Unbelievably, Pirates GM Neal Huntington had to write a letter to fans explaining why he traded Nate McLouth after several members of his team threw hissyfits. I haven’t seen a bigger outcry over someone this mediocre since Bob Barker left the Price is Right. The guy just isn’t that good at baseball, and though others made the case before me, I feel it is my duty as the loan Parent’s Basement writer on American soil to set these asshole Pirates’ fans straight.

First of all, he should not be playing center field. He is,without question, a corner guy, as he was downright horrendous defensively last season (I refuse to even address the fact that he won a gold glove, because the annual announcement of the winners of that award may be the single biggest joke in all of professional sports).  In a Gold Glove reaction column last year, Rob Neyer wrote, “According to John Dewan’s Fielding Bible data, McLouth was 40 plays worse than average, dead last among major league outfielders. According to Baseball Prospectus, McLouth was 17 runs — runs, not plays — worse than an average center fielder. According to Bill James’ win shares, McLouth’s outfield defense was 46th-most-valuable in the majors.” I know many people are skeptical of these types of fielding statistics, and it’s true that they’re not perfect, but I can assure that if a guy is rated that poorly across the board, he really, really sucks defensively. There’s really no way around that. He’s a run of the mill corner outfielder who happens to be playing center, mainly because he’s shaped like a guy who should be playing center.

So now that we’ve established that it’s unfair to compare his offensive statistics with guys who actually can play a premium defensive position, he immediately becomes a much less attractive commodity. Even if we take into account his entire 2008 season, a year that started with a two month stint that he may never duplicate, his numbers aren’t exactly otherworldly. He ranked 29th among MLB outfielders with a .356 OBP, 18th with a .497 SLG%, and 22nd with a .853 OPS. His ex-teammate Xavier Nady was better in all three categories, and I don’t think anyone would confuse him for a superstar.

Still, if McLouth could be relied on to put up those numbers year in and year out then yes, he’d be a desirable asset, but it has now been a full year since his 2 month explosion in April and May of ‘08 and he’s looked much more like the average player he was expected to be coming out of the minor leagues. According to Keith Law’s calculations, he’s hit .256/.327/.447 since June 1 of last year. That’s a full season of baseball. If we take those numbers and compare them with 2008 MLB OF’s, they would have put him 44th in OBP just behind Lastings Milledge, tied for 34th in SLG% with Shane Victorino, and 38th in OPS right between Hunter Pence and Corey Hart. The guy is the epitome of an average baseball player, and in my opinion, the Pirates’ only mistake was not trading him earlier.  If his value ever gets higher than it was this past winter, you can make me watch a baseball game with Rick Reilly.

The fact is Huntington did a good job of getting a lot value for a guy who really isn’t that valuable. They got 2 of the top 10 prospects in a loaded Braves’ farm system (Hernandez and Locke are 8 and 10  respectively and B- prospects accoding to John Sickels), along with a third guy who could help them immediately. As Law puts it, “Morton could go right in their rotation, Gorkys is a ++ defender with a chance to hit (he hasn’t been good this year but he’s also 21 in AA), Locke is a high-upside LHP with three pitches who has shown good feel and command in the past. That’s a lot of talent – and difficult-to-get talent, since players up the middle and LHP are hard to acquire in trade or free agency – for a guy who is, what, an average outfielder? Fringe-average?”

I can’t summarize it any better than that. This is a classic case of an overrated ”gritty”, “gutty”, ”hustle-y”, “all heart” white guy getting overrated because he kind of looks like a regular dude, the problem with most of these guys, though, is they also kind of play like a regular dude. So, Pirates fans, listen, I know it sucks that the Somalian Pirates could’ve probably fielded a better baseball team over the last 10 years than you did, but trust me, freaking out about mediocre players being traded for multiple prospects is not helping anyone.