Juan Pierre Update

I don't know if anyone reads this, but I really should update this blog more often. I would probably do a lot better if I wasn't so aware that nobody read the darn thing (or if I sent the link to someone else).

But anyway . . .

Juan Pierre has been off to a horrendously slow start. Well, by his standards no. He's not going to be wrecking anyone's fantasy team in a 5x5 roto league. But he's a little under his average level of performance, and that makes him really really bad. Consider his line:

.277/.305/.314, 15 SB, 5 CS, 5 2B, 1 3B, 27 R, 10 RBI, 1 SF, 6 S, 203 TPA

You could look at it this way, and get a different picture

.277 BA, 15 SB, 27 R

And from a fantasy perspective he's ok, and he'd probably pick up the average a bit. But what is bogging the average down though? Pierre isn't good, but he has been better than this before. Well, look at fangraphs, and let's break down what he's been doing.

First of all, he's striking out more and walking less than normal; normally Pierre's strikeouts and walks are about even, but that ratio is about 2 to 1 this year. Pierre will usually walk in 5.8% of his PAs, but now it's only 4.2%. His strikeouts are at about 9.2% of plate appearances this year, compared with a career rate of just 6.2%. Also worth considering are that Pierre's fly ball rate is way up - this year it's at 32.5%, compared to a career rate of 21.9%! As we all know, Pierre doesn't hit those fly balls for home runs very often, so it doesn't help him that he's hitting so many; his ground balls are down to 47% from 56.4% career. Pierre is also not bunting his way on base nearly as much as he used to: only 17.7% of his bunts are becoming hits, down from 37.7%; this number was 42.9% last year!

So Pierre needs to hit more grounders, fewer popups, and bunt better in order to be successful. Striking out less would be nice.