“Wow,” second baseman Freddy Sanchez said Thursday of the trade, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I think the biggest thing was the shock factor. It’s obviously a tough pill to swallow. Our No. 3 hitter just got taken away, the guy who leads our team in home runs and RBIs, and we were 6½ games out. We could still have been right there. I think we still can. But we’re all just kind of wondering right now … wondering what it is.”

“There ain’t a guy in here who ain’t [ticked] off about it,” said first baseman Adam LaRoche, according to the report. “It’s kind of like being with your platoon in a battle, and guys keep dropping around you. You keep hanging on, hanging on, and you’ve got to figure: How much longer till you sink?

“It’s fine. Heck with it. We’re not the GM. We don’t run the team. If they feel like it’s the best move for three or four years from now, great,” LaRoche said, according to the report. “Unfortunately, that does me no good. I’ve still got to be in here telling guys it’s going to be fine with Nate gone. Well, you can only do that for so long until guys just kind of … well, they know.”

From an AP story….

Here’s my problem with the Pirates – they’ve now traded three impact OF bats without getting a single impact player in return.

McLouth is not a superstar, but he was part of the most productive OF in MLB for much of last year, he was the team’s All-Star rep last year, he won a Gold Glove and he was currently the 3-hole hitter.

And all you get for that is three “maybe” players? Contact/speed guys are a dime-a-dozen, especially ones who strike out too much, and neither pitcher projects better than a 4th starter.

Plus, McLouth was signed for a very reasonable $5 million a year contract – why dump his salary when you’ll have Jack Wilson, Adam LaRoche and possibly Freddy Sanchez off the books next year? That’s nearly $20 million, off the top of my head.

If there wasn’t a better deal than this one out there right now, what harm would there be in waiting until July?

Worst case – you “have to” keep your 3-hole hitter who has a pretty manageable contract…

I just don’t get it. Depth is nice but quality needs to be a priority over quantity…

It would have been great to get Jason Heyward, but the Braves are not going to trade him for McClouth and the Pirates organization is longer in power bats, shorter on speed and pitching which is what they got for McLouth.

Gorkys Hernandez is not the stiff you paint him to be. He may not turn out to be the next Kenny Lofton–as some have opined–but he has a pretty significant upside. He has huge speed, and hits and gets on base well enough to stick as more than a fourth outfielder.

Locke was rated ahead of Hanson a year ago and he is a lefty so who knows? As the third part of this deal he is a reasonable throw in. Maybe something clicks for him, maybe the Pirates have scouted him and think they can do something with him.

It seems to me that Morton is the key. His numbers in Triple-A are better than respectable and in an organization as thin in pitching as the Pirates, taking a chance on Morton and Locke makes sense. The Pirates got three pieces that fit within their organizational needs. It does not make them into contenders, but I don’t believe Nate McLouth can command that kind of talent.

The return was a little underwhelming, but better than Big League Chew and a bucket of baseballs.