Baseball for the Thinking Fan

Login | Register | Feedback

btf_logo
You are here > Home > Baseball Newsstand > Baseball Primer Newsblog > Discussion
Baseball Primer Newsblog
— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand

Friday, June 13, 2008

Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness: Random Stupid Quotes And Stupid People: Joe Torre

The Torre/Little mix and match seller...and no one is buying.

From this morning’s L.A. Times: 

Outfielder Juan Pierre, benched at the start of the season, has led off in every game since Furcal was injured. That’s 33 and counting, and Torre says he sees no rest coming.

The Dodgers have averaged two fewer runs a game without Furcal. They rank last in the National League in home runs, and Pierre leads the league in stolen bases.

“He’s a legitimate leadoff hitter,” Torre said. “We don’t score a lot of runs, and he can generate some offense just by being on base.”

2.  Joe’s definition of a “legitimate leadoff hitter” tends to differ from mine.  A legitimate leadoff hitter, or any hitter legitimate hitter, to me implies, oh… I don’t know… that he gets on base?!  Instead of rehashing the stats, just look at the post right below this one.  Until proven otherwise, Pierre is not a legitimate leadoff hitter.  He has not been close to one in FOUR years… then again, who knows?  Perhaps he is because he has that kickass veterany presence that Ken Rosenthal talks about.

...Can someone remind me again how Joe Torre’s supposed to be this significant improvement from Grady?  Argh!!

Repoz Posted: June 13, 2008 at 08:37 AM | 4 comment(s)
  Related News: GeneralLA Dodgers

Reader Comments and Retorts

Go to end of page

Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.

Page 1 of 1 pages
   1. JPWF13 Posted: June 13, 2008 at 09:58 AM (#2818362)
To be fair to Pierre his OBP (.345) is the highest it's been in 4 years.

Juan Pierre, year by year OPS+
58
89
68
94
107
84
82
75
74

Nice curve there, some fluctuations at the start... but otherwise a nice curve...

Batting leadoff in 2008, Juan Pierre: .254/.307/.282
Holy crapola!
The 2008 Dodger offense is terrible because they've given 649 at bats to Pierre, Kent, Jones & Hu. Hu has presumably lost his shot at PT, Kent could sill hit last year, but he's also 40,

Jones... Jones has not hit since 2006... in the second half of 2006, his walk rate spiked, his HR rate spiked and his batting average tanked.

Methinks that maybe, just maybe, Jones was forced to make adjustments to declining bat speed as early as 2006, such adjustments worked in the short term- as he was enormously productive the 2nd half of 2006- despite an awful batting average- but then he either continued to decline and could no longer make effective adjustments and/or pitchers adjusted and he's probably through as an everyday player, perhaps a good manager can pick matchups that are favorable for him, but...

the 2008 Dodgers are very similar to the 2008 Mets, two very wealthy teams that have good pieces, but the whole is being dragged down by crap.

If Kent doesn't snap out of it, can Dewitt play 2nd? Can Delwynn? Is LaRoche ever gonna be healthy?
   2. Walt Davis Posted: June 13, 2008 at 03:39 PM (#2818775)
the whole is being dragged down by crap.

Well, kinda. But, other than Martin and Furcal's hot start, it's not like there are any hitters having a good season. Loney and Kemp have OPS+s of 99 and 100; Ethier is at 102. The Dodgers have played the (healthy) kids and they've been ... meh. So even if you took all those crappy ABs and replaced them with league-average for their position, you'd still have a below-average offense here (in terms of performance this season, not necessarily talent).
   3. JPWF13 Posted: June 13, 2008 at 03:46 PM (#2818784)
So even if you took all those crappy ABs and replaced them with league-average for their position, you'd still have a below-average offense here (in terms of performance this season, not necessarily talent).


the team has an era+ of 111 and an ops+ of 89
if you replace the 649 at bats I mentioned with league average at bats, you woudl have a m,uch better team
   4. Walt Davis Posted: June 14, 2008 at 12:40 AM (#2819405)
well, obviously. They'd probably pick up a couple wins and be ... 500!

I would bet that almost every team has about 600 PA or 200 IP or some similar combination of utter crap production by this point in the season. For the most part, the Dodgers are meh because, other than Martin, their "stars" aren't producing like stars -- Andruw, Kent, Loney, Kemp, Penny, Lowe. Granted, Andruw and Kent are "underperforming" so badly they've justly made your "crap" list so the two perspectives aren't entirely different.
Page 1 of 1 pages

You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.

 

<< Back to main

Support BBTF

donate

My Bookmarks

You must be logged in to view your Bookmarks.

Vivid Seats is a sports ticket broker, concert ticket broker and theater ticket broker offering the best baseball tickets like Yankees tickets, Cubs tickets, and Red Sox tickets, as well as Police reunion tour tickets and Jersey Boys tickets.

We have baseball tickets, the NFL schedule, college football tickets and Cowboys tickets. We have NBA tickets like Celtics tickets and Lakers tickets. Plus, buy concert tickets, Patriots tickets and Colts tickets. Also check out our MLB baseball schedule

Baseball Bats

Concerts Theatre NFL Angels Dodgers MLB Celtics Theater NBA Tickets Venues NHL Lakers Tickets NFL Yankees NHL Phillies NBA Wicked Marlins MLB Concerts Cubs Mets Red Sox Wicked WWE Red Sox Mets Yankees Dodgers

Major League Baseball: All Star Game, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, LA Angels, Washington Nationals, Chicago White Sox, and the Chicago Cubs.

Find terrific deals on Yankees tickets for the new home, Cubs tickets for classic Wrigley, or Red Sox tickets for Fenway with OnlineSeats. We have seats for every baseball game, including Dodgers tickets.

Page rendered in 0.3953 seconds
81 querie(s) executed