Not entirely true. Pierre clearly distracts pitchers when he is on base. The less focussed a pitcher is on the hitter, the better the hitter's chances of getting a pitch he can hit, including homeruns. Those stolen bases may have affected the pitcher, the pitches that are thrown (don't want to throw a slider in the dirt with Pierre on third), etc... Can you prove this? Look at each time Pierre has been on base and see what the results are. It shouldn't be that hard since he's only been on base 8 times this year. probably not the best example since he's scored 6 runs in those 8 times on base. thus lending credibility that something about Pierre being on base makes the batters better / pitcher worse. interestingly, Pierre has not scored a single run after any of the 23 times he did not reach base. (sorry, I just was reading the game thread) Jacque Jones has scored 3 of the 4 times he's been on base, is his speed that much a nuisance? The pitcher may just not be very good(as evidenced by giving up hits to Pierre and his compatriots), or he's less effective from the stretch(true of many pitchers). I'd give both of those more credence than Pierre's speed distracting the pitcher to the point of being noticeably worse. EDIT: But all of this is getting away from the original point that I was making, that Pierre hasn't been good thus far. easy there. I was just pointing out a that there is an anomoly in the evidence you used, and that evidence lead to a flawed argument. as for the part I bolded, simply by saying this, it leads me to believe you are trying to say something more than your original point described in your edit. there's some ax grinding going on here.