Lastings Milledge: A Roll of the Dice and a Baseball Philosophy

Which would you rather have, five dollars, or the chance to roll a single die and earn $1 times the number on the die? The "fiver" is Nyjer Morgan with his five-win (over replacement) trajectory, and the die roll is Lastings Milledge. That's because Milledge could be worth anywhere from one win (Brandon Moss) to six wins (Alex Rodriguez) over replacement. For now, we'll assume that the die is fair, and that these results, plus two, three, four and five, are equally likely. If you are the Pittsburgh Pirates, your answer is, "Throw in an extra dollar, and I'll take the bet." Sabermetrically, at least, the trade of Sean Burnett for Joel Hanrahan garnered an extra (expected) win. The thing is, if Milledge is worth one to six equally weighted extra wins, the average is three-and-a-half. Throw in the reliever trade, and we're getting four-and-a-half, less than the five we're giving up. A more interesting wrinkle occurred when Andrew Kaufman asked in...