Pitchers Charlie Morton and Jeff Locke along with outfielder Gorkys Hernandez.

Locke is a second-round pick from 2006, but has had control problems this year.

Hernandez is a speed and defense centerfielder. Why do we need someone like this??

And Morton is in Triple A who’s been up before and struggled.

Thought??

Says it’s RHP Charlie Morton, LHP Jeff Locke, and OF Gorkys Hernandez
link

Cutch will be up and starting tomorrow.

IMO, this is not a “blow us away” kind of deal.

WTF?

When I first saw this I thought they’d get someone we’ve ‘heard’ of or whatever you want to call it. Nope. No Tommy Hanson, no Yunel Escobar, no Jair Jurrjens, no Jordan Schafer (not that I want him), no one like this. I thought I read somewhere this was an offer the FO “could not refuse”. I dont see it.

I don’t see this as a big win for the Bucs. Looks more like yet another money saving move. If not Hanson, getting someone like Medlen would have excited me, but not Morton or Locke. Locke has been pounded in four of his last 5 starts. His last start lasted 2 outs and he gave up 7 runs.

Sorry to see you go Nate. You will be missed.

Despite the whining on our board, I really like this deal for both teams. McLouth helps the Braves a lot because our outfield plain sucks, but I figured I’d come over and give a rundown of the guys you got.

Charlie Morton- When he’s on, he’s nasty and has a very nice sinker and some pretty good secondary stuff. Consistency is his biggest problem as he gets that sinker up a little too much and that’s when he gets hit. If you can fix the consistency, he’s got the stuff to be a very solid middle of the rotation starter.

Gorkys Hernandez- When healthy, he can absolutely fly and plays a fantastic center field with a strong arm. Hasn’t really developed the power that some hoped he would and has dealt with some nagging injuries over the past two years, but the talent is there to be a very good leadoff type and centerfielder.

Jeff Locke- One of my favorite prospects. He’s a hard throwing lefty who draws a lot of ground balls and hose control is usually a plus (though its led to his struggles this year). He’s got a very strong curve and a change that has gotten much better (though still below average) since he added it to his repertoire. A long way off with a lot of potential.

I’ve been talking to two of my real good friends who I went to college with and both follow the Braves as close as possible. I will quote them both on their reactions to this trade.

“Good trade for the Braves, great trade for the Bucs.”

They both think getting Locke, Morton, and Hernandez for McLouth is a good haul and will benefit the Pirates in the future. Obviously, in the future is the key.

and which way to the castle?!!!!

I think this is a pretty good return, but we all know Brave pitching prospects tend to fall apart when they reach a new organization. I’ve always liked Gorkys, and Morton should be adequate in the majors. Locke is the wild card, sort of like Bryan Morris from the Bay deal. He’s got the most upside, but it seems a longshot that he’ll ever realize it.

A slap-hitter? Seriously???

Wow is right. I’m shocked.

Bob Smizik says the Pirates are giving up on the present with this deal. Well, duh.

The Nate McClouth bobblehead I picked up during the Rockies game a few weeks ago is making me sad.

and they go and do it again. trade away the best player for some prospects that may or may not pan out. wtf.

heres an idea, lets trade mx talbot from the pens for a 4 round draft pick and money. that makes about as much sense. i would imagine to see snell and doumit otd next.

at least the pens are rockin

Snickels had Locke and Hernandez as B- prospects before the season. Morton apparently met the service time that makes him not a “minor league prospect”.

Baseball America calls him the best pitching New Hampshire prospect since Chris Carpenter

Locke has the ability to be a workhorse in the middle of a major league rotation.

Does this trade make sense? Perhaps.

Also, I would imagine it’s a lot easier to trade Mario, Jack, and Freddy now.

GODFUCKIUNGDAMMIT

Flipped to MLB.com in time to catch some talking head discuss the trade. A solid “good” f/Atlanta, as they need offense and their entire OF is suspect.

What I heard 3 times on the Pirate haul was

“good prospect but….”

…but, raw (i.e., like Nyjer, he doesn’t know where to go)

…but needs polish (i.e., like Moss who is still unpolished like a great 4th outfielder)

…but whatever.

Prospects are like the dirt that surrounds a gold nugget in a stream, you wash a lot of them away to get the one star. I wish we would’ve gotten one player who could come to the team tomorrow and play, like Nate is f/Atlanta.

Chris (or Kris) Medlin is no Hansen, and he could have replaced Snell or Karstens

HOW DO YOU TRADE YOUR BEST PLAYER AND NOT EVEN GET ONE OF THE OTHER TEAMS BEST PROSPECTS?

Morton went 4-8 in 15 starts with the Braves in 2008 with a 6.15 ERA. I guess we need someone to compliment John Van Benschoten….

But he is 25-year-old. So far this year, 7-2 down at Triple-A Gwinnett, 2.51 ERA and 55 strikeouts in 64 2/3 innings pitched. (That’s new, a Pirate pitcher who doesn’t hit the bat every other throw.

Hernandez was batting .316 for the AA Mississippi Braves. 10 stolen bases, 19 RBI in 212.

The other guy is too raw to have any info

Just seems totally unnecessary at this point. A reasonable, long-term contract for a productive player for three lottery tickets. This sucks.

He is 27-year-old and was an All-Star last season w/these stats (all career highs):

.276 average
26 homers
94 RBI

  I hate to admit it, but those numbers are not #1 outfielder numbers. More importantly, right now he’s hitting .256 with nine homers and 34 RBI this season. We had no guarantee that he would catch back on fire and he might settle where he’s at now.

Nate’s a fun guy to watch, and an easy guy to root for. He made watching a lot of losing ballgames more palatable over the last few years. I hope he’s happy and successful in Atlanta.

I’m too shocked to do a good job of analysis right now, but the three players we got back are all significant talents, worth having on the roster.

I just wish Nate wasn’t going to Atlanta. I hate the Braves.

That is a perfect picture choice Charlie. It captures my frustration in Nate form

The Pirates suck at message delivery. They are an organization that has to shape the news that affects them. They also know that news like this will leak and that they have to be prepared to counter the negative spin that comes from a lack of solid information.

They have done a terrible job at message management. And that counts for a lot.

I think we got fair value for Nate. I don’t buy that it was a deal we “couldn’t refuse,” but decent value. I like Nate and he certainly was a very goosd player for us. But, has been pointed out, Nate is an average to slightly above average OF in MLB who just had a career year. Could we have held out and got more, maybe, but a bird in the hand….yadda, yadda, yadda.

First of all, the best player on the Pirates is….Andrew McCutchen. Make no mistake, he has more talent than anyone else. He may not have McLouth’s power, but he will be a better OF than Nate….write it down.

If Ian doesn’t shape up, I think Morton will take his place. Although his final numbers in MLB were ugly last year he apparently had some back issues. During the offseason he dropped weight, got in better shape and has no such issues this year. He put up solid AAA numbers last year and is doing so again this year. Since he doesn’t have much MLB service time, we control him for 5 1/2 years.

Locke is another bitg upside guy who could turn out to be a complete bust. Neil seems to be collecting these guys in hopes he gets one or two that do reach that star potential. It’s a risk, but it is the kind of risk a franchise like the Pirates have to take.

Hernandez is probably more insurance than anything else. McCutchen, Tabata, Moss, Young and hernandez is a pretty nice collection of young OFs. It’s true none of them have developed great power, but it’s a much better foundation of OFs than we have had since the days of Bonds, Bonilla and Van Slyke.

So, although I will miss Nate and I wish him well, I’m excited to see what McCutchen can do with his opportunity and I will be very interested to see what else we add when guys like Adam, Jack, John G, NyjMo and possibly Freddy are all traded.

So, I’m going to withold my final judgement on Neil, Frank and the gang until I see how things start to shake out.

Intended toward anyone on this board, but the respected opinions that I am waiting for are WTM, Charlie, and Vlad.

Everyone’s initial reaction can be discarded, because of the shock, if you can call it that, of the trade. Remeber, it is considered a landslide in a political election of if 2 go one way and one the other (66.67% vs. 33.3%), so one out of three will be upset in the best of cases.

Personally, I trust the decision made by Huntington.

This deal does have the nice side effect of making room for McCutchen while avoiding a playing time logjam in the outfield, but neither Nyjer Morgan nor Brandon Moss are worth restructuring your franchise for; not even close.

This has been another episode of “What Charlie Said.”

I would have thought McLouth was worth more than someone who “could be a leadoff hitter with a good OBP and some power who makes himself an above-average player by virtue of outstanding defense” (from Keith Law’s Top 100 prospects list) and a couple of pitchers with obvious questions marks. They probably couldn’t have gotten much more out of the Braves, but I do wonder what other clubs they fielded offers from.

Im trading my anger for 3 whiskey Gingers. Evan williams is kind of crappy but it’s a decent whiskey at a price my organization can afford. Hopefully one of them can contribute in the future, but I wasn’t going to stay sober anyway so whats the point of focusing on expensive booze now? The streak continues

We should Trade Russel to Colorado for prospects. They need a manager and think of how excited he’ll be when he wakes up (he’s asleep no doubt) and finds out that he gets to shuffle seth smith, fowler, hawpe and spillbourghs in the OF and Barmes, stewart, atkins, helton in the INF. AND he can go back and forth between torrealba and Ianetta. Its perfect. He can use the thin air as an excuse to rest the good players even more

Nothing personal to Chi-town, but what is this cocktails stuff?

Sounds like a namby-pamby, panty-waisted, pinky-finger out New York drink…

Are we not steelworkers and coal miners and lumberjacks and stuff?

How about the money issue? To the extent the Pirates were balking at Sano, I imagine having Nate off the books would free up some money.

I know that it was possible for the Pirates to sign Sano anyway, but I have to think that these prospects are cost-controlled for many years. I would think this move makes it easier to sign him and maybe even spend lavishly if a guy like Ackley falls to us.

The majority of my friends, who are casual baseball fans, are disgusted. They think this is a salary dump. One of them said that if we had kept Bay and Nady, we’d be above .500. It’s unfortunate Neal and Coonelly inherited such a bad situation.

….trading McLouth “may be the toughest decision we have made in my time with the organization.”

“When we signed Nate to a long-term contract, we did so with the intent on having him remain part of our core of homegrown talent. But the quality and quantity of talent we are receiving in this trade moves us closer to our goal of building that sustainable championship-caliber club.”

I guess the sustainable part is giving us some pitching when our other talent moves on.

I think this may have been the best trade Huntington has made. The return for, in my opinion, an above-average ML outfielder, is awesome.

I have to say that I’m not the least bit crazy about this trade from the Pirates perspective.

 BA has a tendency to spend too much love on guys like Hernandez. Hernandez has improved as a player overall, but his skills aren’t anywhere near the level they need to be at to make up for the completely lack of power development. He’s going to be 22 in a few months. Sure, his 316/361/387 is decent at a glance, but it’s also a .402 BABIP, which is completely unsustainable for anyone and you’re probably looking at a realistic translation a tad about the .600 OPS range. Of course, you don’t just throw away a player like Hernandez, but the odds of him being a productive major leaguer are fairly long.

Locke has a good fastball, but he’s not super-young and having some problems with his command in the Carolina League. Morton still has promise, but he can’t keep the ball down against strong competition and is apparently a little on the headstrong side. Babe Ruth can dangle his manager out the back of a moving train but a guy with a 6.15 ERA in the majors has to be a little more amenable to the coaching staff.

Is McLouth a star? No, but the contract situation does make him pretty valuable. Essentially, you’re selling, conservatively, about 8 wins above replacement for the next 2 2/3 years for about $13 million. They’re giving the Braves this production for less than half what it would cost Atlanta on the FA market, so to not get any guys the Braves can reasonably expect to miss is an error.

We actually have a pitching coach. Remember, many of our losing years we had “Spin” Williams, who was Minor League Pitching Coach of the Year in like, 1983 or so. Then we had whoever for the last two years.

The guy we have now was a key part of the great Braves pitching staffs. If he doesn’t kill himself out of despair, he could have a big influence on the two guys we got.

In for a penny in for a pound.

Only way for the PBC to get better is to get more prospects. Unless you wanna settle for 82 wins as a goal.

Teams won’t give up prospects except for ML talent. And they won’t give up their top prospects for anybody (in the last couple years). It’s the “why can’t Huntington get Phil Hughes for Xavier Nady” stuff? Those days are gone — Atlanta maybe killed them by trading for Mark Teixeira in 2007. Essentially Atlanta gave up 3-4 super prospects for Casey Kotchman.

Once you start trading Bay and Nady and Marte, you gotta keep going. That means you Freddy Sanchez, you Adam LaRoche and you Jack Wilson. Everyone on this site has admitted that, but some hoped that McLouth could hang on until 2012+ teams.

And he could have. But that doesn’t mean that Huntington shouldn’t pick up the phone when some GM calls. Just the opposite — no one is untouchable on the PBC.

Did Huntington get “full value”? You will only know in hindsight. McLouth or any of these 3 guys could be out of baseball tomorrow. If Nate McLouth is a real “all star” maybe he should have drawn more in trade. If Keith Law is right about McLouth, a bag of balls is a fair trade. The truth is somewhere in the middle (as it so often is).

So I applaud Huntington for letting the PBC players and fans know he means what he says. I hope he got full value.

Bottom line for me — it’s a more exciting team to watch because of these changes. Thank you Charlie for your public service in running this monkey house.

I’m sure we’ll all wake up tomorrow saying, “…and then I had my fifth beer, and I had this horrible nightmare that the Pirates traded Nate McLouth for some prospects.” Thank god I’m awake now…..OR AM I???

Nyj
Cutch
Fred
Adam
Andy
Moss
JJ
Jack

McCutchen hit second or lead off?

go up on Nate’s new team 3-2 in the 11th.

to add this comment from Chop Talk, the Braves, Sports Nation website

Amen Brother, these are prospects that we traded away with the exception of Morton. This is a huge steal we just raped the pirates.

Now I need to go get that next beer

Hey Mr. Nutting, F$%^ YOU, I will never spend another red cent to fatten your pockets ever again. I"m done with this franchise…As long as your the owner…..

(remember, I’m on my fourth or fifth beer – only my frau is counting)

Tom Krasovic of the San Diego Union-Tribune had an article yesterday [12/13/08] involving a couple of failed Padres trades. Krasovic says the Padres and Braves were discussing a 4-for-1 Jake Peavy deal in November. Yunel Escobar and Gorkys Hernadez were agreed upon. The conflict came as the Padres wanted Charlie Morton over Jo-Jo Reyes as well as Jeff Locke or Tyler Flowers over Blaine Boyer. To me that gap looks pretty sizeable, so maybe the trade was never close.

Now Escobar ain’t chopped liver. But PBC got 3 of 4 guys Padres wanted for Jake “Cy Young” Peavey for Nate “PBC’s got to have an all star representative” McLouth, including 2 prospects Atlanta refused to give up for Peavey.

Any new PIrates ne—HOLY CRAP WE TRADED MCLOUTH!

Welp… after my initial shock and disappointment, I came to terms with it and now, to be quite honest, I like this more and more.

By the way, sorry I had to disappear for a while, I had some other crap going on in my life, and had to put some stuff on hold, including following the Buccos. Missed ya, Cocktails…

as long and painful as the rest of the season will be…

are back at Wrigley Aug 14-16.

Maybe my custom-made iROMULO! jersey will arrive by then.

im certainly glad i registered here.as always this site actually is knowledgable and somehow made me not that angry bout the trade ha. Slipped back to my casual we need to win this year mindset. much obliged. i love the actual rebuilding and not the DL crap. we have no depth in the minors and so far ive had nothing bad to say about the NH trades as theyve turned out great

at this point my biggest irritation is having to use an on-screen keyboard since mine is broken

Let’s move discussion to the new thread, please.