Kevin Millwood has overplayed his hand.

We are now a little more than one week from opening day and veteran Kevin Millwood is still out of a job. To some extent, this is of his own doing. Millwood has reportedly been offered and rejected contracts this offseason, including a late February offer from the Yankees that could have been worth almost $5 million. That contract, however, was a non-guaranteed minor league deal. At the beginning of the offseason Millwood’s strategy looked like a savvy one, wait until spring training and sign with a team that realized it needs more rotation help then it thought, either due to injury or ineffectiveness, and net a major league contract.

But here we are on March 23rd and Kevin is still sitting at home. At this point he can’t even help anyone to start the season. He’s so far behind in arm strength, stamina, relationship with catchers, defense, and everything else that goes into being a baseball player that he really can’t even be in the big leagues from the outset. He would need some extended spring training or minor league time as a tune up. But that’s all assuming he signs a deal, and at this point, no one is offering one. It seems Millwood forgot one thing when he rejected the Yankee’s offer: He’s really not that good.

Kevin Millwood is a career 159-137 pitcher who just came off a ridiculous 5-year $60 million contract he signed with the Texas Rangers in the winter before the 2006 season. During that contract, the last year of which was played in Baltimore, Millwood pitched 200 innings in a season just once, won 15 games just once, had an ERA below 4.00 just once, finished over .500 for a season twice, made more than $10 million in a single season three times and led the league in losses (with 16) once. How he expected to parlay that into more than 5 mill this year eludes me. He and his agents claim he can help a contender but he went 4-16 last year with a 5.10 ERA (admittedly on the Orioles). He’s never been that good. He started his career as the fourth guy on the Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz Braves staff and looked better than he was. He had 2 really good contract years, 2002 with Atlanta when he won 18 games and 2005 with Cleveland when he had a 2.86 ERA and won big contracts but other than that he has been slightly above average at best and seems to be pretty washed up.

Millwood has overplayed his hand in waiting to sign for so long. He should go wherever anyone wants him, especially after a recent workout where he topped out at 84 mph.

As a Yankee fan, I hope his final destination this year is not New York. I’d rather take my chances with Ivan Nova, Freddy Garcia, and Bartolo Colon. At least they’ve been in camp all spring.

-Max Frankel