jjgman21

how many minor considerations does it take before it becomes a consideration? again, by way of example, the difference in 25 point of obp is approximately 17 times reaching base. if Pierre reaches second instead of being part of a double play 5 times a year, let's say that's worth three outs from the batter's box. if he forces 5 errors, that's 8 outs saved. add in one or two reached on a dropped third strike, and that makes 10 outs saved. as you can see, that 25 point gap in obp can close rather quickly with the accumulative effects of all these 'minor considerations' you flip flop on this. when discussing the importance of slugging, you like to say how a first hole hitter usually only leads off the first inning. when talking about productive outs, you say there are no runners on base for the leadoff hitter. if you want to detract from productive outs out of the leadoff hitter, you have to detract from the value of slugging pushing runners ahead from the leadoff hitter. you can't have it both ways. another area of flip flopping is your emphasize on how important Wilkerson's slugging will be in pushing runners along, but don't ever mention how many times runners will move along on Pierre's singles instead of Wilkerson's walks. while Pierre's slap hits won't move alot of runners along, runners on second and third never advance on a walk. again, you can't have it both ways. if you want to give credit to one, you have to give credit to both. furthermore, you are taking the discussion of strikeouts completely out of context. I used it to compare the amount of rallies killed. two ways to kill a rally, or to eliminate the chance to score a run at least, are DPs and strikeouts. someone pointed to Wilkerson's low DP rate compared to Pierre to point out that Pierre is more of a rally killer, so in a discussion of killing rallies, I think it is fair to point out how often Wilkerson will fail to move a runner to third or drive him in from third by striking out. the formula I used actually detracted more from Pierre's SB, your's did not, but lets use actual numbers instead of an estimate (to easily calculate, XBH + SB / AB + BB) Wilkerson 2002 - .105 2003 - .118 2004 - .127 ave - .116 x 650 = 75.4 Pierre 2003 - .140 2004 - .113 2005 - .131 ave - .128 x 650 = 83.2 I get 8 times a year. and you're willing to throw out Wilkerson's injury season (and just how injured was he if he played the entire year?), yet I'm sure you aren't willing to throw out his massive 2004, which came out of nowhere and there is no evidence that he will repeat that type of year, whereas Pierre has pretty much proven the ability to get to second on his own at a greater rate, year after year after year. again, missing my point. I wasn't comparing the two players. I was pointing out that, according to that sabr guys estimation that 10 runs per year leads to .2-.4 extra wins a year, 25 extra points in a players OBP has the same net effect on wins per year as the difference in a speedy guy over an average guy. so let's say Wilkersons obp is 50 points greater. that's what, 30 more times reaching base? assuming that leads to 30 runs, again an absurd notion, that's 3 extra wins a year. more realistically, let's say it lead to 10 more runs a year. that's 1 win a year. and as I pointed out, even Bill James called into question some of sabr's previously held notions. and not surprisingly, all the sabrs got into an uproar about it. why? why not use it as motivation to come up with better numbers instead of doing everything possible to defend previously held beliefs? I'm not arguing for less use of stats and more traditional scouting. even without math skills to understand and critique these studies, I believe there are weaknesses in the way somethings have been calculated, and the sabrs have become so defensive in protecting their theories, that they too are now thinking inside the box. and the final point you are missing is, I don't particularly like Pierre and would have rather had Wilkerson. but the lengths and methods many have gone through to detract from Pierre and glorify Wilkerson is absurd. the difference is not as clear as you argue, and if Wilkerson is the better player and will lead to more victories, the number of victories provided by Wilkerson over Pierre is marginal at best.

There is an clause that is kicked in, automatically (see Javier Vazquez) that allows a player the "right to demand a trade" if he is dealt in the middle of a multi-year contract. So yes, Tejada has that right now, if he is dealt. Well being able to demand a trade and opting out are two separate issues. I would see why Tejada would want to opt out of his contract (more money) but i dont see any reason to demand a trade from the Cubs. Um, he's ticked at Baltimore for sucking...... I'm sure he'd have similar complaints if he came here. if I'm not mistaken, Tejada's complaint if the Orioles sucking and not doing anything about it. there is a difference between that, and sucking but trying to do something about it, even though that something may not be the right thing to do. I wonder what role, if any, Sosa's friendship would play in his willingness to come to the Cubs and work with Hendry to iron some of these issues out.

same ol' song and dance. guy can't hit outside of Coors career at Coors OPS over 1000 career away 249/301/394/695 ew

how did the Mets outbid the Sabean? I thought the Giants had the market cornered on players old enough to be your grandpa.

I prefer a little from column A and a little from column B. He's not saying that they currently have interest in Jones, but just having him as a possibility makes my head hurt. Since Hendry didn't land Furcal, he isn't ruling out any more free agent signings. I read the bolded part above as 'gawd knows were not done yet, but we think further acquisitions will come via trade'

c'mon Walt. you've done nothing to improve the Cards this offseason. go get your man!

source on this? this is very good news for Bradley advocates. the Blue Jays turned down a player of Bradley's caliber to keep a pitcher that is less than average in every role he has played. I don't do this often, but.. Maddux have a no trade? will he waive it to go to LA? Maddux for Bradley, use Maddux's money to find a pitcher. either sign the best of the current crop (Millwood) or, to cut down the prospect cost, who's looking to dump a good, expensive pitcher at the end of his contract?

I posted this in the Trot Nixon thread, thought I would move it here. thought I would answer my own question May 2-June 4, 2002 - ball ricocheted off the outfield wall when trying to make a catch, breaking a his orbital bone August 12-August 30, 2002 - appendicitis April 23-May 8, 2003 - high ankle sprain diving for a ball. probably could have played through it if given a few days off, but put on the DL because it was April. August 10-October 3, 2003 - tweaked back on a swing May 30-July 15 - torn ligament in his finger on a swing August 10, 2005-now - blew out knee similar to the way Patterson did. the 2002 injuries can basically be ignored. chalk it up to flukes. teh blown knee is a fluke too, and an easy injur to overcome these days. two injuries, the back tweak and the finger are strange swinging injuries. that is a bit of concern, but we are not talking JD Drew here. while a couple of Drew's injuries were flukes, he is pretty much a glass tiger. another thought on Milton, alot of people like to make the obvious comparison to Carl Everett. the comparison should be brought further than just temper. they have very similar career curves. a minor prediction that over the next three years, Bradley will match what Everett did his years in Houston and the first year in Boston. boy would I like the Cubs right fielder to have the numbers Everett put up at the same age Bradley is now.

alot is being made of Bradley's injury history. has anyone looked into the types of injuries he has suffered? his low game and AB totals in 2001 is due to splitting time in the outfield, not injury, and before last year his missed time was due to multiple short stints on the DL. are these hammies and twisted ankles or does he have one injury over and over?

my AL team is the RedSox, but I don't understand the infatuation many have with what the RedSox have done. of all their deals, I like the addition of Loretta the best. However, Beckett, like Burnett, is pretty much average away from Miami, and the blister thing may never go away. I like Mota, but he had a whopping 4.70 ERA last year. on top of that, they seem to be stockpiling third basemen, but are without a shortstop or first baseman. their outfield consists of the chronically injured Nixon, the disgruntled Manny, the unsigned Damon, and nothing. at this point, I have to give the RedSox a big Incomplete.

with how anemic that division is, any team stands a shot at winning it. that being said, I don't see AZ trading anything that would be useful for them in 2006 for Patterson. however, there is Vazquez who has demanded a trade. is Chicago far enough east for him?

What exactly do you think they are trying to achieve? Drumming every fast player out of the game? Sounds like more anti moneyball paranoia to me. As far as I can tell SABR people interested in objective analysis in baseball are trying to gain more knowledge about the game of baseball, they do research, and apply that research either with papers/books or trying to work for a team and making it better. What do you think their agenda is that would cause them to purposefully skew data and basically lie. see the bolded part? does that answer your question? their agenda is to protect the conclusions that they came to. maybe when Bill James was working his security job it was altruistic, but now its in large part about money and defending their rightness. the pankin study is interesting, but again based on math I don't understand. I would like to see someone plug the numbers of Pierre and Wilkerson as the Cubs leadoff guy for 2005 and see what they come up with. but what I truly found interesting, is that Pankin states 10 additional runs translates into one additional W per year. so going back again to my comparison of a .350 v. a .375 OPB and 17 fewer outs, if the .375 guy scores every single additional time he reaches base over the .350 guy, which is absurd, that translates into 1.7 additional wins in a year. not alot. a more reasonable assumption is what, being generous maybe 5 additional runs in a year? so by that rudimentary calculation, 25 extra points in OBP just about equals the number of wins a fast runner gives over a slow runner.

If he were a real gamer like david eckstein, he would have played through it. :| If El Caballo rammed into Eckstein that hard, we would have been reading an obituary, not about a trip to the DL. the media also would have called it one of the dirties plays they had ever seen, instead of a 'good hard slide.' I'm still pissed that no Cubs pitcher ever put one between his numbers for that. but I'm probably more pissed that the Cubs were constantly trailing the Brewers, thus never giving a good opportunity to put one between his numbers.

interesting. I mentioned up above how, based on 700 PAs, the difference between a .350 and a .375 OBP is 17 fewer outs made. any studies done on how many runs those 17 fewer outs made leads to? how many wins those 17 fewer outs made would lead to? I can't imagine the increase of wins based on 17 fewer outs made in 700 PAs would be vast. therefore, I don't image too many sabrs are interested in doing such studies, as that would seriously undermine what they are ultimately trying to achieve. the Heritage Foundation can show you many studies on the non-existence of global warming. how many of those "scientists" had an agenda going into their studies? all of them.

So it's not okay to use what knowledge we have so far to say that speed in and of itself is not that valuable so as to demand a premium in money/talent traded? But it is okay to just assume that speed is really important and therefore spend half the offseason on a practically singleminded quest to find that speed come hell or high water and then pay a big price when you finally get it? I'm all for speedy players. I'd love to get some speed players at many positions. But what I'd love more is productive players. And until somebody can prove to me that speed in and of itself really does make a player more valuable that his numbers would make him appear, than I'm not going to go gaga over speed for speed's sake. The Cubs are in love with speed for speed's sake. They gave preference to "speedy" players who were significantly less productive than others. It's pretty clear they are basing almost all decisions on conventional wisdom while ignoring most of what rational unbiased objective analysis can bring to the table. See Hughes: "Pierre's my most favorite player". Gee, that's nice. Augie Ojeda was a lot of people's favorite player. And Craig Counsel was supposed to be one of your favorites before. You complain about what "sabr" lacks, but offer no alternative other than assumptions that speed must be good, and therefore it's okay to pay a premium for it and spend valuable resources for it. I believe you have to find a pretty solid mix of scouting and analysis. The Cubs are clearly a strict scouting organization, and that strategy has failed them miserably. They've shown no signs of bringing in other tools to their evaluation process. No $100m team should focus only on the "moneyball" approach and the "sabr" approach. They can afford to and should take risks on "upside" "potential" and "tools". However, the Cubs entire organization is focused solely on those subjective theories based on the conventional wisdom of a group of men who historically have at every turn attempted to thwart progress in the game and league. We're talking about people who not only still want to judge players on strikeouts, batting average, HR and RBI, but guys who say a pitcher can't make it if he's under 6'2", guys like David Kelton have such a "pure" swing that nobody in the organization should mess with it, Corey Patterson should be a leadoff hitter even though we spent his first three years with the organization explaining why he never was and never will be a leadoff hitter. This is a franchise with a history of nothing but failure, and a front office that has not shown nearly enough progress in 10 freaking years to prove they could be the ones to change things. Perhaps their view that conventional wisdom and scouting win out over objective analysis is a bit flawed. Perhaps their love for speed is just as flawed. Perhaps your defense of their beliefs is a bit misguided. Perhaps. Or maybe all these losses are due to goats or cheap ownership. just two comments - first, there is a nice mix of false choices (ie. the knowledge we have about speed may not be complete), disinformation, and putting words into my mouth here (Counsel my favorite player? you're thinking of someone else). second, just look at all the speedy players the Cubs have acquired over the years. the organization just oozes with over emphasis on speed, now doesn't it. a third comment I completely agree there needs to be a mix of sabr and scouting, and the people that are in both camps discount the other way to much, to the point of often failing to see the forest through the trees. and a fourth I got to get some work done guys.

thank you for that. I don't have the skills to critique the methods, or to run the calculations, but that's a start. all I am is saying is, in order to accurately compare the two players, these are the types of numbers that need to be taken into account. nobody has posted the numbers after these calculations are made to compare the two players. instead the detrators or Pierre talk about nothing but stolen bases and leave it as that.

So it's not okay to use what knowledge we have so far to say that speed in and of itself is not that valuable so as to demand a premium in money/talent traded? But it is okay to just assume that speed is really important and therefore spend half the offseason on a practically singleminded quest to find that speed come hell or high water and then pay a big price when you finally get it? I'm all for speedy players. I'd love to get some speed players at many positions. But what I'd love more is productive players. And until somebody can prove to me that speed in and of itself really does make a player more valuable that his numbers would make him appear, than I'm not going to go gaga over speed for speed's sake. The Cubs are in love with speed for speed's sake. They gave preference to "speedy" players who were significantly less productive than others. It's pretty clear they are basing almost all decisions on conventional wisdom while ignoring most of what rational unbiased objective analysis can bring to the table. See Hughes: "Pierre's my most favorite player". Gee, that's nice. Augie Ojeda was a lot of people's favorite player. And Craig Counsel was supposed to be one of your favorites before. You complain about what "sabr" lacks, but offer no alternative other than assumptions that speed must be good, and therefore it's okay to pay a premium for it and spend valuable resources for it. I believe you have to find a pretty solid mix of scouting and analysis. The Cubs are clearly a strict scouting organization, and that strategy has failed them miserably. They've shown no signs of bringing in other tools to their evaluation process. No $100m team should focus only on the "moneyball" approach and the "sabr" approach. They can afford to and should take risks on "upside" "potential" and "tools". However, the Cubs entire organization is focused solely on those subjective theories based on the conventional wisdom of a group of men who historically have at every turn attempted to thwart progress in the game and league. We're talking about people who not only still want to judge players on strikeouts, batting average, HR and RBI, but guys who say a pitcher can't make it if he's under 6'2", guys like David Kelton have such a "pure" swing that nobody in the organization should mess with it, Corey Patterson should be a leadoff hitter even though we spent his first three years with the organization explaining why he never was and never will be a leadoff hitter. This is a franchise with a history of nothing but failure, and a front office that has not shown nearly enough progress in 10 freaking years to prove they could be the ones to change things. Perhaps their view that conventional wisdom and scouting win out over objective analysis is a bit flawed. Perhaps their love for speed is just as flawed. Perhaps your defense of their beliefs is a bit misguided. Perhaps. Or maybe all these losses are due to goats or cheap ownership. just two comments - first, there is a nice mix of false choices (ie. the knowledge we have about speed may not be complete), disinformation, and putting words into my mouth here (Counsel my favorite player? you're thinking of someone else). second, just look at all the speedy players the Cubs have acquired over the years. the organization just oozes with over emphasis on speed, now doesn't it.

when the search function is back on, take a look at my history. if it doesn't reach the level of blasphemy, please forgive me for exagerrating. I disagree. I think many people think sabr has all the answers, but whatever. the problem with that is how quick many are to dismiss evidence because it can't be easily reduced to a number, especially when it flies in the face of logic and observation. alot of people like to equate sabr with Galileo. Galileo started out by concluding that the earth moves around the sun via observation, not mathmatical formula. is it that difficult to conclude that Pierre is much more likely to score once he reaches base? is it that difficult to conclude that slugging loses value when batting behind the 8th and 9th hitter? I think I have presented some evidence, or at least raised some questions about previously held assumptions, in this thread that shows speed has value that people have not taken into account in their previous analysis. you can see how many minds I have swayed. I can see how you come to that conclusion after excluding everything but the stolen base in your analysis of the impact of speed.

Probably less than 5 and more than 0. In otherwords, an insignificant amount. helping me to demonstrate my point about failing to measure everything or measure everything accurately. 'it's probably X, so let's not attempt to measure and conclude it's insignificant' while preventing this type of out isn't as valuable than avoiding an out while in the batter's box, over the course of 700 plate appearances the difference between a .325 and a .350 obp is 18 outs prevented. the difference between a .350 and .375 is 17 outs prevented. so let's say the number of times Pierre does this is 5, but you have to diminish that because its not as valuable as an out prevented in the batter's box. so let's say those 5 are as valuable as 3 outs prevented in the batter's box. then you have to add to that the number of reached on errors that Pierre will have over Wilkerson. give him 5 more. that's 8 outs prevented. just with those two items alone, Pierre closes the a 25 point gap in obp by half. look, adherents to sabr can pick apart each individual point I have made, but it doesn't take a statistical genius to come to the conclusion that speed is a very valuable commodity, the true value of which has yet to be measured and is therefore easy to ignore. Where do you get these assumptions from? They bare no resemblence to reality whatsoever. Wilkerson is not Mike Lowel. I think cpaptterson20 already mentioned Wilkerson has only hit into a handfull of DPs in his career. Peirre doesn't take the best advantage of his speed b/c he is not that good of a base stealer. However, it's fine if you think Pierre is a better leadoff hitter then Wilkerson. where to you get the assumption that Pierre only turns 5 double plays a year into fielder's choices? your assumptions are better than mine? its that hard to foresee that five times in 700 plate appearances, Pierre's speed will turn a bobble into a reached on an error? it's probably alot more, and those times when Pierre is actually reaching base, he's getting credit for making an out. yes, CPatt did mention that, but as I pointed out, Pierre as a base runner will force the defense to take one sure out, when Wilkerson will be a part of a double play. you already commented on that. maybe you forgot. and for the umpteenth time, stolen bases is not the only part of the game of baseball that speed has an impact on. edit for this: I have never argued that Pierre is a better leadoff man than Wilkerson. I have and am arguing that people are using disinformation and leaving alot of information out when comparing the two. this is not an argument about Pierre v. Wilkerson, its an argument about the methods one should use in comparing the two.

And even easier to greatly overvalue, which is something the Cubs have been doing this offseason. how do you know when the value has not been completely or accurately measured. I had a similare debate with you when I first came here regarding clutch. the gist of my argument was clutch may not exist but the way sabr has attempted to measure it doesn't tell the whole story. I was treated as a blasphemer. http://www.sabr.org/cmsfiles/underestimating.PDF while Matt critiqued some of James' methods, the point is clear, sabr is a new science, and accurate formulas for measuring it do not yet exist. there are gaps in the information guys, and like I've said over and over here, the true measure of speed is not stolen bases alone, but most of the studies on the impact of speed focus solely on the stolen base.

Probably less than 5 and more than 0. In otherwords, an insignificant amount. helping me to demonstrate my point about failing to measure everything or measure everything accurately. 'it's probably X, so let's not attempt to measure and conclude it's insignificant' while preventing this type of out isn't as valuable than avoiding an out while in the batter's box, over the course of 700 plate appearances the difference between a .325 and a .350 obp is 18 outs prevented. the difference between a .350 and .375 is 17 outs prevented. so let's say the number of times Pierre does this is 5, but you have to diminish that because its not as valuable as an out prevented in the batter's box. so let's say those 5 are as valuable as 3 outs prevented in the batter's box. then you have to add to that the number of reached on errors that Pierre will have over Wilkerson. give him 5 more. that's 8 outs prevented. just with those two items alone, Pierre closes the a 25 point gap in obp by half. look, adherents to sabr can pick apart each individual point I have made, but it doesn't take a statistical genius to come to the conclusion that speed is a very valuable commodity, the true value of which has yet to be measured and is therefore easy to ignore.

on the double plays, you guys are both forgetting that being a part of a double play is not solely a factor of hitting into them. how many times a year will Pierre v. Wilkerson force the fielder to take the sure out at first instead of turning a double play when he is the runner on first? that is preventing outs. no two ways about it. as for the number of times this happens, I'll leave it to the stat heads to figure that out. as for the number of DPs hit into, sure, Pierre killed 4 more rallies last year with double plays. how many more rallies than Pierre did Wilkerson kill with his massive amounts of strikeouts? I'm not huge on the productive out, but when the difference in the number of double plays is not vast, ie. 4, but the nuumber of times a baserunner has a chance to advance to a base closer to home, ie 30-40, where do you strike the balance? just another chip in Pierre's favor as far as OBP goes. how more many times a year will Pierre turn a bobble into a reached on an error, whereas the same bobble will be an out for Wilkerson? is that worked into the equation? how about the number of times Pierre turns a pitch getting away into a wp/pb when Wilkerson doesn't move. does Pierre get credit for extra slugging? the point about dingers, and by correlation slugging is this. in my calculation of reaching second base on their own, there is no doubt that Wilkerson reached home on his own more often than Pierre. however, over the course of their careers, Pierre reaches second or beyond on his own at a much greater rate than Wilkerson. you subtract the number of homeruns from the times reaching second on their own, and the gap is even greater. probably on average 30-40 times more per year. that's alot, and that translates to runs. not sure runs like Wilkerson's HRs, but it will translate into alot of rus that Wilkerson never even had the opportunity to score because he was standing on first. the second point is best illustrated by example. if Pierre scores from first on a double, whereas Wilkerson only reaches third on the same double, does Pierre not deserve an additional tally in the total bases column when comparing him to Wilkerson? what about all the other times in a year that Pierre will take a base that Wilkerson could not? considering the myriad of situations in which this takes place, ie the wp/pb example above, how many extra bases a year will this translate into? the point about batting first in the order being taken too far because the one hole batter doesn't always lead off is well taken. however, batting in the one hole means batting behind the eighth and ninth hole, generally the two worst hitters in the lineup. so doesn't that diminish the value of having extra slugging in the one hole? I think this is aptly demonstrated by Wilkerson's paltry RBI numbers when compared to his number of extra base hits. and another point on this, you care that Wilkerson will mover runners along with his extra slugging, but I'm sure will say that the runners moved along by Pierre's outs doesn't matter. I've said many times, the problem with sabr is it reaches alot of conclusions without measuring everything or measuring everything accurately. it has become just as dogmatic as traditional baseball scouting and analysis.

I mulitplied stolen bases time .9 to account for attempted steals of third. I don't suppose Diffusion worked in the number of outs prevented and the scoring opportunities made available by the things I listed above though did he? or are those things not valuable in scoring runs? I have no math or statistical accumen to determine these things, but consider.... it's not hard to imagine Pierre's speed would prevent 15-20 outs a year by turning double plays into fielder's choices when Wilkerson would have been a part of a double play. that's worth, what, about 20-25 points in obp? as for the dingers that Wilkerson hits...let's say he hits 20 more. assume Pierre reaches second on his own 25-30 times more in a year. 10-15 times Pierre will score anyway, so that diminishes the added value of Wilkerson's slg right off. now let's talk about all of the times Pierre will reach second, third and home when Wilkerson would not. what's that worth? 10 runs? easily. 30 runs? quite possible. your points lead me right back to a theme from above, you are completely discounting the various roles that speed plays in scoring runs.

at about 5 pm, Kaplan said Wilkerson is rumored to be spun off to the Blue Jays for Orlando Hudson. not sure if that had been mentioned. I'm interested in a couple of things, somewhat related, raised in this thread (both blamed on a perceived need for power hitters on both corners now that we have Pierre) why has the general sentiment grown from Murton playing everyday to Murton being the fourth outfielder? why does everyone think that Bradley will not provide enough production as a right fielder. I am of the opinion that adding an Abreu or Dunn to an outfield that included Murton would turn this team into a fricken juggernaut, but they would still be a very good offensive ballclub with Bradley (assuming keeping Walker)

I am not enomored by the move, but like I said in the thread about his acquisition, people have been pretty absurd in trying to diminish his skills. I remember a year ago when arguments were being made about Walker leading off for the Cubs, some people who are currently bashing the deal were making this point: obp in a leadoff man is most important, but how often the batter reaches second base is critically important as well when it comes to scoring runs. in that respect, you compare how often Pierre is able to reach second base on his own to Wilkerson or Walker, it adds value that Walker and Wilkerson can't necessarily bring. for a rough calculation, I'll use 2b + 3b + HR + SB(x.9). 2005 was a down year for Pierre and Wilkerson and an injury year for Walker: Pierre 85 Wilkerson 67 Walker 41 (in 400 ABs, let's say 61 over 600 ABs) 2004 was by far Wilkerson's best year, arguably for Pierre too, and a illogically benched year for Walker Pierre 77 Wilkerson 85 (do have to give a huge edge for all the dingers, but will he ever repeat that? shouldn't the homers he didn't hit in DC have turned into doubles last year? they didn't.) Walker 38 (about 61 over 600) for some reason I don't see the people that advocate Wilkerson, and bashing Pierre, pointing to the value reaching second on your own has to scoring runs even though many of them spoke of it last year when advocating for Walker for leadoff. I don't like Pierre's stolen base percentage. I think it should be in the 80s to be an effective gamble. last year Pierre attempted 74 stolen bases. to have an 80 percent success rate he would have needed 60 sb. he had 57. three outs (sure, there are probably some pickoffs to work in there.) big deal. I'd much rather have him on second or beyond on his own at the rate he does get there. also, to diminish his skills, everybody is acting like the sole aspect of speed is the stolen base. while wilkerson, and to a lesser extent walker, are both good baserunners, Pierre brings the following more regularly than the Ws: score from second on a single go from first to third on a single score from first on a double score from third on a groundball or flyout turn dps into fc to first go from second to third on a groundball up the middle Walker is probably my favorite Cub, and I would love to add Wilkerson, but the lengths people go through to say that they would be every bit the leadoff hitter that Pierre is goes a little far. let's look at the entire picture, not just the additional slg and leave it at that. obp is the most important factor for a leadoff hitter, but Pierre's speed in the leadoff spot will lead to alot of scoring opportunities and avoid alot of outs, that would have been runners stranded and outs if it were Walker and Wilkerson out there.