Finally a Trade Worth Talking About

The Pirates traded Nate McLouth to the Braves for OF Gorkys Hernandez, starter Jeff Locke, and starter Charlie Morton.

At first glance it seems like a bad trade for the Pirates, you'd expect them to get back a more can't miss prospect. Nate McLouth is a good player, but he's not really a great player. Last year in his breakout year, and the only real year where he was anything really, McLouth was worth 3.6 wins, which was 11th for CFs. And this year? He's 11th again. He's 27 and entering his prime on a cheap contract (3 years/$15.75m), but we shouldn't confuse Nate McLouth with Mark Teixeira.

So if the Pirates didn't get a 'can't miss' then what did they get? Eh not that much. Gorkys Hernandez was acquired by the Braves in their heist from the Tigers when they traded Edgar Renteria for Hernandez and Jair Jurjjens. BA ranked him 62nd this year, and as the Braves 4th best prospect. He's young (21) and fast (54 sbs in 2007). Lefty starter Jeff Locke was the 7th rated prospect on the Braves by BA. He's 21 and has talent, but you don't necessarily like to see a 21 year old struggle in high-A ball.

At first glance it didn't seem like a great trade for the Pirates, and after 2nd glance it still doesn't seem like a great trade, sorry Pirates fans. I really wanted to make it seem like a good move by the Pirates, but it's really hard to do that, I tried to above and it's not really believable. Like I said, McLouth isn't Mark Teixeira, but he's not Xavier Nady either (he's better, younger, cheaper, and signed for long), and they got a better prospect (Tabata) for Nady than they did for McLouth.

Great trade for the Braves though. They trade 2 guys that likely won't help the team until at the earliest 2010 and get an allstar signed for cheap until 2011. Their outfield has done terribly, you don't need stats to tell you that when you hear Garrett Anderson has been their best hitter out there.

The Pirates may have wanted to make space for Andrew McCutchen, but they could have just moved McLouth to right and brought up McCutchen without actually trading McLouth. The Pirates aren't going to be compeitive this year, next year, or maybe even the year after that. They would have plenty of time to wait to trade McLouth for the right deal. Maybe they feel this is the right deal, but I find that hard to believe as it would surprise nobody if both Hernandez and Locke don't amount to anything. Plus, couldn't something cool have been done with two MCs out there? The Pirates really missed the boat on that one.

UPDATE: I misread the rankings, and Gorkys is rated above Tabata, but my point remains the same. The Pirates got 3 young pitchers and a solid OF prospect for Xavier Nady (and Marte) who is far worse than McLouth, so you'd still expect a bigger return.