McReturn?

The newest Pirates headline on MLB Trade Rumors reads "Pirates Interested In McLouth". Woah.

I have to attack this one from two perspectives. We'll start with the logical one.

Nate McLouth is not a good baseball player anymore. Sure, he's had some injuries since being traded to Atlanta, but that's no excuse for him hitting .229/.335/.364 in his 250 games with them. The guy has been atrocious at the plate since leaving Pittsburgh, and he was never a very great defender either (despite that mind-blowing gold glove he won). And here's a newsflash - he was never that great as a Pirate either. He had a crazy good first half of the 2008 season which made him look like one of the best players in the game, but he struggled the second half of that year and was playing average before the trade in 2009. If the Pirates sign him, they aren't going to see anything like the first-half 2008 player. That said, McLouth wouldn't be asked for much from the Pirates, he would be a bench outfielder behind Tabata-McCutchen-Presley and a very good pinch running option. As a bench player, he probably wouldn't hurt the team, although he's a great candidate to repeat the successes of Matt Diaz from last year. The price tag determines if he'll be a good sign as a bench player, and my guess is that he won't come cheap enough to justify it.

Now we'll go to the other side. The reason I named this blog The "Mc" Effect was because of McLouth and Andrew McCutchen. They were my easily my two favorite players in the organization at the time (January of 2009), and it was bittersweet to see McLouth traded to make room for McCutchen. Bringing him back would bring back some good old memories, be an interesting side story, and would add another "Mc" to the team, so there are definitely positives to this.

Like I said, the price tag is going to determine if this is a good move or not. McLouth isn't a player that is going to add a bunch of wins to the team by himself, especially since he'll be a bench player. If he plays better than he has the last few years, he could be a valuable asset coming off the bench, but I don't really see that happening.

For right now, I have no mcstance on this.