Here we Nelson, here we go (back to the minors)

If you’re a top talent like Jose Reyes or Joba Chamberlain, you can carry on all you want on the field and it will generally be seen as a way to help you maximize your ability. But if you’re a player like Elijah Dukes, someone who reportedly threatened his ex-wife’s life and has been arrested six times, your talent can’t prevent 29 other teams from wanting no part of you, only the desperate Nationals, who have collected players like Dukes and Lastings Milledge. (Whatever attitude problems Milledge has are certainly minor compared to those of Dukes, but Milledge’s attitude also caused his baseball value to plummet.) It’s easy to understand Nelson Figueroa for being rattled by Dukes’ antics last night. Figueroa is new to the majors and even veterans players had never heard anything like the college-style chants coming out of the Nationals’ dugout. But if you’re going to let a few chants rattle you, you probably shouldn’t be pitching in the ... [link]