SI.com’s Jon Heyman recently asked four general managers whether or not Milton Bradley (who was released by the Mariners on Monday) would find another job and apparently three of them said no.

The other? According to Heyman via Twitter, the fourth GM said: “(Expletive deleted) no. He was one moody (expletive deleted expletive deleted).�

A simple “no� would have been just fine, but all right…

Even though Bradley currently has a batting line of .218/.313/.356, most observers believe that someone will take a shot on him. But Heyman’s tweets are pretty alarming. It’s not like he talked to the guys who sweep the stadium stands after games for their take on Bradley: He spoke with the people who make decisions on whether or not to sign players.

Granted, Heyman only spoke with four general managers out of the 30 that are currently serving in MLB offices across this fine country. But why would anyone take on this headache when he’s not playing well? There used to be a time when teams were willing to put up with Bradley’s shenanigans because he gave their offense a jolt. But it’s been three years since he hit .321 with the Rangers in 2008 and he hasn’t resembled anything close to a professional hitter since. When you factor in his age (33) and his temperament, I don’t blame any GM for saying “fudge no� when asked whether or not he’ll ever find another job in Major League Baseball.

The Cubs were foolish to give him such an outlandish contract in 2009, but it’s not like he was coming off a bad year (again, he hit .321 with 22 home runs in ’08). And I don’t blame the Mariners for swapping one albatross contract in Carlos Silva for another in Bradley last year.

But I think the end is near: Milton Bradley’s time in Major League Baseball is finally up.

The Cubs can finally awake from the nightmare that is Carlos Silva, who was released on Sunday after posting a 10.90 ERA while surrendering 32 hits over 17 1/3 innings this spring.

In December of 2009, Chicago traded one past mistake in Milton Bradley to acquire a future mistake in Silva, who told the club on Friday that there’s “no chance� he’d report to the minors if the Cubs couldn’t trade him. He also took a couple of shots at pitching coach Mark Riggins, saying he was “not straight� with him about the team’s plans and that Riggins “had to learn he’s in the big leagues now.� After the team dumped him on Sunday, maybe Riggins can return the favor by telling Silva that he better learn that he’s in the unemployment line now. (Zing! I know, not my best but it played.)

Granted, Silva (9-3, 3.45 ERA, 1.14 WHIP) was effective last year before a heart issue derailed his season. But unfortunately for the Cubs, they’re still on the hook for the $11.5 million owed to him this year so the term “value� doesn’t come to mind here, even when you factor in Silva’s numbers from last season. I guess this is the price you pay when you hand Milton freaking Bradley a three-year, $30 million contract and think you can unload him on the Marines by taking on their contract albatross. But in the end, everybody losses.

On a related note, Andrew Cashner was named the Cubs’ fifth starter after the release of Silva.

As a member of the Cleveland Indians, he once wore a T-shirt that said “(expletive) Eric Wedge� on it.

As a member of the Chicago Cubs, he was suspended for the final weeks of the 2009 season after he criticized general manager Jim Hendry and manager Lou Piniella.

Most recently, he left the Mariners after being replaced mid-game by then-manager Don Wakamatsu, only to ask for and receive a reinstatement after the club provided anger management training.

Now Milton Bradley is at it again. He was arrested Tuesday morning in California and booked on felony charges for making criminal threats to a woman. Reports state that he was held on $50,000 bail before being released at roughly 5:40PM.

Considering he hit a dismal .205 with just eight home runs and 29 RBIs in 73 games last season, one would assume the M’s brass is pouring over his contract hoping to find a clause that will allow them to release the troubled outfielder. Why not cut ties with Bradley and save $12 million (which is what he’s owed in 2011) in the process?

Of course, that’s easier said than done. Unless Hendry was smart enough to write a clause into Bradley’s contract that would protect the team in the event he were arrested, the Mariners are probably on the hook for that $12 million. If they tried to void his deal, the player’s union would likely file a grievance and it could be months before Bradley sees the inside of a courtroom. During that time, he would be out on bail and he could claim that he’s not being convicted of anything (and therefore, could be “working� during that time).

There’s a good chance that the Mariners will cut him anyway, even if they have to fork over the $12 million that’s still owed on his contract. That would be a grave injustice if he is guilty of a crime (remember, he hasn’t been convicted of anything yet), but at least Seattle would be rid of him. This guy is a ticking time bomb and it’s not a matter of “if� but “when� he’s going to explode again.

But maybe this time there won’t be another club ready to assume the risk.

Whether it’s that reliever that always seems to blow tight games in late innings, that batter that leaves runners on the bases, or that starter that walks seven batters an inning, every team has at least one player that as a fan, you’d rather set your eyelids on fire than watch trot onto the field for just one more inning.

I’ve compiled a list of 10 infuriating, punch-a-hole-through-your-wall MLB players to watch. Granted, this list is by no means all-inclusive (and I implore you the reader to list the guys that drive you nuts in the comments section). But these are the 10 that seem to make my blood boil on a consistent basis, whether they’re playing for my favorite team or not.

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…Okay, so he won’t exactly be starving himself, but he did vow to dramatically cut his calorie intake.

A Chicago Cubs fan has vowed to eat only 500 calories a day until the team wins five games in a row.

Daniel Kamen, 53, of Buffalo Grove, Ill., said he plans to start his diet after the All-Star break in mid-July and continue until the Cubs either win five consecutive games or end their season for the year, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday.

“I’m going to motivate them,” he said. “I’m going to embarrass them into winning more games. They will see me get skinnier and skinnier, until maybe there’s nothing left of me.”
Kamen invited portly Cubs manager Lou Piniella to join his diet.

“It’s an official invitation,” Kamen said. “I’ll show him how to do it.”

This guy sticking to only 500 calories a day has as much chance as Milton Bradley hitting .300 by the end of the year. I give him two days before he’s hitting up the Wendy’s drive through and ordering a triple burger with fries and a frosty.

It’s safe to say that this past offseason has been one of the worst for Jim Hendry during his tenure as General Manager of the Chicago Cubs. The Los Angeles Dodgers made a mockery of the Cubs’ right-handed lineup in the playoffs by not throwing a single left-handed pitcher at them, and the Cubs responded to this glaring weakness by trading Mark DeRosa, the most versatile and well-liked player on the team – not to mention cheap, since he was in line to make an affordable $5.5 million in the final year of his contract – in order to free up some cash to sign a left-handed power hitter. For God knows what reason, Hendry doesn’t even make an attempt to sign Raul Ibanez, a clubhouse prince who is good for 25 home runs and 100 RBIs year in and year out. Nope, Hendry set his sights on Milton Bradley, a talented but mercurial journeyman (the Cubs are the eighth team he’s played for since his Major League debut in 2000) who just happened to put up career numbers in a contract year. The words “career numbers” sound good, but they come with one big-ass asterisk. Take a look at Bradley’s career year numbers versus the 2008 stat lines of DeRosa and Ibanez:

Raul Ibanez: .292-85-23-110-2
Mark DeRosa: .285-104-21-87-6
Milton Bradley .321-78-22-77-5

It’s a pretty average stat line as career numbers go, and don’t forget that he put up those numbers primarily as a DH, and he still only played 126 games due to nagging injuries. Yep, this is the man that the Cubs hoped would save them, to the tune of three years and $30 million. To add insult to injury, DeRosa now plays for the rival Cardinals.

“Let’s see, if I strike out like that 100 more times this year…I still make $7 million! Ahhhh hahahahahahaha!”

And would you look at that; now that Bradley has his money, he can’t hit water if he fell out of a boat. Well, let’s qualify that — he’s actually hitting .333…from the right side of the plate. He’s hitting .194 as a lefty, has been suspended for bumping an umpire, sent home by his manager after trashing yet another water cooler, and poisoned yet another clubhouse with his unpredictable temper. Bradley said before the season started that he had changed, that those days of flying off the handle (remember when he tore his ACL yelling at an umpire?) were long gone. How on earth did the Cubs believe him? Didn’t they see the “South Park” movie? Bad people always say they’ll change, but they never do.

So what do the Cubs do with Bradley now? He’s expected to take the next two days off to work on his approach from the left side of the plate with new hitting coach Von Joshua. A good start, but we have some other, admittedly extreme suggestions to the Bradley problem that we think the Cubs brass should consider.