Ugh – here’s how to take a good deal and make it worse. The Pirates will use Doumit primarily in the outfield when he comes back from the disabled list. The player most likely to receive less playing time as a result is Lastings Milledge. Milledge is a flawed player, but he's young and talented, and he still needs to develop. He already kills lefties, but he struggles against righties, so presumably the idea would be to have Doumit get some at bats against righties. If he's playing ahead of Milledge one day a week against the Roy Halladays of the world, fine. But if it's more than that, this is bad. Milledge needs to learn to hit righties if he's ever going to become a valuable everyday player, and the way to learn is to practice.
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