Tuesday, May 15, 2007 |
Guest Post: Al Yellon On Juan Pierre
Juan Pierre has about the worst arm I have ever seen in a major league outfielder.
That's a strong statement, and it is backed up not only by personal observation (I would rarely if ever see him hit the cutoff man, except on a bounce), but by statistics.
Pierre plays nearly every day -- in 2006, he played all 162 games, starting every one of them as the Cubs' center fielder. He had five outfield assists. Now, let's compare that to other National League center fielders. Here are their 2006 assist totals (only CF who played 100 or more games in 2006):
So as you can see, Pierre's outfield arm was worse than anyone except Brady Clark [whom the Dodgers also got in their quest to acquire every last available noodle-armed outfielder — Rob], who's not a true center fielder anyway (and now, frighteningly, they are teammates). Andruw Jones appears worse, but Jones had 11 assists the year before and would average 9 or 10 a year, every year up until 2006. And two forty-year-olds -- Lofton and Finley -- outthrew Juan, on a per-game basis.Carlos Beltran: 13 (136 games) Aaron Rowand: 6 (102 games) Willy Taveras: 9 (120 games) Ken Griffey Jr: 6 (100 games) Brady Clark: 2 (114 games) Mike Cameron: 6 (141 games) Kenny Lofton: 4 (120 games) Steve Finley: 5 (130 games) Eric Byrnes: 5 (123 games) Cory Sullivan: 4 (114 games) Andruw Jones: 4 (153 games)
The 2006 Cub season was so putrid that I've tried to put it totally out of my mind, as if it didn't exist at all. (Does that mean the Cubs can have Renyel Pinto and Ricky Nolasco back?) Unfortunately, it stays as a stain on my fandom and club history forever. I don't have any specific memories of Juan Pierre wrecking games with his rag arm, but frankly, there were many times I watched him throw and thought, "I can throw better than that," and that's true even now, while I'm still recovering from a dislocated pinky finger on my throwing hand.
What was even worse than Pierre's fielding was his hitting. Oh, sure, he had 204 hits, and 58 stolen bases, the most by a Cub in 103 seasons (since Frank Chance's club-record 67 in 1903). But in doing so he racked up a Cubs team record -- and fourth-most in major league history -- 699 at-bats, thus becoming the first-ever player with 200 or more hits to not hit over .300, and he cleared below the bar pretty good, too, at .292. He scored only 87 runs, which, given the fact that guys like Todd Walker and John Mabry were hitting behind him much of the year, isn't entirely his fault.
I was stunned when the Dodgers signed him for five years at $44 million. Pierre has one dimension to his game -- speed. That's likely to be the first thing to go, which means in two years or so he'll be a singles hitter who can't run or throw, and that means the Dodgers will be throwing away, to coin a phrase, more than half of that monstrous contract.
At least I have the consolation of knowing that Jim Hendry isn't the only GM out there lavishing outrageous sums of money on undeserving players.
Labels: dodgers
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