Trading The Pirates' Nady, McLouth, and Bay: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

A year ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates, of all teams, had the offensively most productive outfield in Major League Baseball. Now all that's gone with the trades of Nady, Bay and McLouth, deals of varying quality. Could anything good have come of trading such people? Surprisingly yes, although the deals went too far.

The Good:

That was the trade of Xavier Nady (along with Damasco Marte) to the Yankees for two badly-needed starters, plus pitching and fielding prospects. And Nady was the least valuable of three outfielders.

Marte was an elite reliever. As such, he was worth about one average starter, say Ohlendorf. (Starters are more valuable than relievers of equivalent quality because they pitch more innings.)

This means that the consideration for Nady, an above average hitter, was an average pitcher (Karstens), plus two prospects; Dan McCutcheon the pitcher, and Jose Tabata the hitter. Taken alone, Nady for Karstens would be a downtrade, but the prospects make up the difference. If only McCutcheon worked out, the trade would be even; if Tabata lived up to expectations, with or without McCutcheon, the deal would favor the Pirates. But note that the Buccos were getting an established player (although inferior to Nady) up front; meaning that the "risk" portion of the trade was represented by only one prospect.

Karstens and Ohlendorf between them, are likely to lose three or so fewer games than Gorzelanny, Morris, Dumatrait, and Van Benschoten from last year. That's not much less than Nady's incremental value.

The Bad:

That was the trade of Nate McLouth to Atlanta for three prospects, two pitchers, and one hitter.

Like the trade of Nady, the trade of McLouth for better pitching would have made sense; a "surplus" outfielder for starting pitching that we still needed. "Starting pitching" in this context does not mean Charlie Morton or Jeff Locke, or even both of them put together with Gorkys Hernandez thrown in.

San Francisco has floated the possibility of trading Matt Cain for some additional hitting. A McLouth for Cain trade of two elite established players in their respective "fields" would have been reminiscent of the Pirates' 1974 trade of Mattie Alou for Nelson Briles. That's to say that it would have been perfectly understandable to this fan, and others.

Conversely, Atlanta had discussed trading the three prospects to San Diego for Jake Peavy. In the event that Peavy (who has a no-trade clause in his contract) declined to be traded to Atlanta, but was willing to go to Pittsburgh, it could have been a three way trade of Peavy to Pittsburgh, McLouth to Atlanta, and the prospects to San Diego. That would have been saddening, but understandable, also.

In either of these events, we would have had a bona fide top of the rotation starter, two "middle of the rotation" types in Duke and Maholm, and plenty of candidates for the back end.

The Ugly:

If trading McLouth was bad, trading Jason Bay was awful. That's not just because of what (little) we got for him; two above-average advanced fielding prospects, one busted pitching prospect, and one raw pitching prospect, for one elite established player.

Bay was more than just elite, he was the heart and soul of the team, the face of the Pirates. He was to the Buccos what Derek Jeter is to the New York Yankees, Chase Utely to the Philadelphia Phillies, Albert Pujols to the St. Louis Cardinals, or Evan Longoria to the Tampa Bay Rays.

In short, he was the one Pirate player that was the equivalent of the other stars. That kind of player is called a foundation player, the one you build a team around.

Suppose you were building a house, and the contractor quoted you $150,000. Fine, you say. Then the contractor comes back and whispers, "But I can bring it in for $125,000 if you let me skimp on the foundation." No deal. You might want to sue the contractor for malpractice.

The trade of Bay essentially gutted the Pirates' foundation. Now the team has little "glue" to hold it together, and is likely to become less than the sum of the individual parts. Without Bay, or someone like him, there's not much point in having a Pirates team.

Warren Buffett, the master investor opined that no CEO would ever sell the company's crown jewel, regardless of price, unless, of course he planned to go out of business. Bay should not have been traded even for two elite players, say Cain AND Peavy (in a three way trade).

And Bay showed a strong inclination to stay in Pittsburgh, including great flexibility in salary negotiations. He could have retired with the Pirates, and been to the turn of the century team what Willie Stargell and Ralph Kiner were in earlier eras, and he probably wanted that role.

Win or lose, Bay was a player to remember for the ages; a left fielder like him comes about once every 30 years on average, so wait till the early 2030s for the next one.

Management has shown mixed judgment regarding its players. Of the three recent trades, that of Nady-Marte was fine; of McLouth, highly questionable, and of Bay, just hugely ugly.