My Official Stance on the Nate McLouth Trade

It was almost like a dream last night. I logged onto Facebook and saw one of my friends posting something about the Pirates trading Nate McLouth. I quickly went to my source for news and comments on the Pirates and within 2 hours, the message board topic was 10 pages long and growing ever so quickly. I never expected to be reading news like this...at least not at this point in time.

This morning, it has sunk in that Nate McLouth, the new face of the franchise, is gone. An autographed baseball, an All-Star Bobblehead, autographed bat, and signed painting. All will now be collectors items of one of the core players signed to a long term contract earlier this year. Will Paul Maholm and Ryan Doumit face a similar fate?

While I'm disappointed that McLouth is gone, I have to agree with a lot of comments I've read. He is not, and should not, be the type of player you build a team around. Pedro Alvarez is (hopefully). Nate McLouth, while very good, is at best a complimentary piece to a successful club.

This very well could be the final straw though for fans. They are sick of seeing the same thing happen over and over again. Good players traded for unproved prospects. I really believe that attendance will take a serious blow from this, in the long term.

Fans will be excited to see Andrew McCutchen get his first MLB start today. I hope, for his sake and the sake of the front office, that he does well today. I will be there and I hope to have pictures to post on here later tonight. Once the initial excitment of McCutchen wears off, the attendance will drop off and anger will grow. Unless, of course, the Buccos win. In which case, this will be viewed by the casual fan as a good thing.

As was said last year so many times...only time will tell.

I'll be at the game, sitting in 138. As with Jason Bay, I hope Nate tears it up in ATL, unless they are playing the Pirates of course.

Lets Go Bucs. Lets Go McCutch.