In another move bubbling away on the hot stove, Juan Pierre is reportedly close to signing a 5 year deal worth $45 million with the Dodgers. Pierre brings a lot of speed on the bases but no power. What really struck me however was Ned Colletti’s comment on MLB.com:
“Pierre gets on base an awful lot, he had 200 hits, steals bases, he’s a great guy to have on the club, a great quality human being,”Â
200 hits? Check.
Steals bases? Check.
Great guy/quality human being/ all round Mr Nice? I’ll take his word for it.
But “gets on base an awful lot”? A .330 OBP doesn’t equate to an “awful lot” in my book. In fact there were no fewer than 129 players in the majors last season who were better at it than him. Pierre’s career OBP is a more respectable .350 but add in his 2005 (.326) and it’s not unreasonable to expect the drop to be terminal.
Maybe I’m just being picky but if I was giving someone $45million on the basis that he “gets on base an awful lot”, I might want to check whether it’s true or not first. For the more stat-minded among you, subscribers to the Baseball Prospectus site can access lots of mind-boggling stats about major league players. One of these is a “Stars and Scrubs” chart which “represents the probability that a player will demonstrate a given level of performance over the course of his next five seasons”. By 2010 they have Pierre down as having a 70 per cent chance of being no better than a fringe player. Thanks to the Dodgers, at least he will be a well-paid fringe player!
