Monday, June 8, 2009

Breaking Down the Nate Mclouth Trade

On Thursday, the Pirates traded the face of their franchise, Nate McClouth to the Atlanta Braves. In the four days since, I have heard it all. "Same old Pirates," basically is what the public thinks. The casual baseball fan has never heard of Charlie Morton, Gorkys Hernandez or Jeff Locke (the players the Bucs received). The casual baseball fan is very upset at the move, but I'm here to tell you why the move makes sense. Look, the facts are this. The Pirates are at least two years away, if that. No knock on Nate, but if McClouth is your best player then you have too many holes.

First, the timing of the move. While the announcement did come out of no where, it was a trade Neil Hunnington had to make and probably wouldn't have gotten a better offer had he held onto McClouth until the trading deadline. Looking back at trades teams have made over the last ten seasons, most teams tend to hold onto prospects as the deadline approaches. The public will say that we were only four games under .500 at the time. It's not Hunnington's job to get to .500, his job is to put together a team that can eventually compete year in and year out. If it takes two more years of stockpiling young talent, then i say keep sticking to the plan.

Secondly, being the best player on a bad team doesn't make you anything more than that. McClouth is a very good player, but not a full fledged superstar. On the season, he is hitting only .251 with 9 homers and 35 RBI. In addition, McClouth is only a .260 hitter for his career, hardly superstar like. He is a great guy and will be missed in Pittsburgh, but if you give me three young players who can possibly make an impact in Pittsburgh in the next couple seasons, then I have to pull the trigger on the deal. I give Hunnington credit on dealing while McClouth's value is high.

Next, is Andrew McCutchen had to get to Pittsburgh some way. When is the last time the Pirates made a deal, when they replaced the player they gave up with someone with equal or in this case, even more talent. McCutchen will go through some growing pains, but will be very fun to watch. The guy can hit, maybe not for the power of McClouth, but he can get on base and will utilize his speed. Defensively, while McClouth did win a gold glove, he just had sub par range. Between McCutchen and Nyjer Morgan, they will cover a ton of ground. The funny part is that the new outfield of Morgan, McCutchen and Brandon Moss has a combined one home run on the season. It's way to early to give up on Moss by the way, he has been playing very well after a slow start, so as it looks, this outfield should be productive.

It was a tough decision for Hunnington to part ways with McClouth, but good teams take those kind of risks and make them pay off. Fan reaction has been very negative towards Hunnington. I believe legendary basketball coach Bobby Knight once said "If you make decisions based on the fans reaction, pretty soon you will be sitting with the fans."

If Pirate fans have anyone to blame, it's Dave Littlefield. Look at the farm system when Hunnington took over. The cupboard was bare. The top prospects in the system were McCutchen and Neil Walker. That's it. With Hunnington's moves the last two seasons, not only through trades but actually drafting for talent instead of budget, Walker is now the 14th ranked prospect in the organization. The farm system was in dire need of repair and this is the way to do it. Now the list of prospects include: Brad Lincoln, Jose Tabata, Pedro Alvarez, Brian Friday, Hernandez, Locke, Morton, etc.. Now will all of them pan out? Not a chance, but if most do the light at the end of the tunnel may be in sight.

The positive thing is that this was truly a baseball trade. It was not finacially motivated. There was no Aramis Rameriz for Bobby Hill deal here. However with the excess cash saved, it would be nice to see the Bucs lock up Dominican shortstop Miguel Angel Sano.

Pirate fans probably are sick of hearing about a 3 year plan or a 5 year plan. So am I, but despite hearing that for the last 16 seasons, that hasn't happened. What the Pirates have had was 15 years of bad management, so I am willing to give Hunnington the benefit of the doubt for now. Tomorrow, if he has a strong draft, Hunnington would have done more for this franchise than anyone in the last 16 seasons. I say stick to the plan and watch it pay off. If that means dealing Sanchez, Adam Laroche and Wilson, so be it.

My only problem is the payroll. If they continue to draft quality youngsters, eventually the payroll will have to increase. Comparing market sizes, there is no reason the Brewers should have an 80 milion dollar payroll when the Pirates struggle to hover around 50 mil. Until the Nutting family decides to get in the 70-80mil range, the only way to build is through trades and the draft. No qualiy player in his right mind would want to come play here. That has to change.

Will this turn out to be a good trade? Time will tell, but I like what Hunnington has been able to do so far.

Potential Lineup Opening day 2011 (baring trades)
c Ryan Doumit
1b Pedro Alvarez
2b Shelby Ford
3b Andy Laroche
ss Brian Friday
LF Gorkys Hernadez
CF Andrew McCutchen
RF Jose Tabata
SP Brad Lincoln, Paul Maholm, Zach Duke, Charlie Morton

23 comments:

  1. Agree with your article but you need to spell McLouth's name without the extra "C" in it.

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  2. Crazy good times! At Pizza Pals! Yogi Berra, Berry Bonanza!

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  3. Seriously. You should at least know the name of the player you're "analyzing."

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  4. While we're at it, it's Huntington not Hunnington.

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  5. so he cant spell. still a very good article with very good points in it. i was on the fence on the mclouth situation and now i feel its a goos move for the team

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  6. good to see someone that appreciates and knows what the pirates are trying to unstead of all the complaining pirate fans do. half the problem is with the pirates fans. to make a trade in which the team recieves 3 potential all-stars as other have noted. very good move for the team.

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  7. it's quite simple. you replace a good player (mclouth) with a potentially great player (mccutchen) and get three quality propects in return. no brainer make that deal 100 out of 100 times

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  8. Batting average isn't really a good way to value a player, just so you know. It can be helpful, but you need to look at all the stats to get the best picture.

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  9. i agree about the average, but i think he was valuing everything in the article. mclouth is a very good player. thats it. i think he has a ceiling. i feel mccutchen will out produce him in pretty much every category bu homers in a given year. good trade

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  10. question for the writer. i see your future lineup and i kind of like it. question is alvarez at first. do they have plans to move him? because i like what i see out of laroche at third

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  11. no plans as of yet but i did that for the following reason. IF and its a big IF you feel andy laroche is the future at third, then it makes sense. If they can deal adam laroche for a pitching prospect and another player, then it creates a hole at first. Unless they feel steve pearce has it figured out and move him back to first, the move gets alvarez to the majors quicker. with the lack of power in the system at the moment, it could happen

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  12. I'm a Braves fan, who totally agree's this is an even trade. The Pirates needed to make a deal, because it's obvious they won't win the Central. I'd also deal Adam Laroche, don't pick up Jack Wilson's option and keep Freedie Sanchez long term. Brandon Moss is a good 4th outfielder, and Alvarez would be a good power hitter. Gorkys is kind of like Nyer Morgan, but with the potential to hit for average, and runs an awful lot. He posses a better arm than Morgan that's for sure. If Brad Lincoln prove he can be the ace, then they're in pretty good shape.

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  13. i also think it was a good trade for both sides and dont understand why pirates fans are upset. with the last couple trades and the last couple drafts the bucs could be well on there way. now just imagine if littlefield had drafted matt wieters

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  14. ah yes the wieters situation. dont get me started there. it would be a nice middle of the order to have wieters and alvarez in 3 years, but hey we got moskos right? maybe they should have moskos start pitching to alverez to help get that average up. although moskos hasn't pitched bad the last couple of times out. its gonna hurt to watch wieters become a stud

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  15. i am a fan of the trade and im a bucs fan. even though morton went only 1 inning, i liked what i saw and mccutchen will be a stud. the timing of the trade shocked me, but they got alot for nate.
    on the topics of trades, wouldn't it be funny to see adam laroche dealt to the mets since they have a hole at first base. especially with beltran and adam exchanging shots at each other last week

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  16. im a braves fan and im not a fan of the trade. to give up 3 high thought of youngsters, we should have gotten more than nate mclouth. very good player, but nothing special. all 3 prospects have good chances to be solid major leaguers, maybe even 2 with all star potenial. to give tht away, i feel we needed to get an impact player in return. nate mclouth is not an impact player

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  17. the reason his lifetime average is .260 is because last year was his first full year in the majors it would have rose up to around .290 which is ok with the power he had. Their is no reason why the buccos couldnt have traded moss so the outfield would be morgan, mclouth, and mccutchen.

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  18. trade moss. thats ridiclous. 1. moss has a bigger upside. not showing it now, but they have to stick with him. and 2. who the hell is gonna give you the quality you got for mclouth in a deal for brandon moss

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  19. i agree. cant trade moss, gotta find out what he can do first and the return wouldnt have been nearly as good as dealing nate. trading moss is just a stupid thought. and the guy above said why cant our outfield be cutch, nyjer and nate. first of all what do u do when tabata and gorkys are ready? very good deal for the bucs

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  20. A thing that seems to be overlooked are, that he's a gold glove winner, is currently hitting .271, has speed on the bases, and His Hispanic teamates say his Spanish is perfect. I don't care what anyone thinks the reason for the trade was but a lot of GMs believe it to be a salary dump. Nate will do nothing but get better at the plate. The 3 prospects the Pirates got have bombed at the major league level. The pitcher they sent anyway. Lastly, it's another shrewd move for the Braves. The Edgar Renteria brought Jair Jurggens and McClouth. I think the bucs came out on the losing end here. The Texiera trade last season got the Btaves a solid major league firstbaseman in Kotchen and the prospect, I think, is playing at Double A Mississippi. It's no wonder that they haven't won the World Series in 30 yeras.

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  21. you moron, you said that huntington was handed a piss poor farm, and said that neil and mccutchen was all he had. then after that you listed a 'repaired' farm that included brad lincoln and brian friday. brad lincoln was drafted in 2006 and friday in 2007...huntington came in after both of them were drafted. (and btw, both of these prospects suck balls).
    and you also mispelled your gm's name multiple times...

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  22. to add to my last comment, gorkys hernandez is nothing special, maybe njyer morgan lite. jeff locke is a guy who's had arm issues and made it to high A in three years (and isnt succeeding there). charlie morton is an ok 4th or 5th starting pitcher. all for an outfielder that was under contract for 3 years, and had 25 homer pop combined with 25 stolen base speed. your team will suck for a while

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