So Juan Pierre has made the Phillies

Juan Pierre evokes a lot of strong opinions from people. In an age of statistical data and the prominence of those who interpret that data, Pierre has often been the fodder of conversation. And thus, when he signed a minor league contract before the season with the Philadelphia Phillies, that conversation intensified. Now, he has made the team's opening day roster. Whoo boy. Let the fun begin. 

As has been written in this space before, Juan Pierre is a statistical toy. Nobody in baseball has struck out less than Juan Pierre. Nobody in the game has had more bunt base hits. Nobody else in the game has stolen more bases while not being particularly good at it than Juan Pierre. Pierre has racked up over 700 plate appearances the last two seasons. For all that playing time, Baseball-reference.com has given him the grand total of 1.8 rWAR over the past two seasons combined (1.8 rWAR in 2010 and 0 in 2011). Fangraphs rated him higher in 2010 at 2.9 but lower last year at -0.4 fWAR.

It is obvious in the linked piece from ESPN.com that his new manager loves Juan Pierre. But how will he use him? Pierre played every game of every season from 2003 to 2007, three years with the Marlins, a year with the Cubs and then a year with the Dodgers. In 2008 with the Dodgers, he ran into the Manny Ramirez euphoria and lost some playing team to that phenomenon for 2008 and 2009. The stories at the time indicated he wasn't happy about it. Then he played nearly every game for the White Sox for the past two seasons. Will he be content to be a role player?

As a role player, Pierre is probably a better choice than Scott Podsednik who was his chief rival this spring for a job. While the Phillies wait for the return of Ryan Howard, Pierre can take some turns in left if John Mayberry, Jr. plays first. But Ty Wigginton also plays first and will get some playing time. That forces the Phillies to use Mayberry in left if they want him in the lineup. And then what happens when Ryan comes back?

In the grand scheme of things, will Juan Pierre get more than 200 plate appearances? This will be fascinating to watch, won't it? If Pierre does get more than 200 plate appearances, how effective will he be? What if he gets 400 plate appearances? Would that be a bad thing for the Phillies?

The thought here is that Juan Pierre is a useful player. He is a good base runner (base stealing aside), puts the ball in play and other than a terrible throwing arm, can't hurt you too much in left where he should be adequate when he plays. But the thought is also here that Pierre's best usage would be as a part-time player with a limited role. If he gets significant playing time, that won't bode well for the Phillies' offense as a whole. His $800,000 contract with incentives is a far cry from what he's been paid in the past and makes this an attractive equation for the Phillies. The real question is whether Juan Pierre can accept his new status when he has four or five more years left in his career.

Juan Pierre - Bunt King

Juan Pierre just signed a minor league contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. That's quite a come-down for a guy who has played 318 games for the White Sox the last two seasons. The odds of Pierre making the Phillies' roster and/or seeing any significant playing time if he does, seems remote. And that's probably as it should be. Pierre earned negative value according to Fangraphs in 2011 and had zero value according to Baseball-reference.com. Even at your most optimistic, zero value in 158 games doesn't seem like much of a value proposition. And it's kind of too bad that Pierre has about as much chance of getting significant playing time as Ron Paul has of being president. Juan Pierre is a totally unique ballplayer. He is the bunt king.

The one chance Pierre has of catching on with the Phillies (or anyone else) is with his legs. The Phillies were ponderous last year and Pierre has always been fast if nothing else. You could do worse to use him as a defensive replacement late in games though his defensive ratings over the years look like a Dow Jones Index (adding further questions about such metric's worth). His arm is worthless in the outfield, but he can still cover some ground. His arm, in fact, is legendary. He makes Johnny Damon look like he has a cannon.

But again, Pierre is an oddity. He is a statistical toy. Make fun of that all you want, but it sure is interesting. He'll be missed if his playing days are over just for the joy his statistics give us. Here are some examples:

• During his twelve years in Major League Baseball, Luis Castillo is the only other player to have more than 1000 games played with a lower ISO than Juan Pierre. A slugger Pierre is most certainly not.
• During his twelve year career, no one has played as many games as Pierre and has struck out less often. His 5.7 strikeout percentage is the lowest in baseball during his career and among all currently active players, only Jeff Keppinger comes close.
• Unfortunately, Pierre's walk rate matches his strikeout rate. 5.7 percent.
• In Pierre's twelve years in the big leagues, he's led his league in caught stealing seven times! He's only been successful 72 percent of the time in his career. He's led the league in steals three times, but he is not particularly good at it.
• Amazingly, Pierre has led his league in hits twice. Despite only playing twelve seasons (eleven full), he's compiled 2,020 hits. Since he's only 33, if he were to play seven more full seasons, he'd get to 3,000.

That's a pretty amazing list of fun stats, is it not? But that's not even the best one. The best statistic to ponder is Juan Pierre's bunting. Batted ball data really only goes back a few years, so we really can't compare Pierre historically. But Pierre is the bunt king of his generation. Fangraphs and B-R differ slightly on his bunt attempts with B-R giving him more, so we'll go with that for now. According to that site, Juan Pierre has had 625 bunt attempts in his career. That's almost a full season! To put that in perspective, one of out of every twelve plate appearances has ended with a bunt. That's incredible.

Of those bunt attempts, 144 have been sacrifice hits. Nobody but old managers are fond of sacrifices, but still. Of those bunt attempts, 186 have led to base hits (Fangraphs has it at 192). That's sixty plus more than the nearest guy since such statistics have been kept. Two of those bunt hits led to doubles (if you can imagine that). So, for Pierre's 625 bunt attempts, he winds up with a slash line of: .387/387/.391. When Juan Pierre bunts, he has an OPS+ of 120. Why would he ever swing?

So sure, we can all state that Juan Pierre hasn't been a very valuable player. And he's at a point in his career where baseball front offices are very aware of valuation metrics. It seems highly unlikely that Juan Pierre will ever again see significant playing time. Which is kind of sad. Because Juan Pierre has some of the goofiest numbers of any baseball player of his era. He is the contact king. He is the walkless king. He is the caught stealing king. He is the toothless king and he is the floppy arm king. But more than anything else, Juan Pierre has been the bunt king.