On a side note....Nolasco is pretty sick.

 

I wish we wouldve gotten Marshall in the deal. But whatever lets see what happens.

I don't know if a sinkerballer can work at PPS for long. The turf is crap.

 

Whatever.

 

See ya JP (and Madman)

JP had one good year here and was very average or below average last year, anything that is considered a good prospect is a fair deal for him. The only player regarded as a potential super star who we traded are Delgado and in some minds Becket. We had a lot of high priced, decent players. Decent players are not that hard to find. The Marlins will be ok once they get to a city where they can have revenue to support a good team. You will not see a good Marlins team in South Florida unless Loria makes a deal with Huzienga.

JP had two good seasons for the Marlins, 2003 and 2004. He's a lifetime .303 hitter. He's pretty good.

:eyebrow more pitchers

as my uncle would say... de pinga.

WTF?!? More pitchers? :pullhair

one guy's take on JP with stats to back him up

 

www.mlbtraderumors.com

 

Juan Pierre Traded To Cubs

Well, it's official - Juan Pierre will be playing center field for the Cubs in 2006. I reported this deal as done back on November 23rd, and I rightfully caught plenty of flak for it. So I immediately dialed up Jim Hendry's personal line and demanded that he deal two of five possible pitchers for Pierre so that I wouldn't look bad. Hendry complied, threw in Sergio Mitre, and here we are. (I'm kidding, obviously).

 

I'll discuss Sergio Mitre, Ricky Nolasco, and Renyel Pinto in a separate post. For now, I want to take a closer look at Juan Pierre and what he "brings to the table." Cubs fans seem thrilled with this acquisition, so I asked myself, "What exactly does Juan Pierre do well?"

 

 

Getting on base

 

Pierre boasts a .355 career OBP. In 2005, the average NL CF got on base at a .340 clip. So Pierre is a tick above average in that department despite all of the cool drag bunts and slap infield hits. Available CFs who got on base more frequently than 35% of the time last year include Jason Michaels, Kenny Lofton, and Johnny Damon. Brad Wilkerson can be expected to top .355 in 2006, and Milton Bradley will probably come close.

 

Baserunning and stealing

 

Well, once Pierre does get on, he's a terror on the basepaths. Right? In 2005, Pierre was excellent at going from first to third, succeeding 43% of the time (surprisingly, that compares well to the rest of the league). On the other hand, he only succeeded going from second to home 38% of the time, which is a poor mark. It's a small sample (21 attempts), but Chris Speier might want to consider throwing up the stop sign occasionally when Pierre comes his way.

 

Oh, but let's not forget the steals. Man, does this guy steal bases. He's averaged 52 steals in his five full seasons. Still, Pierre's career success rate at stealing is just 74%. According to Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus,

 

"If you're stealing at less than a 75% success rate, you're better off never going at all."

 

Hmmm. So you're telling me Baker should never attempt a single stolen base with Pierre? Something tells me that's not going to happen.

 

Defense

 

Ah, but with his blazing speed, Pierre surely is among the game's top defenders. Er, not so much. Ever heard of Bill James's Range Factor? It's calculated by adding up putouts and assists, multiplying by nine, and dividing by the number of defensive innings played. Here's how some regular CFs ranked in 2005 in Range Factor.

 

Rank Player Range Factor

1 Jeremy Reed 3.05

2 Damon Hollins 2.95

3 Nook Logan 2.93

4 Johnny Damon 2.93

5 Brady Clark 2.85

6 Brad Wilkerson 2.84

11 Milton Bradley 2.68

15 Kenny Lofton 2.53

26 Preston Wilson 2.27

27 Corey Patterson 2.23

28 Juan Pierre 2.21

 

 

There's our man, dead last in the game, well behind several freely available CFs. I could dig up some more defensive metrics to say the same thing; I won't bore you with those here. He's not a good fielder.

 

Power

 

C'mon now, it's Juan Pierre. He's got less power than Neifi Perez.

 

Durability

 

Oh, that's it. Juan Pierre shows up to work every day, doesn't get hurt. I guess that's worth something. It kind of reminds me of the blowoff classes I had in college where the teacher would make Attendance 10% of your grade.

 

Conclusion

 

Am I missing something? Juan Pierre is basically a more expensive Scott Podsednik without the defense. He should probably be a fourth outfielder on most teams. Color me unimpressed by this trade.

as my uncle would say... de pinga.

 

Isnt that what venezuelans say when its something good?

Pretty lame analysis if you ask me. If Pierre breaks even between his good seasons and his past bad seasons the Cubs will have gained an average to above average player at a position, for them, that has lacked quality for some time now. CoPat wasn't cutting it and and if he does it will now be on another team or at a corner OF slot. Pierre's incredible durability and speed also increase his value as lesser reserves won't see as much time in CF as at other positions containing players of inferior conditioning. I'll give him defense, as Pierre gets below average reads and routes, relying on his amazing speed to catch up to flyballs, not to mention his noodle arm. Still, the speed allows him to make up for many deficiencies in instinct and fundamentals. I say neither team comes away a serious winner over the other, but, of course, we can't be sure if one of the guys we acquired becomes the next D-Train. the Cubs know what they got.

Am I wrong in hating this deal because we took a very tradeable player and failed to address an area of need and now we've backed ourselves into a corner needing to find a center-fielder, catcher and second baseman.

 

I don't get the run on above average young pitching. We used the first five picks in the '05 draft, and now every trade has been centered around it. Maybe I'm missing something, but this wasn't handled greatly...

Jp will be missed but I don't feel this was that big of a loss.

Am I wrong in hating this deal because we took a very tradeable player and failed to address an area of need and now we've backed ourselves into a corner needing to find a center-fielder, catcher and second baseman.

 

I don't get the run on above average young pitching. We used the first five picks in the '05 draft, and now every trade has been centered around it. Maybe I'm missing something, but this wasn't handled greatly...

 

 

I agree with you. If you're going to get pitching, go for someone like McCarthy of the White Sox. Pierre for McCarthy straight up. Even include a prospect if you have to. Then you'd have Willis and McCarthy at the top of the rotation.

 

Like you, I wanted us to address one of our needs. We need to find a second baseman and either a center fielder or catcher. If we find a catcher, then we can put Willy in LF and Aguila in center. If we find a center fielder, we can put Aguila in LF and Willy at catcher. One way or the other we have to get a second baseman.

Pretty lame analysis if you ask me. If Pierre breaks even between his good seasons and his past bad seasons the Cubs will have gained an average to above average player at a position, for them, that has lacked quality for some time now. CoPat wasn't cutting it and and if he does it will now be on another team or at a corner OF slot. Pierre's incredible durability and speed also increase his value as lesser reserves won't see as much time in CF as at other positions containing players of inferior conditioning. I'll give him defense, as Pierre gets below average reads and routes, relying on his amazing speed to catch up to flyballs, not to mention his noodle arm. Still, the speed allows him to make up for many deficiencies in instinct and fundamentals. I say neither team comes away a serious winner over the other, but, of course, we can't be sure if one of the guys we acquired becomes the next D-Train. the Cubs know what they got.

 

Exactly

What baffles me is everyone posting about how great these minor leaguers are when they cant have seen all of them to not say a single one of them ever pitch before

they are looking at numbers on the web and then saying who got the better deal

the team who got the all star got the better deal. look how much players get in free agency. all the marlins salary are below market well except for mike lowell. getting a good player for cheaper than he would be as a free agent is a good deal

JP had one good year here and was very average or below average last year, anything that is considered a good prospect is a fair deal for him. The only player regarded as a potential super star who we traded are Delgado and in some minds Becket. We had a lot of high priced, decent players. Decent players are not that hard to find. The Marlins will be ok once they get to a city where they can have revenue to support a good team. You will not see a good Marlins team in South Florida unless Loria makes a deal with Huzienga.

 

 

What? Do you work for the city of San Antonio perhaps?

 

Jp will be missed but I don't feel this was that big of a loss.

 

 

No, it just adds to the complete package of losses...

So after as many as 10 teams were in the bidding for JP, this is the best they could do? You're telling me there wasn't one team that could offer a position player that would fit a need?

So true. It's really getting ridiculous already. The last two drafts and then all these trades? That's ~20 pitching prospects, not counting the ones that were already in our system. You have to score to be able to win the damn games!

 

I can't help but :banghead at this deal.

And it's not as if we can turn around and deal some of these pitching prospects for good established hitters either, we can't afford anyone making decent money. So the only hope is that we can flip pitching prospects for hitting prospects I guess at some point.

 

I mean we're talking about guys like Aaron Miles at this point for 2B...

:confused

I like dealing JP, even if there was no firesale.

 

I like the pitching prospects in return. I'll wait and hold off judgement on failing to get positional prospects until the offseason is over and the Fish have a chance to trade pitching prospects for young hitting.

I like dealing JP, even if there was no firesale.

 

I like the pitching prospects in return. I'll wait and hold off judgement on failing to get positional prospects until the offseason is over and the Fish have a chance to trade pitching prospects for young hitting.

 

There is no doubt that the Fish got good value in return. I thought Pinto/Nolasco could have done it, but they pulled Mitre in addition...While he won't be a top of the rotation guy, he has nice control and could help bring an experienced arm to the squad for this season.

The fact is, the Cubs gave up 2 or 3 decent prospects for 1 year of an average player.

The fact is, the Cubs gave up 2 or 3 decent prospects for 1 year of an average player.

 

 

Agreed!

 

:thumbup

IMO this is a great trade for the fish...e got 3 quality pitchers for a cf coming off his worst year with 1 year left on his contract...Dont forget most people complained when we traded clement and alfonseca for one good pitching prospect named willis. Also stocking up on pitchers is what got us most of the player in 03, and helped us make trades for others that played on the world series team. In the long run we will keep the best trade the others and get even more in return. I wish i was able to spend my summer in Florida to watch these kids play!!! guess ill have to cheer them on when they make the road trip to shea.

I agree with Iowa pretty much 100%. Also, I think we could be making a mistake in being so sure that our huge supply of pitching prospects negates our leverage in acquiring position players. Unless someone provides a case study to that point I'm unconvinced. I'm not saying that's not the case, but I'm not convinced either. For all we know half of those pitchers will be converted into positional prospects.

whom is the prospect we are supposedly giving them back? some minor league pitcher from A ball I wonder who.

whom is the prospect we are supposedly giving them back? some minor league pitcher from A ball I wonder who.

 

Nobody, the trade only involved the 4 players, no?