First of all…..Pierre has NOTHING to do with Bonifacio

You have not given me even ONE piece of information to support your theory that Bonifacio is any good. NOT ONE. All you did was throw out Juan Pierre’s name.

You seem to like fast guys that don’t get on base enough and don’t have power though, so I will address your Pierre fetish. Perhaps by reading this, you will come to greater understanding.

look at his baseball reference.com page

http://www.baseball-reference.com/p/pierrju01.shtml

1.) His career OBP is .347. league average for his league and ballparks is…. .347

(look under “special batting” section.

The most important thing he has had to do in his career as a leadoff hitter, he has been average at. He had a few years early in his career he was above average and he has obviously had more than a few years he has been below average at getting on base…..and it all adds up to a career league average OBP. It’s not disputable.

2.) He has ZERO power. The two most important things in baseball for a hitter are getting on base , not making outs, and hitting for power. In the first thing he has been merely average, in the second he has been at the very bottom. It all adds up to a player that is unproductive.

3.) You completely overrate his stolen bases, and clearly don’t have the proper handle on the value of the stolen base. Basically a stolen base has about 1/3 the value of a single. Of course a Caught stealing not only the nullifies one successful stolen base, but more like 2 or 3. The “break even” point for stolen bases is somewhere between 72-75 , depending on which analyst you talk to. Juan Pierre’s stolen base rate is 75, or just about break even. It’s not really much of a plus at all.

On top of that, It’s almost impossible for him to steal enough bases to make up for his poor combination of average OBP and Zero Power.

4.) You talk about runs scored totals, ….but you fail to grasp the concept of RATE. How many of his team’s outs did Pierre have to use up to score that many runs? Look closely, he played every game, (up until this year) and got over 700 Plate Appearances every year, those run totals are LOW if anything. A guy leading off 700-750 times every year should probably be scoring more than 90-100 runs.

You want to talk counting stats ? (i.e. the things you add up)

Juan Pierre’s ranking in OUTS MADE from 2003-2007

Outs
2003 NL-511-1
2004 NL-507-2
2005 NL-514-2
2006 NL-532-1
2007 NL-519-3

Basically you have made the mistake of buying into “conventional wisdom” that is outdated and pretty much been proven wrong. Slap hitters that don’t walk, and don’t have a lot of power don’t really produce runs for a team. Old habits die hard, and the amount of playing time that Pierre got is testament to that. But even a guy like Joe Torre finally figured it out and benched him.

You throwing out Pierre as some kind of defense of Bonifacio not only shows a lack of understanding of these principals, but your method of argument here shows a stunning lack of logic. Bonifacio has shown himself to be an inferior player to Pierre at every stage and level of his minor league career, and Pierre isn’t good. So how is that a defense of Bonifacio.

Emilio is fast, and he can play second base. Thats it. He can’t get on base often enough. He doesn’t even make contact enough to utilize his only weapon, his speed. He has no power. Outside of fantasy baseball, where steals do matter much more than they do in real life, he has no value whatsoever as an offensive player. And even now…he’s not stealing bases, because…you know…you can’t steal first base.

Speaking of fantasy baseball, I’ll leave you with this. It’s an update from CBS Sportsline that I happened to read this afternoon.

Emilio Bonifacio, 2B WAS
News: The Sports Xchange notes, Nationals 2B Emilio Bonifacio started the game Friday with a double, but then struck out in his next four at-bats, giving him 15 strikeouts in his last 27 at-bats compared to two hits.

Now you can continue arguing, just for the sake of arguing, or you can ask questions, and find out where you can find out more information and reading material to help you get a better handle on these matters. It’s up to you.

Good luck.