Remember the housing boom and the stock market boom that preceded the current economic meltdown? That's what's going to happen to Dodgers fans currently thrilled to have Juan Pierre leading off.
Pierre is currently hitting .404/.456/.505 and making Chavez Ravine go all Alzheimer's about Manny Ramirez. With the Dodgers sporting the best record in baseball, fans can be forgiven for thinking Joe Torre is the Stephen Hawking of baseball.
Problem is, Juan Pierre is a leadoff hitter like I'm a Mariachi band. Sure, I taught myself to make some sounds on the trumpet when I was younger, but I've lost most of what little ability I once had. Pierre's on base average the last four years have been .326, .330, .331 and .327. As Bill Parcells pointed out, that's who Pierre is.
Who Pierre is, is not a leadoff hitter. A guy who puts you in the one-out, no-one-on hole two thirds of the time is a number eight batter. The fact that he can't reach the warning track in two swings shouldn't count as a stroke in his favor when considering who should be the appetizer in the lineup. (Twice in his career he's snagged 13 triples in a season. That's his lifetime home run total.)
When Pierre regresses to his rightful place -- .280/.330/.350 -- he's going to cost LA runs in the #1 spot. With Andre Ethier (.298/.367/.482 lifetime), Matt Kemp (.297/.341/.474) and even Mark Loretta (.297/.362/.398) in the lineup, it's not as if Torre doesn't have alternatives. It's that he made a bad choice that's going to cost his team a game sometime before Ramirez returns.b
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