McLouth to Braves Reaction
I attempted to attend today’s game vs the Mets. I got there at 4:59, and there wasn’t an employee in sight. Around 5:25, an employee come to the gates and says that they’re not allowed to open the gates until they hear from Pirates “upper” management. He would return 5 minutes later to inform those of us at the gate that the game would be cancelled.
It’s barely been raining since 7:00. This game could’ve and should’ve been played.
Why the cancellation? Simple. The Pirates attendance for the first time games of this series was 11,000 and 10,000. The attendance tonight would’ve likely been in the 8-9,000 range. The Pirates simply wanted to get this game rescheduled later in June or July, when the kids are out of school, so they can get a big draw. They are getting embarrassed in attendance, and rightly so. Even after last week’s sell out for fireworks, the Pirates are DEAD LAST in attendance in Major League Baseball.
So, I’m at home and I turn on the MLB Network and they are reporting on the Braves acquiring Nate McLouth from the Pirates for three minor leaguers. At first, I was shocked. I looked up the prospects and saw that they weren’t even top prospects. We didn’t get their best prospects. We didn’t get Tommy Hanson or Jason Heyward.
This was a salary dump – which is seemingly the motive behind every trade we’ve done in the past 17 years.
The Pirates signed Nate to a long term deal and hailed him as one of the core players that they were going to build around for the future. What a joke. I can only imagine what the players must be feeling in the clubhouse after hearing about this trade. They probably feel like someone just pulled the carpet out from under them. Maybe they cancelled the game because the players revolted. (I wish).
One possible explanation for the trade could be that the Pirates needed to make room for Andrew McCutchen, who was called up after the trade. Why not trade Nyjer Morgan or Brandon Moss? Why not deal Adam LaRoche and move Moss to first base? I just don’t get it. I wanted to see McCutchen called up eventually, but not like this.
So, the Pirates have basically sealed the deal on another miserable losing season, which will set an all time record for futility. While they’re at it, here’s another trade General Manager Neal Huntington is likely considering:
Freddy Sanchez to the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays offer of Reid Brignac, Tim Beckham and David Price will be turned down by Huntington, who, after scanning the Rays minor leagues sees two players he likes. Sanchez for Henry Wrigley (because he likes his last name), and Joseph Cruz (because he’s 6’4″, so he probably throws hard)
Sanchez has been one of our best hitters. If he gets 635 plate appearances, his contract automatically renews itself next year. Funny that Sanchez has been getting some random off days. Especially last week, the day after going 6 for 6.
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So, what does this trade mean for ballhawking? It means that slightly more batted balls will reach the bleachers in left field. Hopefully McCutchen hits in the last group and hits for power. The trade also likely means less balls in center field. Nate was great and picking out the regular ballhawks and hooking them up during the games. We can only hope that McCutchen will do the same.
I’m mad. I wish I could go to tomorrow’s game with some scathing signs to hold up.
mlblogscountingbaseballs
Wow, thats so interesting about the salary dump b/c when i was in Pitt in 06, thats all we heard from EVERY season ticket holder- the team is only concerned about getting kids to the games, and will spend NO MONEY at all to build a real team/
Oh, and DAVID PRICE! Why would the rays give him up?!
Puck, the Price trade was tongue in cheek, a sarcastic comment to show my disdain for Neal Huntington’s ineptitude as a general manager.
Yeah, i realized that after i posted the comment, and reread the remark again
This wasn’t a salary dump at all. It was a baseball trade, and a completely necessary one at that. The Pirates need more prospects to fill up the holes in our farm system. Nate McLouth himself isn’t going to make this team win, we need 9 good players on the field every day to win, not 2 or 3. How do we achieve that? By trading the value we have now away for more value in the future. Then, in a couple of years, our young guys will all be coming up to the bigs and reaching their potential together, and then we’ll have a real team. As for Tommy Hansen and Jason Heyward, you would be nuts to think McLouth is worth one of those guys. You highly overrate Nate my friend.
Stick to obsessing over worthless batting practice baseballs buddy, you clearly know very little about the Pirates, or baseball, for that matter.
Hey john, the pirates have sucked for 15 yrs. They managment is retarted, b/c after 15 yrs of sucking, you should eventualy develop some prospects and win some games (ex. Tampa Bay) SO it could have been a salary dump because managment showed that they dont give a **** about the team, because the team hasnt done **** in 15 years.
Jonnnnnnnn,
Mature comment. It wreaks of jealousy.
You obviously haven’t been a Pirate fan for very long. Its been 17 years of salary dumps. The Pirates saved 1.5 million this year, and wiped these salaries off the books: ’10:$4.5M, ’11:$6.5M, ’12:$10.65M club option ($1.25M buyout.) You’re nothing more than a Bob Nutting apologist.
Erik,
Please, as a friend of yours, do me a favor and read this article and comments on the trade (http://raisethejollyroger.com/2009/06/nate-mclouth-traded/#comments). Now, I’m not trying to be mean or unreasonable or get under your skin, but as an honest Pirate fan, they made the right move. NH said they would absolutely have to be blown away to trade one of their cornerstones, and they were. Morton has great numbers this year and just dominated his first start in AAA, going like 7 innings scoreless I believe. While I’m not trying to rip on Nate or anything, he was only an above average player. Also, about the salary dump, “This was not a salary dump. The Pirates just signed Nate to a reasonable deal this offseason (which is what bothers me most about this), and they only save about a $1M by getting rid of Nate. Purely a move to improve the team, flawed or not.” Believe it or not, I was mad too when we traded him, but after looking hard at the numbers, well, it looks like we did the right thing. Please don’t take this like I’m ripping on you, or trying to plug my brother’s blog, but I’m just trying to reason things through. Again, please don’t take this the wrong way.
-Evan
I’m not on the Pirates side or against it on this one…
Let’s take a look back at the last year’s trades by the Pirates.
- Last year, on July 26th, the Pirates and Yankees decided to swing a six-player deal, which gave New York Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte. Each of these players were key contributors to the Pirates lineup day in and day out. In return, four minor leaguers: Jose Tabata, Daniel McCutchen, Jeff Karstens and Ross Ohlendorf. (Obviously Karstens and Ohlendorf are on the major league club now.)
- A few days later, the Pirates parted ways with Jason Bay. Bay was a long time contributor in Left Field for Pittsburgh, and is currently pounding the ball for the Red Sox. The Pirates received third baseman Andy LaRoche, outfielder Brandon Moss, and right-handed pitchers Craig Hansen and Bryan Morris. LaRoche, Moss, and Hansen joined the club, but were mainly minor leaguers at the time.
Now as everyone is complaining, we’ve been getting players who compete and play great in this organization, then trade them. Examples are Nady, Bay, Marte, as well as Jason Kendall, Brian Giles, Aramis Ramirez, Jason Schmidt, Kris Benson, Jon Lieber, and now Nate McLouth. (Probably many I missed.)
Of course us as fans of the organization are going to be upset. Of course we’re going to be mad. We want to see the Pirates win. We’re 3 Games under .500! If we wanted to bring up McCutchen so bad, why didn’t we keep McLouth too! Our lineup would vastly improve with both players there. That’s why we’re mad.
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The only thing that I am happy about trading our best players is this: We are getting talent in the minors! Real talent. Sure we wouldn’t get their #1, #2, or even #3 prospect. That’s like us trading Alvarez or McCutchen for a guy like Nate. That doesn’t bother me.
Now since we have gotten Neil Huntington, we have traded the likes of Nady, Bay, and McLouth. That’s our whole starting outfield last year. The positive is the many players we got in return. These 3 players, Moss, Andy Laroche, Ohlendorf, Karstens, etc. etc. etc. These players are and will be Major Leaguer ballplayers soon. These guys will contribute. McCutchen is up now, and he will contribute. Our pitching staff is looking so much better for the next few years now that we have this.
I want to type more but its taking forever.
Some people are completely against this. Some are completely for it. I just don’t know until I see how these players do.
a10mcd,
You couldn’t be more on the spot, although there have been blunders in the past, NH and crew are doing it right now. Andy Laroche is a huge contributor now, and Moss will end up being a solid every day player. I also forgot to mention that when we got these guys, they are basically becoming our top prospects in the system even though we didn’t get their top prospects, that’s how depleted our minors our.
bottomline is, having a couple of good players that perform well and that the fans love just doesn’t win ballgames. What’s the point of having a Jason Bay or Nate McLouth when the club isn’t winning with them?? Regardless of their contributions, no one person can make a team win. The Pirates aren’t making .500 their goal, 82 wins isn’t good enough. We want to be a contender for a world series again, and you do that by building your farm system so you will have a bunch of talent on the major league team coming up at the same time, instead of having 2 standouts and 23 other mediocre players. Anyone who complains about this trade really doesn’t understand what it takes to turn a team like the Pirates around. The Aramis deal and all the other crap Littlefield did was just to save money and was totally worthless in the end, but those days are over, Coonely and Huntington know what they are doing.
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