Juan Pierre: Mr. 100 (3x over)

While we are all bashing our scapegoat Pierre, I think the criticism is unfair to be on him. Yeah his arm stinks and he doesn't get on base as much as he should, and he is a whiner but he is still a decent ballplayer. I am not a JP fan club card carrying member, but the criticism of his playing is not fair. I have seen a lot of dodgers who didn't give a darn about anything, i.e. Daryl Ward, Drew and i am glad they are not with the blue anymore. The dodger's woes this year are not JP's burden to bear. The blame should be focused more on AJ showing up fat and out of shape and not caring, Torre for putting out 93 different lineups, and Flanders for signing 5 OF. I think a lot of blame should go to Stane Conte for somehow finding a way to get every player on the DL. The juggling lineups and going by "feel" i think has hurt the team because it left a lot of them trying to find consistency and an identity of who is the cleanup man, lead off man etc... Manny has changed all of that and i think the team has an identity. I think our best OF could be Kemp, Manny and AJ (if he learns to hit again), but Eithier Kemp and Manny will be pretty darned good too.

tio, you say that Juan Pierre "doesn´t fit in a championship contender team"? In 2002, JP batted leadoff and played centerfield for the Florida Marlins, who won the World Series that year. In the series, JP hit .333 (with an OBP of .481). In the first game of the Series, JP was the team's offensive force--he had 2 RBI's and scored the other Marlins' run in a 3-2 Florida win. You might say, "That was Pierre then, this is Pierre now". True, but the guy is only 30 y/o (soon to be 31)--certainly in his prime still--as his high stolen base numbers this year prove (he would be leading the league in stolen bases THIS season had he not gotten injured). Yes, he needs to get on base more, but there's no reason to conclude that JP cannot be part of a championship winning team again. Also, the question of whether Andre Ethier should be starting over JP seems to be a foregone conclusion in this Blog. But I'm not so sure. True, Ethier has a much better arm, and he hits for more power, but there is no question that JP should be starting against Lefties--JP is hitting .360 against Lefties (compared to Ethier's .193 against Lefties). Also, in clutch situations, JP has been better--Pierre is hitting .368 with runners in scoring position (compared to Eithier's .282 w/RISP).

For a player who isn't established, in his career, for that player to get the nod over a player like Pierre, he would have to be overwhelming better than Pierre.

At this point Ethier isn't even batting better than Pierre. Ethier is batting 271, while Pierre is batting 279.

Etheir has a better arm. Granted. Ethier has better power. Granted. But Ethiers' power isn't something that is setting this Dodgers roster on fire, either. So it comes down to batting average and the ability to create on the basepads for the leadoff hitter. Advantage Pierre because Ethier isn't a leadoff hitter. And Kemp has more to his game than Ethier does at a younger age. Ethier seems to be the one who going to be on the outs. But, to me is sounds as if some of these bloggers want Ethier to succeed this season so he can get his career jump started. That's fine but what's he's produced thus far, for this season, doesn't justify Joe Torre going with Ethier over Pierre.

Pierre is an establshed player who isn't going to be replaced by someone with 11 homers and a 271 batting average.

mike t.

It's great that Juan is so successful with runners on. Really, it is. But guess what? He's usually up with nobody on and that's when we need him to get on base most. We're not batting him in the 4 hole. We're batting him leadoff usually, and if he can't hit with the bases empty, he's killing his own value and diminishing his most valuable asset - his speed (especially with nobody ahead of him on the base paths).

THIS is my gripe with Juan Pierre. I don't care that he doesn't hit home runs. I don't care that he slaps at the ball with the bat and calls it hitting. I DO care that he doesn't get on more with bases empty.

I think he could be a valuable asset. But right now, it's getting old to feel like when he's in, you automatically start the game with one out. Plus, watching Andre Ethier gun down guys trying to take an extra base or score on a sac fly makes it that much harder to watch a guy who can barely throw it to second base.

I'm not trying to rag on Juan Pierre. He just needs to be doing more to earn a spot ahead of Ethier, IMO.

Mike T. -

I don't care who is established, I care who is better. If you think Pierre is better - fine. In my estimation, Ethier is better. And it think it's by more than just a tiny margin and that the margin will grow as time goes on (if given the opportunity).

It seems to me that by your logic, Nomar would still be at 1st base and Loney would be rotting away on the bench.

puddle, you're right. Pierre needs to get on base more. With his speed, the Dodgers need him to find a way to increase his OBP. This will likely be by JP drawing more walks.

I've always thought that guys like Pierre who strike out so little sometimes do so to the detriment of their OBP. Clearly, Pierre hates to strike out. With 2 strikes on him, JP swings at anything even remotely close to a strike. Unfortunately, this often means "hitting the pitcher's pitch" and grounding out meekly to second or third.

I could certainly live with JP striking out a bit more if it meant him taking more pitches (including the occasional third strike) and drawing more walks. The Dodgers need guys on base in front of Manny and crew.

Everyone keeps saying that Juan Pierre is such a hard worker; there's a big difference between working hard and working smart. His specialty is supposed to be bunting for base hits, but the last 5 times I've seen him try to do it he's not even come close to reaching 1st base. I know he leads the league in bunt singles every year, but how many bunts does he botch? Can we please get that number? Regarding defense, Vin Scully said it best while watching Juan Pierre track a high fly ball last year at the warning track. He said Juan Pierre looked like a "ragdoll waving his arms around on the warning track when he tracks a fly ball". That's an insult, I'm certain Raggedy Anne could probably hit the cutoff man more often than Juan does.

In the financial industry, they have a saying regarding investments (really more of a disclaimer): "past performance being no guarantee of future results." Yes, Juan was a good leadoff hitter in 2002 and 2003. He then pigeonholed himself into a bunt-hitting, base-stealing, no throwing outfielder. He doesn't work on the parts of his game that need improvement, he works on the parts of his game that he thinks he's good at. Before every game, you'll see him at home plate bouncing a ball down each line over and over again. He's testing the bunt patterns, because he's a bunter. In batting practice, he doesn't put a full swing on anything. He practices his bunts and rolling grounders the other way. The results speak for themselves. The Dodgers are something like 1.5 runs per game better when he's not batting leadoff.

Remember when everyone was lamenting the JP contract right after it was signed and the defense of the contract that was put forth by the media was that we had to pay him that much to keep him from going to the Giants?

Mr Simers sure can be a jerk, but he's a fine journalist:

CHECKED IN with Juan Pierre, back in the lineup and contributing a run-scoring triple. I wanted to know if the Dodgers were still "sticking it" to him as he had said in the newspaper?
"I don't read the paper, bro," and obviously so, because the name isn't bro.
"I don't care what anyone thinks; I got one man upstairs, only one," he said, while pointing to the heavens. "I'm quite sure people don't like me anyway. You probably don't like me."
I agreed. I told him I found him short on humor and joy, while separating himself from everyone on the team and coming across as self-centered when everyone's excited about Ramirez's arrival.
"I didn't say [the Dodgers] were sticking it to me," he said. "I'm sticking it to myself by not playing well."
I agreed, and he grinned -- so he's capable of doing so.

Just in case no one knows, Pierre is hitting 322 with runners on and 368 with runners in scoring position... not bad for a bum

While I definitely don't remember calling Pierre clutch, you make a good point that any ball player over a greater number of at bats will hit their average regardless of the situation. However, that type of number crunching is the reason DePodesta was a horrible GM and a bad judge of talent.

Is Pierre over-paid? Absolutely. Should he start over Ethier on a regular basis? Not in my opinion.
Can he help the Dodgers win their division this year? I think so.

Torre loves veterans and so Pierre will get his attempts. It would be nice to see Juan keep up his above average effort with RISP and his speed can be very useful on the bases.

I've taken said intro course and I hated it. I actually took the course because I love baseball stats so much that I thought I might be into it. I don't beleive that statistics alone paint a complete picture of the impact a player can have on a given day. I worry more about Pierre's impact on the clubhouse with his poor attitude and below-average defense than how he performs in the box.

Scott, I think you're missing an important point. I can't speak for others, but I'm not saying that Pierre is "clutch". I am saying that he's been good with runners in scoring position this year.

And, by the way, the sample size isn't really all that small (57 at bats). The fact is that guys have seasons (and portions of seasons) in which they are better at the plate and others in which they are not so good. Pierre isn't "clutch". He's simply been good with RISP this year. Perhaps he's concentrating more with RISP. It's difficult to say why he's been good.

And your analogy of a coin toss is a poor one. A coin toss is random, hitting a baseball is not. Players have good and bad seasons, they suffer injuries, pitchers adjust to hitters (and vice versa), hitters gain and lose confidence during different periods in a season (consider Russell Martin the first couple weeks of the season...certainly not a confident hitter), etc. Definitely not random.

Consider Casey Blake. A .266 lifetime hitter and a .238 lifetime hitter with RISP. This year Blake is hitting .295 and .385 with RISP. Normal fluctuation (like a coin toss)? No way. Anyone who's watched Blake hit this year knows he looks like a more confident hitter. When Blake comes up with RISP Dodger fans (like Indians fans before them) EXPECT Blake to come through. Is Blake a "clutch" hitter? Well, this year sure seems to be...much like the Dodgers former leftfielder.