Friday, March 7, 2008

It's time to dump Juan Pierre.

I never thought it was a good signing to begin with. Colletti's view was that we had one outfielder going into last offseason so he signed Gonzo and Pierre. We probably could have gotten away with neither and let the kids rule the outfield while gaining a ton of experience and not blocking them from the future. The same could be said of our third base situation and Jason Schmidt. Signing Nomar as a 1st baseman was baaaad. Signing Jason Schmidt was worse considering he passed up on future hall of famer Greg Maddux.

Back to Pierre.

The argument that many people for him are things like, "he gets 200 hits a year", "he gets 60 stolen bases a year", "he has "intangibles"", "he shows up early", and that's about it.

The sole problem with Pierre's game is that it belongs in a different era.

In the 70's and part of the 80's almost all teams had 3 decent starting pitchers with ERA's under 4. This was the era of the 4 man rotation as well. Teams on average were scoring roughly 4 runs per game. Homeruns were scarce so runs came at a premium and had to be manufactured an way possible. Steals all of a sudden became the identity of the game.

The construction of the ball may have contributed to the fact that homeruns were scarce. The recent contributions of steroids may also have something to do with the spike in homeruns. Another possibility was that ballparks were much larger. Either way teams had to score any way possible to win games.

Todays game offers smaller parks, a different ball, and of course performance enhancing drugs. The game has evolved into getting runners on and bringing them in. Case and point would be the Red Sox. They have been among the top of the league leaders in runs scored and OBP. There is a direct correlation to those two things. It also helps to have guys like Papi and Manny. Last year even the average team scored 5 runs per game.

Having a guy like Pierre on your team means that you're playing "small ball". A term used to descibe the type of play that best represents the 70's and 80's. Since Pierre has a terrible on base percentage and even worse power, he is the perfect mold of a guy who would thrive under the conditions presented in the 70's. However, in this era... he is a good bench player.

Strike that... in this era a good bench player means you can come in and play good defense. Another attribute that Juan is missing. Statistically it has been proven that Juan Pierre has the WORST arm in all of baseball. He has gotten older and his one assett, speed, is hampered by his inability to judge a fly ball. He routinely makes bad judgements in the outfield.

Another argument for Juan is that he is nice guy. That while his abilities are mediocre at best, he has intangibles and shows up early. Intangibles = no talent. It's like saying a fat girl has a nice personality. (no offense) And to say that he shows up early might better display how bad he actually is. His weighted stats prove that he is worse than your everyday bench player. Let me get this straight... He shows up early to work on specific skills like throwing, hitting, catching, etc, and he is still not as good as Jason Repko? Also, Andre Ethier is competing for playing time against Jaun Pierre. He is by far a much better player.

In the end, Ned Colletti made a huge mistake signing Juan Pierre. It's time to scrap the idea and move on. He's also made other really REALLY bad mistakes. When is he going to make a good move that will help the Dodgers get to the World Series?

2 comments:

Uncle Leo said...

I agree with your assessment of Pierre. However his stupid contract is driving the Dodgers to keep/play him. If the Dodgers were the Yankees, Pierre would be hitting .245 in Japan this year.

Dusto_Magnifico said...

His contract would be a good case to bring up if the Dodgers didn't have any money. Frank McCourt is sitting on a gold mine in LA, with the 2nd highest attendance in all of baseball last year.

The problem stems from Ned Colletti. For some reason he either believes in Pierre, or he is unwilling to admit his mistake in signing him by trading him.

It's like Bush and the war. He's not going to end the war because it would be admitting that it was a mistake to be at war in the first place. Ned is having the same issues with Pierre.