Power Pros Forum

I agree Speed over Power foo!

pierre is a career .300 hitter w/ superior speed (capable of 60-70 SB's every summer), doesn't strikeout very often, puts the ball in play and in general makes things happen at the top of the lineup for the big boppers to drive in runs. seemingly harmless groundouts always have the potential to turn into infield singles and BBs/singles can easily be equivalent to a double with this guy causing ruckus on the basepaths. obviously pierre doesn't hit cleanup or for power just as no one expects manny to bat leadoff or steal any bases. granted he wasn't blessed with a great arm but covers alot of ground in center. useless skillset? hardly. any lineup would benefit with this guy leading off

*sigh* Figures...

(1) Batting average: useless stat. How about the fact Pierre has a .039 isoOBP (OBP-BA) over the past three seasons? That is absolutely embarrassing for a player who is supposed to be a prototypical (HA!) leadoff hitter. Or what about his isoSLG (SLG-BA) of .070, which is even more of an embarrassment. Only four players in baseball with over 1000 PAs since 2006 have been as futile as Pierre in terms of production -- David Eckstin, Willy Taveras, Jason Kendall and Luis Castillo. And those players? At least they have an isoOBP in the neighborhood of .060, a number Pierre isn't even close to. So, for the non-stat heads out there, what does this all mean? Well, isoOBP and isoSLG are batting average independent stats. Over the course of a player's career, these numbers are going to stay consistent, regardless of what a player's actual BA may be. Therefore, even if Pierre's batting average for the moment may be .281 and his OBP may be .320 (still laughable), what happens when he goes into a slump and his BA is in the .240-.250 area? It means Pierre is getting on base at a pace about .100 percentage points below that of your average ML hitter. And let's not even get into the subject of 77 OPS+ he has posted over the past three seasons...

(2) Speed: useless ability if you can't properly harness it. With the speed Pierre has, he should have a successful SB percentage far above the 75.5% clip he's currently at. Unless you can break the 80% mark season after season, you're doing nothing more than hurting your team with all the outs you are running yourself into. Not to mention, about 99 times out of 100, the risk-reward for attempting a SB is insanely on the high risk-low reward end of the spectrum. Sure, there are situations which call for a player to attempt to swipe a base -- think Dave Roberts in the 2004 ALCS -- but when you are trying to steal early in a game or in the middle innings, you're doing nothing but hurting your team's chances of scoring. It's been proven that over the course of Rickey Henderson's career and the over 1400 bases he stole, he hardly added any wins to his team's totals because of all the outs which negated the successes. The difference between a great baserunner and the league's worst is much smaller than that of the difference between the best and worst hitters in the league.

(3) Infield hits. Sure, speed certainly helps this, but what about all the routine groundouts that also crop up because Pierre can't even hit the ball out of the infield? Or how about the fact Major Leaguers are hitting .233 on groundballs this season, compared to Pierre's career line of .234? Sure seems like his speed is helping him out a lot there. How about this? Let's do a little comparison. Juan Pierre and, let's say... Paul Konerko. Both have been around the league about the same amount of time, bu couldn't be any more different. Konerko has a career isoSLG over .200 and only six stolen bases; Pierre we've been over. Now, back to the subject of infield hits. In other words, groundballs on the infield. The main thing I want to focus on here, is production with a possible double play at hand -- less than two outs and a force out in front of the hitter. Pierre has 673 PAs which qualify, Konerko has 1165. Obviously the difference being based off of position in the lineup, but let's look at what happens... Konerko hits into a double play about 17.6% of the time, but he's averaging about 0.282 runs/PA in these situations. Just to normalize that, using the percentages qualifier for league leaders of 502 PA for a season, that's 141.56 runs per season if every PA were with a DP on the line. Pierre, thanks to his speed - or the fact he simply doesn't hit the ball as hard as Konerko -- hits into a double play 9.21% of the time in the same situations. However, when you look at the runs he's plated (90 in 673 PA), he is only driving in 67 per 502 PA. See the difference here and the things which you can accomplish if you are actually able to drive the ball? Based on season projections, I'd say Konerko usually gets about 124 of these opportunities a year; Pierre around 87. Konerko costs his team about 44 outs in the process of plating 35 runs; Pierre costs his team about 16 outs while plating about eight runs. And this isn't even factoring in the number of outs caused as a runner on the basepaths...

The walks/single+SB analogy? Ok, how about this... Using Konerko as my example again. Pierre has reached base 1929 times in his career. Let's factor in total bases, stolen bases, caught stealings and double plays. So, what we'll have is TB+BB-IBB+HBP+SB-CS-(GIDP*2).

Pierre: 2,409 bases
Konerko: 2,830 bases

Now, let's divide that by plate appearances...

Pierre: 0.433
Konerko: 0.464
ML average for '08: 0.425

See the difference? One barely above average, the other quite significantly above average.

Now I am not a big Pierre fan or anything but so far this year:

Pierre: .280 avg, 0 hr, 24 rbi, 37 sb
Jones: .161 avg, 2 hr, 13 rbi, 0 sb

I am just looking at simple stat lines as of this post, I realize that Jones was on the DL longer than Pierre. While it is true that Jones could heat up, the addition of Manny means that the Dodgers have FIVE outfielders competiting for three spots and frankly, I'd rather have Pierre and Ethier battle for the third slot (after Manny and Kemp). Again, I'm not a big Pierre fan but I'd rather see more of his at-bats go to Ethier than Jones. Have you seen Jones wave at those low-and-away sliders lately?

If I'm a Dodger fan, I want no part of either. Manny-Kemp-Ethier could be one of the best OF combos in baseball, and to soil it by adding Pierre into the mix? Just goes to show you the real Joe Torre was the one who was an average-at-best manager in St. Louis.

I agree with this...Manny in left, Kemp in center, Ethier in right would be awesome.

Manny's not staying (neither is Blake). I'm almost sure of that. Colletti can pull the trigger if it doesn't cost him anything, but if it's gonna cost 8-9 figures a year... he's gonna be real tentative (esp with the 2 CF busts, Jones well overshadowing Pierre). I wouldn't be surprised if he gets the boot at the end of the year when the Dodgers blow it down the stretch (sorry, Manny can't carry the team).

I don't blame Torre for the .500 season, the kids are jittery and streaky at best (and need veteran presence that's not Jeff Kent). Martin and Kemp are turning into great table-setters, but Either needs to start turning in to a RBI machine like Loney or he's not going to survive much longer (off-season trade? may not be a bad idea... he's got potential, and we could get a vet- or attempt to splurge and keep Manny). I expect DeWitt to be the starting 3rd baseman and Hu to compete for the starting 2B spot come spring. So that leaves Furcal and the PierreJones platoon as the remains of mediocre-to-horrendous pickups (although Furcal isn't producing bad numbers, he's just hurt... someone make sure he doesn't go to Colorado games anymore).

Why argue the diff btw Jones/Pierre anyway? They both stink, but Pierre at least puts the bat on the ball... It's like choosing between two horrible presidential candidates... (okay, I promise not to get into politics )

Besides, how do you feel about putting 40 million on the bench every day... McCourt may not be happy about how it's been committed, but Torre feels obligated to try to make a small gain out of the investment. Jones should put his rear into the minors and get some at bats in against semi-good pitching... smacking homers off 65 mph fastballs in batting practice doesn't mean anything. If Pierre had a better arm and a quicker eye, would we even have picked up Jones? Oh well.

Dodger fans are taking over this thread, maybe we should make our own post! Anyway...

Yeah, I don't think we will be seeing either Blake or Manny in Dodger Blue in '09 either, but I'll enjoy it while I can. It will be an interesting offseason for sure, as Kent will probably be gone as well, Furcal being an FA, Lowe being an FA, etc etc. You bring up a good point in whether or not Colletti will still be around. I agree that he will be gone if the Dodgers don't win the division.

I don't blame Torre either really, and I agree with your point about the young kids. I think, for the most part, they are developing nicely and have shown good progress this year. I know I probably sound like a Kemp-nuthugger, but I have been very impressed with his progress in particular. As far as benching 40mil of players, I am fine with it if it helps the Dodgers win games. Pierre's speed sort of justifies his place as leadoff, but Kemp was doing fine filling in when he was on the DL. A junk signing is a junk signing, and I don't get any more satisfaction by seeing those guys out there waving at poor pitches off the plate (Jones). I do think we would have still signed Jones if Pierre was doing better, because Pierre doesn't hit for power.

Anyway, I'm going to try to focus on the positives rather than all that payroll stinking it up. Kuroda looked good over the weekend and our big rental has been awesome the first few games. Hopefully we can keep the good mojo going on the upcoming road trip.

Well, the Dodgers did stash Jones away on the 15 day DL a couple days ago, they'll probably bring him back when the rosters expand. Also, this was to get him some AB's in the minors since he'll be going on a rehab assignment.

Change of subject........

How about the Astros recently! Against Barry Zito and a relief pitcher they scored 6 runs on 2 hits. Thanks to 4 HBPs and 2 walks.

This made me happy. Didn't the Astros sweet the Giants?

I think so.

Bah, Giants Schimants. Always an annoyance to the Dodgers, regardless of how horrible they are. At least we beat up Zito.

Anyone can beat up Zito.

What about the two latest trades that the Red Sox made.
Paul Byrd, and Mark Kotsay.....

I like the Paul Byrd trade, and Kotsay to replace J.D. Drew (on 15 day DL).....