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Sunday, July 25, 2010

GET NATE MCLOUTH OUT OF A BRAVES UNIFORM!

I'm sitting here eating what is left of yesterday chinese takeout, still fuming that the man people are calling McL-out, McLousy, and pretty much any other name that hasn't been taken by the cast of Grey's Anatomy. The big question here is, why is Nate McLouth still in a Braves Uniform, or any big league uniform for that matter? I love Bobby Cox, as I have been a Braves fan from the moment I watched my first baseball game (thank you TBS), but one of his greatest strengths as a manager is hindering this ball club right now. Is there such a thing as too much patience? The clear answer is yes, if your name is Greg Nor.......I mean Nate McLouth. The problem in my opinion is that Bobby has had talented players turn things around in the second half (AKA LaRoche and etc.) and assumes that this can be done again. But Nate McLouth will not turn this around enough to add any sort of value to this club as opposed to another center fielder. Why? Because he was never really that great. Lets look at some numbers: .276 is the highest batting average Nate has ever hit for in his six years in the major leagues, and also as a side note, other than that season he has never hit over .258! Some will try to say that he makes this up with his defense, which won him a gold glove award in 2008. Well hate to break it to you folks, but his UZR here in his time in Atlanta is -5.6, and in case you don't know, thats not good. A career OBP of .336 is respectable I will admit, but is it worth 6.5 million dollars? You know who has a better OBP for a fraction of the money? "Paging Gregor Blanco. Is Gregor Blanco in the Building?" Yes Gregor and his career .361 OBP (as well as a .368 OBP in the minors if your issue is sample size) are looking pretty good right now to braves fans. This covers pretty much every skill that Nate has except for one, his cough cough power. Nate has averaged about 19 HR/162 Games in his career. Hardly irreplaceable wouldn't you say? My solution is a simple one, let Gregor play out the rest of the season in center and see what you could get for Nate, which could still be a mid to upper level prospect in the mold of a Josh Vitters (3rd baseman for the cubs organization) or something similar. Which I know is asking a lot but hey some teams are desperate, and tend to make irrational moves at the deadline which is looming. But I am telling you right now, if I have to watch Nate ground into a double play with the bases loaded in a tie game one more time, in the eighth inning no less, I might not be able to hold in my orange chicken.

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