Worth the wait: Inside the McLouth breakout

Links (9)

Nate McLouth Joins the Conga Line
Published 5/6/2008 by Charlie at Bucs Dugout: Front Page Posts
... The Post-Gazette's story on Nate McLouth is a very nice article that's often almost touching, and McLouth's breakout has been great to watch, but seeing Dave Littlefield be proven wrong over and over and over is getting a bit exhausting, isn't it? This happens with near-mathematical certainty -- every year, at least one player Littlefield passed over, traded for nothing or hid away makes a big splash. It's as certain as another Chris Snelling injury, or an Elijah Dukes arrest, or a losing season in Baltimore. In ...

Post-Gazette: Inside the McLouth breakout
Published 5/6/2008 at BBTF's Baseball Primer Newsblog
Post-Gazette: Inside the McLouth breakout Warning! Zoonosis outbreak expected! Nyjer Morgan, a September call-up, quickly captivated Tracy by making highlight-reel catches in center. Tracy not only benched McLouth but also wondered publicly how much better the Pirates might have been all season if Morgan had been promoted sooner. McLouth, never one to complain publicly, did seek counsel back home. “It wasn’t easy for him, and we talked about it,” Rick McLouth said. “We were all pulling for Nyjer, and we still do. But for Nate to go right back to the bench there just didn’t seem fair. It made him wonder what he had to do.” The ...

Nate McLouth is awesome
Published 5/6/2008 by Pat at Where have you gone, Andy Van Slyke?
Good read in the PG today about Nate McLouth's early breakout this year. I particularly enjoyed this passage about Nate as a four year-old playing wiffleball with his dad: "Nate would take pitches," the elder McLouth said. "Honestly, if he didn't like what I threw, he wouldn't even budge." This might best explain why nobody, not Nate McLouth's family, not his high school coach, not any of his professional instructors, including those currently with the Pirates, can lay claim to that patient, sweet-swinging style that has made him one of the more compelling story lines early in this Major ...

A Public Service Annoucement
Published 5/6/2008 by Andrew at True Blue LA: Front Page Posts
Since I’m seeing this thrown around a lot, no we can’t send Andruw Jones back to AAA even though he never used up his option years. Once a player has more than three years of service time, he can refuse any assignment.   Congrats to Blake DeWitt for his first career ...

Nate McLouth Is a Patient Hitter, Fussy Eater
Published 5/6/2008 by Rob Iracane at Walkoff Walk
Pat over at Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? links us to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette profile of Pirates center fielder Nate McLouth. In case you haven't been paying attention (and why would you? The Pirates stink) McLouth is having a pretty darn good start to his season, leading all major league center fielders in OPS and tater tots. Most importantly, he's being patient at the plate, a quality he's embodied since playing wiffle ball with his paw at the age of four:    "Nate would take pitches," the elder McLouth said. "Honestly, if he didn't like what I threw, he wouldn't ...

THT Live:Who is Nate McLouth?
Published 5/7/2008 by Dave Studeman at The Hardball Times
Who is Nate McLouth? by Dave Studeman May 07, 2008 A fine article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the player with the most surprising hot start. Dave is the manager of the Baseball Graphs website. and a regular contributor to Heater , a PDF fantasy magazine for the digital age. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail. Do you have a general question or comment for one of THT's writers? Send it in to our weekly mailbag We also welcome unsolicited op-ed pieces of approximately 500 words for consideration. We reserve the right to edit for length, ...

In the News (5/7)
Published 5/8/2008 by Jared (noreply@blogger.com) at Right Field Bleachers
Today's Game: Marlins 6, Brewers 2 Record: 16-17, fourth Games Behind Cubs: 2.5 And the Brewers are under .500, but hey, at least they scored... And the Cardinals and Cubs lost too... - A Marlin rookie making his sixth ...

The Hardball Times:White hot and ice cold
Published 5/12/2008 by Sal Baxamusa at The Hardball Times
White hot and ice cold by Sal Baxamusa May 12, 2008 Remember when Chris Shelton hit 10 home runs a few Aprils ago? The slugger-in-waiting had missed a bunch of development time after being plucked away from the Pirates in the 2004 Rule 5 draft, and his white hot April 2006 (.326/.404/.783) was hailed as a sign that Shelton had finally arrived. At the time, nobody thought that he would keep up that kind of performance, but there was a lot of chatter that the up-and-coming Tigers had struck gold and found a slugging firstbaseman they could rely on for the next few years. It didn't last, of course. We have a natural tendency ...

OK, who's the next McLouth?
Published 23 days ago by Andy Behrens at Roto Arcade
You might recall that at the beginning of this season, the mainstream sports press "discovered" Nate McLouth. As if he'd only recently strolled out of the cornfield. But if you were involved in a competitive fantasy league last year, McLouth was already well-known. The guy hit 12 home runs and stole 16 bases after the break. Such things do not go unnoticed...except by the Pirates themselves, who sat him in September. So today's question is this: Who's the next McLouth? That is, who's having a breakout season right now, yet not getting much attention outside the fantasy community, ...