About two weeks ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates traded centerfielder Nate McLouth, a 27-year-old All-Star, Gold Glove winner, and general fan favorite. His blond locks now reside underneath an Atlanta Braves cap. It was baseball’s second jaw-dropper of 2009, after the Manny Ramirez story.
When the trade went down, there were two links on top of ESPN.com or SI.com, or whatever: “Atlanta releases Glavine” and “Braves acquire McLouth.”
My first thought—and I know someone else wrote about this too, can’t quite remember who—was this: “There must be some other guy named McLouth, some rookie or minor leaguer I don’t know about. That can’t be Nate McLouth, can it?”
Click. It was.
Many people were stunned and confused by the move. Bob Smizik of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette penned back-to-back columns less than 24 hours after the trade, the first one condemning it and the next one praising it.
Some fans were so upset that Pirates G.M. Neal Huntington felt compelled to write a letter publicly explaining the trade. I wonder if Brian Cashman ever had to do this.
Anyway, it’s been almost two weeks. In other words, it’s waaaaaay to early to properly evaluate the trade. Let’s do it anyway.
The Good: It's Andrew McCutchen!
Probably the best part of the trade is getting to see the long-awaited debut of mega-prospect Andrew McCutchen. Here are some numbers since the trade (stats through Thursday)…
McCutchen (13 games): McLouth (12 games):
BA: .339 BA: .240
RBI: 9 RBI: 2
Runs: 10 Runs: 9
OPS: .872 OPS: .669
Too bad the trade wasn’t McCutchen for McLouth. It’s great to see No. 22 playing so well, though. The Pirate fans have been spoiled with good CFs for the past two seasons now (more on this below).
The Bad: The timing was terrible.
This has been a recurring theme in Pittsburgh. Last July, Xavier Nady started in right field in a Friday night home game, and was pulled during the third inning. Why? He and Damaso Marte had been traded during the game. I wonder if a taxicab just picked them up right at the ballpark.
About a week later, Jason Bay was traded with approximately 1.4 seconds left until the trading deadline. It was a true buzzer beater – Selig had to review the phone calls and everything.
Just think, in a couple of years, people may be saying things like, “Who do you want dialing that phone with the trade deadline ticking down and the season on the line? Huntington, that’s who!”
Anyway, this time around, McLouth was dealt on a Wednesday, between Games Three and Four of the Stanley Cup Finals, which happened to be going on just across the river from PNC Park. Well, that’s one way to sell newspapers.
The good: His value would never be higher.
This was almost certainly true. McLouth is a very good player, but he will likely never be the best outfielder on an elite team. He was coming off an All-Star season where he set career highs in everything, but, at the end of the day, he’s a career .250 hitter.
But still, what was the rush? If McLouth had been anywhere near his 2008 numbers before next month’s deadline, surely some team in contention would have been willing to give up some prospects, right?
The Bad: It’s Nate McLouth!
McLouth had just signed a three-year deal in February. He was drafted by the Pirates at 17, steadily worked his way up through the minors, made the team as a utility outfielder at 23, battled for and won the starting position at 26, and was an All-Star and Gold Glove winner in his first, and so far only, season as a full starter.
And then, boom!
The poor guy was crushed when he heard the news. In an interview before he left for Atlanta, he couldn’t even keep it together.
Can you blame him? Or the other players who spoke up about not exactly agreeing with the move? If the Pirates want to build around a core group of players, they need to start showing some loyalty at some point.
A whole lot of centerfielders have come and gone since the great Andy Van Slyke left Pittsburgh in 1994. Pirate fans have suffered through, in no particular order, Jermaine Allensworth, Chris Duffy, Jacob Brumfield, Chad Hermansen, Tike Redman, Emil Brown, Adrian Brown, and James Brown. (Alright, not James Brown.)
In fact, the only respectable CF to wear a Pittsburgh uniform in between 1994 and 2007 was Kenny Lofton, and he only played 84 games there before he was traded for—you guessed it—prospects!
McLouth was the first guy since Van Slyke to produce from that position. McCutchen is probably the superior player, but McLouth deserved a better exit.
The Good: More prospects.
Getting the 4th and 7th-best prospects in the Braves organization for a guy who really had only had good numbers for one-half of one season seems like a nice deal.
Gorkys Hernandez, besides having an awesome name, looks like he has the tools to become a bona-fide major leaguer. The scouts in Detroit and Atlanta were reportedly drooling over him.
(By the way, why are scouts the only sports people who drool? Has anyone ever actually see a scout drooling? Are there puddles of drool everywhere after a guy like Bryce Harper takes a swing?)
Charlie Morton—another great name—only pitched one inning in his Pirates debut last week. But, he did have a one-hitter going at the time, so you gotta like that.
Jeff Locke—I mean, what do I know? Who cares? Wake me up when, or if, he ever gets to the majors.
In all seriousness though, the three major trades made by Huntington and Frank Coonelly since they took over in ’08 – Nady and Marte for prospects, etc., Bay for prospects, etc., and McLouth for prospects, etc. – all seem to be like they are at least going to be, at worst, a wash.
Which is more than you can say about any moves by Cam Bonifay or Dave Littlefield.
The Bad: Losing more games, more fans
Last Christmas, my eight-year-old cousin received a book about the Pirates. It was your typical kids book, with a bunch of photos and stats.
In one photo, Nady and Bay were celebrating with someone about a home run or something, and the headline on the opposite page read: “Meet the Pirates of today.” In other words, the new book was already in need of an update.
The third guy in that photo? McLouth. Guess who is, or should I say was, my cousin’s favorite player? McLouth.
Perhaps my brother summed everything up best: “Maybe these prospects will be good enough so that someday we can trade them for more prospects.”
I get why they made the trade. I get that the minor league system is still in shambles, that you have to build from within, that this year doesn’t matter, that the McLouth Trade Value Meter was about to level off or go down. I get all that. Who knows?
It may turn out to be a good trade after all, and if Jose Tabata, Pedro Alvarez, Hernandez and McCutchen are spearheading the 2011 Central Division champs, maybe Huntington will have the last laugh.
By then, though, there may not be anybody left to laugh with.
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