Pirates trade Nate McLouth to Braves
by Joe in Birmingham on Jun 3, 2009 6:28 PM CDT
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PrintA stunning trade. Pirates get three prize prospects but lose a key player. McLouth becomes the starting center fielder for Atlanta. Pirates making serious bid to have a winning season in the next few years. Here's the basics:
The Braves have acquired All-Star outfielder Nate McLouth from the Pirates in exchange for three highly regarded Minor League prospects.
A Major League source confirmed that the Pirates will send McLouth to the Braves in exchange for right-handed pitcher Charlie Morton, left-handed pitcher Jeff Locke and outfielder Gorkys Hernandez.
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And
The Braves cut Glavine.
Sorry, I know I posted that elsewhere. . . but I find it morbidly fascinating. It was so unceremoniously done, and after he finished his rehab assignments.
I almost posted that with my entry
but I couldn’t fit it in adequately. The Glavine story was the lead in the Braves broadcast,. They did not mention McLouth until the game started
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Jun 3, 2009 6:35 PM CDT up reply actions
Early Fans Respsonse
Braves fans have mixed feelings, Some prefer keeping Gorkys Hernandez. The stronger opinions seem to love the trade.
Pirates fans on the other hand post things like:
My thought is that I might seriously be done with the Pirates! This is absolutely terrible! I thought we were done with with bad trades and bad negotiationg when Littlefield and Co. left. NH is turning out to be just as bad! How in the world do you trade one of the best centerfielders in baseball and not get Tommy Hanson in return?!?!?!?!! And WE JUST GOT A YOUNG CF FROM THE YANKEES LAST YEAR!!!! WHY ANOTHER ONE?!?!? This trade makes no sense. Morton is not that good! This is absolutely awful, and I might be done with the Pirates. The FO continues to be a joke!! I’m outraged!
AND
one question is settled I think the debate over "will they try for .500" is pretty much over with.
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Jun 3, 2009 6:38 PM CDT reply actions
Nate McLouth
is not one the best center fielders in baseball. Grantly – he was fantastic last year, but I think he’s overrated at the plate and definitely didn’t deserve that Gold Glove. As for the trade, I think it will probably end up being pretty good for both teams. Atlanta got a plug-in center fielder that they needed and the Pirates got some good prospects in return.
"I am from one of the top 15 cities in the world. Buffalo, New York." - TrentEdwardsHoF2018
I think
The Pirates are planning on moving McCutchen to right. Hernandez can play all outfield positions and is a good pickup. Shure the Pirates could’ve picked up some other good guys, but Morton and Hernandez are all good. McClout is a power, ok fielding outfield. I like the trade
Big Numbers
lets sign Glavine...
if drayton won’t sell off we might as well add him. lord knows we need extra pitchers
Legitimate option
Braves say Glavine lost significant velocity. but Galvine had very good rehab starts.
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Jun 3, 2009 6:51 PM CDT up reply actions
i heard on MLB network
that several teams have already called his agent, and that Glavine is wants to pitch this year no matter what.
Ed Wade says Astros not interested
He’s happy with the Astros current pitching situation
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Jun 3, 2009 8:15 PM CDT up reply actions
Baseball America’s prospect rankings for the 2009 Braves had Gorkys Hernandez as their #4 prospect and Jeff Lock as their #7.
I read mixed thoughts on that.
He has shown little ability to take walks and hasn’t shown any power. So some people think he won’t be more than a Josh Anderson type center fielder. His proponents point out that he is young, and still has time to develop plate discipline and power, which would make him a premium centerfielder. I think the evaluation of Gorky may be the key to whether one thinks the trade is good or bad for the Pirates.
true
I don’t think Gorky’s will develop much plate discipline or power. He might be like Juan Pierre, getting 200 hits but batting only .270 with 4 homers
Big Numbers
I'm surprised...but I don't think it's a bad trade for the Pirates.
I don’t think McLouth has a very high ceiling. This may be a “sell high” move for the Pirates. Even though McLouth won the gold glove in CF last year, he really isn’t a great defender as evidenced by his UZR score. He may end up as a corner outfielder at some point, which will take away from his value. The Braves, on the other hand, are desperate for offense out of their outfield. So, he may help them out.
He also played a shallow CF. He might get a really high zone rating with a different system or a corrected “ultimate” zone rating. That wouldn’t mean he is a good or bad defender. I think Bourn had an extremely high rating last year by one system and an extremely low by another.
ol Pete,
I fail to see how Bourn could be rated extremely low on anyone’s defensive system. With speed like that he can get under just about anything. He works great with slow, limited outfielers (Carlos Lee) as well as speedier types like Pence.
There might be something I’m missing(as it sounds like you know more about defensive schemes then I do) but how could anyone not like Bourns fielding on their team?
"I am from one of the top 15 cities in the world. Buffalo, New York." - TrentEdwardsHoF2018
pete's referring to defensive metrics, not schemes.
So, for instance, UZR had Bourn as a +2.0 defender in CF last season (that is, he saved two more runs across the whole season than an average defensive CF), while McLouth rated a -14.3. This year, Bourn is at a +7.7 pace, while McLouth is at -1.0.
Pete, you’re right in that the metric doesn’t determine if a player is a good or bad defender. It’s simply evidence for a conclusion. I’ve heard the justification that McLouth has such poor numbers because he plays so shallow (he used it in an interview I read), but I don’t totally buy it. He’s probably not as awful as his numbers have suggested throughout his career (he’s doing comparatively well this season, though), but he doesn’t strike me as a good defender.
Your friendly neighborhood Dreamshake mod.
I agree.
I don’t know much about UZR and all that but I do know that it seems like the Stros are playing the Pirates 6 days out of the week most of the time so I’ve seen McLouth play quite a bit and it doesn’t seem to be that great of a defensive player.
"I am from one of the top 15 cities in the world. Buffalo, New York." - TrentEdwardsHoF2018
John Dewan wrote an article about McLouth and his gold glove.
Dewan’s group (which produce the Fielding Bible defensive metric) went back and re-examined the video of every play made by McLouth. McLouth was rated -40 on the Fielding Bible system, making him one of the worst fielding outfielders in baseball. But Dewan wanted to understand why he won a gold glove.
After their review, he said he didn’t consider McLouth the worst outfielder in baseball because he has some redeeming qualities. On the other hand, he has some bad qualities too, which Gold Glove voters may not have seen. Good qualities: excellent at controlling the baserunners from CF; he makes a lot of “good plays” (maybe “wow” plays). Both of these factors probably influenced the GG voters, and they give him some defensive value. Bad qualities: he makes a lot of “mistakes” which are not scored an error (6th worst in misplays among outfielders); and he doesn’t have great speed which causes him to struggle in covering ground in the outfield. An example of “mistakes” is that he was the worst outfielder at playing balls off the wall.
It was a fair article, IMO, because Dewan essentially concluded, “yes, he probably isn’t as bad as our system might indicate;” but on the other hand, he isn’t a great defensive outfielder and Gold Glove voters were probably puttting too much credence in the diving catches and so forth that he makes.
Dewan has a weekly show on WSCR
I got to listen to an extended discussion on the topic. Dewan didn’t come out and say it, but he gave the impression that he had seen almost no actual play of McLouth either live or on video. His +/- system is based on employees watching video and checking off on a variety of boxes. When he say, player X is bad at going back to the wall, it means that employee X has checked a box X number of times. Speaking only for myself, that isn’t a system to put a whole lot of faith in. The list of possible items is fairly long and all require judgement.
I’d like Dewan to explain why he speaks so definitively about so many things, but I don’t think it’ll happen.
The +/- system is different than the categorizing of plays...
in Dewan system. The +/- system is purely based on outs made at various points on the field by all fielders and by the subject player. The main advantage of his system over other range-based metrics (like ZR) is that the spatial grid is broken into smaller rectangles instead of zones. The + / – system is an objective system, so to speak.
Dewan also has a system for categorizing plays as “good plays” or “bad plays.” The bad plays is apparently based on his employees going through video and categorizing misplays into one of 35 or so boxes, each of which is described. (The misplay wall box has a fairly explicit description). This system is subjective to the extent that a human being makes a judgement that a play fits the description of a particular type of misplay. But this system is NOT the same as his + / – system, which is purely range-based. FWIW, Dewan good play /bad play review comes up with a better result for McLouth than his -40 on the + / – system.
right
I put that poorly. I’ve heard the description of the check boxes by Dewan and a bit of discussion by a guy who got employed there. When Dewan was on the air declaring how bad McLouth was, he merely read off a list of his check box score. They aren’t as hard and fast as one would think and require considerable judgement.
FWIW
When he first won the GG, there was a lot of discussion. At first, there were people who said “oh, he’s awful” and when I asked them when he was awful or how he was awful, there usually wasn’t much of a response. I went back and looked prior to the award in the SBN site, the Rotunda forum and Where Have You Gone Andy Van Slyke and there was virtually nothing criticizing McLouth’s defense, but much praising him.
The defensive metrics: I’m not a big fan of them (and I am a fan of Bourn). Last year there was one, IIRC, that had him with an extremely high rating, maybe the best, and another that had a horrible rating for him.
just my personal observation (based on what I've seen)...
McLouth’s speed is sub-par for CF and his range is not likely to hold up for CF. I would compare him to Pence in CF. Pence was just adequate to below-average in CF. Moved to RF, Pence is above average by a good margin.
Initially
I was laughing in disbelief at the Pirates. I doubted they would’ve gotten Hanson or Heyward, but I thought maybe Freddie Freeman as the centrepiece might’ve been possible. Not too sure on Gorkys Hernandez.
But now it doesn’t seem that bad, McLouth really is more of a LF type, his range is pretty bad in center, and the Bucs are planning on putting Andrew McCutcheon in CF sometime soon, so they probably needed to get some value. They still have Tabata too.
I guess it’s a so-so deal for both sides, as long as the Braves can tolerate McLouth’s crappy CF defence. I think they move him to LF once Schafer comes back up.
Remember to retire Fin's number, Mark.
I should temper my view of the trade (for the Pirates) with the negative view at BBTF.
The general view seems to be that the Pirates should have gotten MORE for McLouth. Some people seem to think that #4 and #7 prospect doesn’t mean that much because the Braves’ system isn’t very deep anymore. As comments on the BBTF article indicate, there are arguments on both sides of this question. Interestingly, someone mentioned this as the pardigm of the Pirates’ strategy: acquire former high draft choices early in their career so that you can essentially “draft” high round players without paying the bonuses…while hoping that you hit the lottery with one of them.
sounds like a good strategy while
The athletics trade for major league ready talent or 2-3 years away. Then they trade that for some goo dplayers. it is a succesful strategy beause not many teams are 5-7 years away from contending, more like 2-4.
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