Nate McLouth - Stud or Shelton?

Stud or Shelton? is a look at some players outperforming expectations. It's a way of assessing whether the player in question can be expected to continue his hot pace, or whether he'll turn into Chris Shelton. (For those with short memories, Shelton was the Detroit Tigers player who hit 9 HR in the first 13 games of the season, making everyone salivate and proclaim him the next Babe Ruth. By July, he was back in Triple-A and is now back in the farm system ... of the Texas Rangers.)

Everyone is such a negative Nelly these days, wondering why supposed studs like David Ortiz, Prince Fielder and Andruw Jones are doing so poorly. And honestly speaking, we take care of a lot of that in our Slump or Suck section.

So, let's take a look at someone having a good start to the season instead.

For instance, Pirates outfielder Nate McLouth. Here's a guy who didn't win the starting centerfield job until the end of Spring Training, and probably wasn't drafted in many mixed fantasy leagues despite being pimped by more than a few fantasy pundits.

So far those folks (a group that did not include myself) are feeling pretty sharp: McLouth is a top-10 fantasy player overall, batting a crisp .382 (with a .453 OBP), knocking in 16 RBI in his first 19 games, and scoring the same amount of runs. This follows his 2007 season, where in just 329 at bats, he hit 13 HR and stole 22 bases.

So, is it a sign of things to come? Certainly, I haven't found anyone who thinks McLouth is going to stay a top-10 player all season. But will he be good enough all year long to warrant a starting spot in your outfield?I admit, I started off writing this article with the assumption that it would be easy to stick a pin in McLouth. He's just not someone I really think much about, and I guess I didn't want to believe. But, his crazy start has me convinced that he has a reasonable amount of value. That being said, his owners should have more moderate expectations.

McLouth is currently white hot – his stats to date project out to about 135 RBI and 135 runs scored. I think we can all safely assume he's not going to get near those numbers. But tailing off considerably? That would still leave him with 90-95 of each category. Add 20-25 HR and (though he's currently lagging in his main asset, speed) at least that many stolen bases, and it's hard to think he doesn't have a good chance of providing some real value to your team. In high school, college and the minors, McLouth stole a ton of bases, including those 22 for the Pirates last year in essentially half a seasons worth of at bats. So, he has that going for him. Which is nice.

One caveat – and it could be a big one, depending on who else you have on your team.

McLouth has never shown the ability to hit pitching like this in his prior, brief major league career. He's batting over 100 points above his career .261 average. Right now, folks playing McLouth are benefiting from his batting average. If he reverted to his career average right now, he'd end up batting about .275 for the season, certainly nothing to brag about. In fact, it's barely holding water. A player who hits .275 (okay, let's give him .290 to be generous), 25 HR and 90 RBI is useful, especially if he adds 25 SB. He's solid in every capacity – but above average only really in the speed category. That's the one thing to be aware of if you are courting ole Nathan Richard McLouth.

On the other hand, it's a pretty reasonable assumption that barring injury, there's no reason to expect McLouth to simply fall off a cliff with his production, though it will obviously ebb from his current pace. He is bound to start running soon enough, and that's definitely enough to make him fantasy worthy.

Owners certainly don't need to worry about McLouth turning into the aforementioned Chris Shelton, but they also need to keep their expectations in check.