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1. The Essex Snead Posted: March 05, 2008 at 02:35 PM (#2706479)I like him.
Well you could knock me over with a feather...
Well, he's got that right. Old-school, as in 1910.
Maybe at junior proms?
Also, if Pierre playing full time helps the A's work out a deal for Kemp and LaRoche, I'm all for it. 100%!
Heh.
*checks bb-ref*
OK, that's an ugly 07 line for Furcal, but I have to think he's still better than that.
I'm sure he'll rebound, but I still think Kemp, Kent, Jones, Martin, Loney, and Laroche are better hitters. He's probably better than Nomar, though.
He was playing on a bad ankle all season. He should be better than that.
Still, depending on third base, he might be the second worse hitter in the lineup, since he's not likely to be a better hitter than Martin, Loney, Kent, Jones, and Kemp.
edit: or what Danny wrote.
Hm. Fair enough; the Dodgers have a stronger lineup than I'd've thought. (Guess I assumed a lineup that featured Juan Pierre at the top couldn't be very good, without actually piecing together who that lineup consisted of.)
I don't much care for Jeff Kent, but it's kind of amazing how much of his value he's retained while pushing 40 and still playing a middle infield position.
A strenuous off-season truck-washing routine would keep any man vigorous and fit.
Point taken. My weakness and puniness clearly results from my having owned small Asian-built cars for many years, rather than manly American-made trucks.
You mean "a Chris Wok post." Use no more words than are absolutely necessary.
Cherry picking a starting point, but Kent has arguably had the greatest career from age 32 on of any middle infielder since Honus Wagner. Best OPS+ (minimum 3000 PA, at least half of games at 2B or SS):
Cnt Player OPS+ PA From To+----+-----------------+----+-----+----+----+
1 Honus Wagner 145 6677 1906 1917
2 Jeff Kent 133 4903 2000 2007
3 Nap Lajoie 133 5244 1907 1916
4 Lou Whitaker 129 3412 1989 1995
5 Eddie Collins 129 5276 1919 1930
6 Joe Morgan 126 4751 1976 1984
7 Charlie Gehringer 126 4492 1935 1942
8 Bret Boone 119 3088 2001 2005
9 Eddie Joost 117 3666 1948 1955
10 Luke Appling 116 5894 1939 1950
By one measure (UZR), Kent's actually remained an above average defensive 2B until the last couple years.
Again, point taken.
I didn't do the legwork you've done (thanks, btw--that's very interesting), but I was actually wondering to myself who else has had this much success this late in life while playing the middle infield, and couldn't think of anybody offhand. Hornsby, Morgan, Sandberg...those guys were all pretty much (or completely) done by Kent's age.
And while I suppose age 32 is in fact a "cherry picked" starting point, it's a reasonable one for purposes of this discussion, since the early 30s is when a lot of middle infielders (hell, a lot of *players*--and the middle infield's more physically taxing than most positions) fall off a cliff/get hurt/whatever.
What are you talking about? The RAV4 (Really Asian Vehicle to the 4th Power) and CRV (Chinese Recreational Vehicle) are perfectly manly cars!
Cherry picking a starting point, but Kent has arguably had the greatest career from age 32 on of any middle infielder since Honus Wagner. Best OPS+ (minimum 3000 PA, at least half of games at 2B or SS):
Cnt Player OPS+ PA From To
+----+-----------------+----+-----+----+----+
1 Honus Wagner 145 6677 1906 1917
2 Jeff Kent 133 4903 2000 2007
6 Joe Morgan 126 4751 1976 1984
By one measure (UZR), Kent's actually remained an above average defensive 2B until the last couple years.
I've never been in one of those before: do the occupants in them suddenly become unable to pronounce the "r" sound properly?
Ah, better.
I've never been in one of those before: do the occupants in them suddenly become unable to pronounce the "r" sound properly?
Yes, but only words like voilà and forêt.
That was the joke, yes.
I was trying to think of a clever comment, but I first need to make sure I'm not misreading this: is he really arguing that a shortstop was affecting the way the centerfielder played defense on more than 3 plays a year???
Bury Kemp and Loney? If Pierre gets 600+ PAs, then Kemp is a platoon with Ethier. He won't just be buried, he'll be lost at sea.
If Nomar and Pierre get as much playing time as we all think, the D-backs should win the West with ease.
Suck?
Really? Because... they can. The answer is "he's not very good."
Aside from the corpse of Steve Finley, Pierre is probably the weakest defensive player of that batch...
Really, unless he hauls his OPS+ back up to his Marlin heyday levels he's pretty awful, almost the definition of replacement level- aside from the teams playing Finley, no MLB team was getting meaningfully worse production (off and Def) out of their CFs than what Pierre has been giving his employers.
Don't you think the Dodgers know that? That's why they're moving him to LF. Sheesh...
Guys like Andy Van Slyke and Chet Lemon had ok speed but always seemed to get where they needed to be.
Intincts. They matter.
Have you been paying any attention to Jeff Kent over the years? Through age 29, _best_ OPS+ was 111 (age 26). Then, at age 30, magically became a stud: _worst_ OPS+ since is 119 (age 38). At age 30, Kent elevated his game to a new performance level roughly 80 OPS points above where he had been his entire career. Connect the dots however you want, the dude is juicier than a Georgia peach.
And yes, typical non-elite 2B (what Kent was before age 30) aging curves are brutal. See the discussion of Aaron Hill in the Transaction Oracle: Blue Jays ZiPS projection thread.
.
Just like the #1 guy on Danny's list.
An unintentional pun. Bonus!
You might have noted Morgan is sitting comfortably on that list. Morgan only "fell off a cliff" in the sense that he fell from God to awesome 2Bman. Ages 38-40, his OPS+s were 136, 116, 103. He was still an average or better 2B at age 40.
He didn't really fall off a cliff until he entered the broadcast booth.
I was surprised there were so many 2B on the list, since they have more of a rep of cliff falling than SS.
Well, it's a list ordered by OPS+ and there aren't very many SS who have posted a 130ish OPS+ through age 31 much less after that. Also of course putting on the minimum 3000 PA restriction means we miss all the major cliff-divers because they never amassed 3000 PAs after 31.
An interesting list would be all the MI who posted, say, a 120 OPS+ through age 31, then look at their post-31 output.
Voom! [hand rushing backwards over my head]
"Use no <strike>more</strike> words <strike>than are absolutely necessary</strike>."
urgh
Wouldn't the best decision be to make him the Dodgers full time DH? It may be the worst possible position for him on a per game rate basis, but it's by far the team's best possible option for him based on total games played (9;)!
There are 20 such players (3000 PA minimum). Just looking at the list on the run, Charlie Gehringer seems to have been one of the better post-31 hitters in the group, and stayed at 2B throughout. Several others indeed fell off cliffs, or moved from the middle infield.
Sandberg's an atypical case. Following his 4th straight HOF caliber season, he suffered a broken wrist in ST in 1993. He came back and hit well enough for average, but his power was gone. A poor start, marital problems, and the looming strike sent him to premature retirement in 1994. he returned 2 years later and was a shadow of his former self, which is to be expected.
IOW, his early demise has little if nothing to do with the usual 2B cliff diving.
Edit:
To clarify for those who don't know, the broken wrist came while he was batting, HBP.
New Hartford's finest!
There are 20 such players (3000 PA minimum).
You can do a lot of things with that list of 20; what struck me was how good a list it is. Taking it from the Hall of Merit perspective:
4 of the 20 are ineligible for the HoM at this time: Rodriguez, Biggio, Garciaparra, and Jeter. Three of the four are easy HoMers when they do become eligible.
12 of the 20 are elected to the Hall of Merit.
3 of the 20 persist in the backlog, and received votes on the most recent ballot: Doyle, Lazzeri, and Stephens.
That leaves George Grantham as the only one who didn't get serious HoM consideration.
[Of course, in commenting on how good a list it is, we also notice that it's too good to include Kent.]
Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb are the same guy? Or am I missing a joke?
That'd be Ichiro, actually. Who is the player Pierre seems to think he is.
Well, if Pierre had a better arm, was better at tracking flyballs, had a batting avearge 30 points higher, improved his ISO 50%...
why yes then he'd be the player that Ichiro is
what's scary is how many people look at Pierre, see a career .300 average, notice the SBs and a batch of 200 hit seasons and think that YES Pierre is not only a similar type player to Ichiro, but close in value.
Pierre is closer to Womack than Ichiro
Look at Pierre's 27/28/29 seasons and then look at Doug Glanville's, or Pods' 27/28/29 seasons, or ...
The love affair between the LALA Land media and Pierre is unlikely to have a happy ending... for Dodger fans- but then again elements of the Philie media were pining away for Glanville long after his ability to play MLB caliber ball had completely evaporated- Pierre could post a .270/.315/.345 line in 700 PAs and guys like Plaschke will still think he's productive.
But he would be productive. He'd be producing the most outs in the league yet again.
Yeah, I didn't get that one, either.
honus wagner was on ROIDS!!!!!!!
what other explanation could there POSSIBLY be??????
strike his numbers from the record book!!!
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