McLouth refused to play a corner?

by ElDuce on Sep 15, 2009 12:20 AM EDT

Rob Biertempfel throws out this update on Twitter:

Mientkiewicz says "writing was on the wall" for McLouth trade after Nate refused mgmt's orders to move to LF or RF

I'm not sure how exactly a situation would have played out had they just stuck him out there, but Mientkiewicz seems to indicate that Nate was not at all receptive to moving away from center. Hopefully there's some more info than just that quote out there, as I wonder what the whole situation was. In any case, this probably answers some of the question about why the Pirates couldn't have kept McLouth and called up McCutchen.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.

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reminds me

of michael young throwing a fit this year when the rangers moved him to 3rd. Players with good seasons under their belt don’t take to well to their team telling them a younger player might be better than them at anything. It’s a shame, our team would definitiely be better with nate in left and millidge in right, but then morgan wouldn’t have been able to prove himself to get traded for millidge.

I’m all for selling guys at their high point and getting young guys for the future under team control. But when I read Charlie & Pats articles about how valuable Nyjmo was according to the defense metrics, i thought, nate would have probably put up similar metrics in left as morgan.

by Danatural08 on Sep 15, 2009 8:57 AM EDT reply actions

Another example would be when Soriano freaked out because the Nationals told him he was moving off of second base. Looking at those two, though, maybe forcing Nate to do it would be the right move. Soriano responded by hitting a career best 46 homers that year, and Michael Young is having one of his best seasons at age 32 now. I’m sure it’s not really related, but it’s an interesting coincidence.

by ElDuce on Sep 15, 2009 1:42 PM EDT up reply actions

Nate's defense

Actually, McLouth’s defense rates significantly worse than Morgan’s in center (his UZR is better this year than last year, but it’s still not very good) so it presumably wouldn’t be nearly as good at a corner spot, either.