“Every year they say, ‘He can’t throw. He can’t hit. He can’t run anymore,” grouses Phillies OF Juan Pierre, 34, currently hitting .304 with 20 steals in his 13th big league season. Making just 800K, Pierre’s been something of a find for Philadelphia, with the Philadephia Daily News’ Marcus Hayes quick to warn Pierre’s legion of detractors, “the Giants and Cardinals won the last two World Series bunting and running the bases”. So presumably, we’ll see a contender deal for Pierre!
At 5-11 and 175 chiseled pounds, Pierre has 17 career home runs. Between steroids, human growth hormones and sabermatricians, Pierre had no chance.
“I was right through the whole steroid age. I was there at its height,” Pierre said – though he realizes purists with calculators consider him a dinosaur, too.
“With all the computers, the cybergenics [sabermetrics], whatever they do, I think I rate the lowest possible in those things. The things I do don’t show up in box scores. Sacrifice bunting doesn’t make any sense to do. They don’t look at the guy going first to third or taking that extra bag.”
In fact, Pierre’s sabermetric WAR-wins above replacement, the gold standard of metrics – stands at 1.4 this season.
Which, according to one pocket-protected website, rates him as a “scrub.”
If Pierre has supplanted Shane Victorino as the Phillies’ No. 2 hitter, what does that make the Flyin’ Hawaiian? Toe cheese?