True Blue LA: An SB Nation Community

Navigation: Jump to content areas:


Pro Quality. Fan Perspective.
Around SBN: Can Tebow Say No To Anything?

Reason To Hate Juan Pierre #73

I'm reading through the 2007 Hardball Times Annual (which I highly recommend) and I just went through the chapter on the outfielders with the best arms.  After breaking down the best outfield arms of each era, John Walsh goes through the worst outfield arms since 1957. Let me just put it this way, the following players have worse arms than Juan Pierre:

Frank Howard
Don Baylor

Juan Pierre's arm costs a team 5.4 runs per season versus the average centerfielder, over a run more than Al Bumbry, the second saddest centerfield arm of all time. Since Juan Pierre's base running was worth a little over 15 runs from 2000-2005, or about three runs a year, his arm more than cancels out whatever gains we may get from his treasured legs.  For even better news, a player's arm tends to decline over time, so Pierre's arm isn't even close to as noodlely as it will be by the time his contract runs out.

If you doubt the validity of this study, it pretty much matches up with our observations of who has the best arms. For example, these are the best right field arms of the last few years: Larry Walker, Raul Mondesi, Bobby Abreu, Vlad Guerro, Orlando Merced, Mark Whiten and Ichiro. Interestingly, most players' arms make very little difference. Brian Jordan has the 10th best arm of all right fielders in recent years, but he's only saved 9.5 runs over average in his career. A player needs to be notably good or bad for his arm to have any real effect on the game.

When I noted how weak the Dodger outfielders arms were I wondered exactly how much that would affect the team. If Gonzalez and Ethier's arms are anywhere near as bad as Pierre's, the answer could be as much as one win. While for the most part a player's arm doesn't matter, you should look to avoid the set of girly-armed outfielders the Dodgers have assembled.

0 recs  |  Comment 6 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Display:

I hate defense
I found Chris Dial's (hope that worked!) column on 2006 gold gloves, the other day, while trying to figure out if LuGo is any good. He has Juan Pierre being 15 runs better than, um, I think it's average. So, he's rangey enough that he makes up for his garbage arm? Maybe. He has LuGo as two runs better, and Ethier as four, but in LF. I don't know if there's a conversion method for guessing if Ethier will be alright in RF.

Of all the Dodgers, the on whose defense worries me most is Kent. But maybe he'll hold up another year.

by Andrew Shimmin on Jan 20, 2007 10:36 PM PST reply actions   0 recs

Oh
Pinto's Probabilistic Model of Range has Pierre in the middle. So, where's he making it up? In scrap?

by Andrew Shimmin on Jan 20, 2007 10:39 PM PST up reply actions   0 recs

Re
True, this has nothing to do with his overall defense, but since I don't believe those systems account for the ability to hold runners, we need to lop those runs off his total. Since Dial's system is the only one I've seen that has Pierre as anything better than average, I'd say that Pierre's arm takes him from an average centerfielder to below average.

He's still better than Lofton though.

by Andrew on Jan 21, 2007 10:36 AM PST up reply actions   0 recs

Pierre making it up
Doesn't Pierre almost never make an error? Maybe he gets to an above average rating on sure-handedness. Obviously that's more important for an infielder, but it still must count for something in the outfield.

by Alfredo Griffin on Jan 21, 2007 7:19 AM PST reply actions   0 recs

Re
How often does the average outfielder make an error? Gary Matthews lead all centerfielders in 2006 with seven, and the average is around three. How many of those were throwing errors and not fielding errors?

Pretty much every outfielder in baseball can catch every ball that hits them in the glove. An extra play a year makes no real difference. Plus, I'm sure this sure handedness is accounted for in these systems, since an error counts the same as a play not made.

by Andrew on Jan 21, 2007 10:33 AM PST up reply actions   0 recs

Errors
How good of a stat is it that you don't make errors when that stat itself has questionable value?

by Rich on Jan 21, 2007 8:51 AM PST reply actions   0 recs

Comments For This Post Are Closed


User Tools

A place for Dodger fans to congregate without spending $15 on parking.
Start posting about the Dodgers »

Join SB Nation and dive into communities focused on all your favorite teams.

FanPosts

Community blog posts and discussion.

Recommended FanPosts

Ed-ak286_scully_g_20091006143938_small
Kevin Goldstein likes Dee and Chris
2501_small
Shawn Green Throws his Batting Gloves into the O’Malley Suite
Th_punkedoutmercat_small
The Essence of Beard (Where Has it Gone?)
Small
Sandy is the All-Time Dodger Ace
Memoriesofkevinmaloneavatar_small
The 2010 Prospective Prospect Profile List

Recent FanPosts

Ed-ak286_scully_g_20091006143938_small
A quick glance at 4 different Top 15 Dodger Prospects List
Small
Dodger Decades: Best of the Aughts (to have won a World Series *grumblegumble*)
Small
Dodger Prospect Countdown: 60 - 51
39135485-59af19dbb26654095f910f34176af094_4ae8a81e-scaled_small
Predictions Group
0646a9dfc333ac84_small
Caravan/Steiner/Ethier/Skipper
Small
Dodgers Offically Sign Reed Johnson

+ New FanPost All FanPosts >

SPONSORS


Managers

100_1427_small Phil Gurnee

Img_0108_small Eric Stephen

Editors

Bison_small David Young

2501_small Michael White