186/.240/.321 line on the season and unlike Milledge has yet to put up a solid month, much less a solid month and a half.

It’s quite possible that Milledge could regress when given the starting role and be the same disappointing player he’s been since coming to the Majors. He was only facing left-handed pitchers while Church was stealing his playing time, and while he’s never mashed left handed pitchers like he has since the end of May, he’s always hit better against them.

However, a team in the Pirates’ position owes it to themselves to find out if Milledge is just a platoon player or not. And, if it turns out Milledge is a platoon player after all, the Pirates need to find a better hitter against righties to take over the majority of the platoon than Ryan Church.

Now, if I could just get one more wish regarding Milledge, I’d want him to hit at the top of the order so the team can move Jose Tabata to the bottom of the order and take some pressure of the 21 year old.

The Pirates have four players in their everyday lineup – Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, Pedro Alvarez and Jose Tabata – who are either rookies or in their second year of Major League baseball. All of them are young players, Walker being the oldest at 24. It would be easy to point to this fact and say “that’s why we have so many fundamental mistakes. There are so many young players.”

This all came to a head for me today when I was listening to Rocco DeMaro’s post-game show Extra Innings, and Greg Brown said he thought the team should get a veteran like Cincinnati did with Scott Rolen, and talking about how in Texas they have a lot of young players and he had heard a story about how they all listen to Michael Young because of his experience. He then dismissed the previous signings of guys like Doug Mientkiewicz and Eric Hinske (and presumably Ryan Church this year) because none of them were starters.

There’s probably some truth to the fact that young players tend to listen to what veterans have to say when it comes to playing the game. Speaking personally, if I were a rookie I would soak up every bit of information I could from veterans.

The problem is, it’s not the young players that keep making the mistakes, it’s the team’s veterans! While guys like Pedro Alvarez have made a few physical mistakes such as striking out way too often, I can’t recall seeing any of the four players I named above make a mental mistake this season. That’s come from the team’s vets.

Ryan Doumit has made mistake after mistake this season, both physical and mental. He’s been a big leaguer since 2005, yet he almost cost the Pirates a game because he tried to tag up from second with one out as the go-ahead run, and then he didn’t even slide when he ran home.

Lastings Milledge may only be 25 years old, but remember that he was once considered to be the next big thing in baseball and came up at a young age. He’s been in the Majors since 2006, only a year less than Doumit. His baserunning errors and misjudgement in the outfield both when running routes and when deciding whether or not to dive have reached nearly legendary status in Pittsburgh.

Ronny Cedeno and Bobby Crosby are both experienced shortstops, with Cedeno having been in the Majors since 2005 and Crosby since 2003. Despite a strong defensive showing, Cedeno made so many gaffes at the plate and on the bases that he’s effectively been benched in favor of Crosby, and Crosby has responded by playing even worse, collecting seven errors in his fifteen games at short.

This team doesn’t need any veteran leadership, it needs to play like its rookies have.