Christmas came early to Sox-hating Cubs fans this year. The Los Angeles Dodgers have just traded Juan Pierre to the Chicago White Sox. If you were here for the Bottom 126, you will recall that my entry on Pierre touched off one of the hottest, one-sided debates in HJE history.
Welcome back to Chicago, Juan. May your balls roll true, may your automatic first-pitch fake bunt be convincing, and may your over-sized uniform be billowy.
I laughed so hard when I saw this story. They’re planning on hitting him leadoff too.
As soon as I saw this, I said “HJE is going to have a field day with this one”.
Haha!
What was so terrible about Podsednik?
For a while there I thought he and Jacque Jones were the same person, they both played outfield and neither was very good. Oh by the way haters, Ron got a three year contract extension yesterday!!!! (yes, I know I am in the minority here with my Ron Santo love and fully expect to be mocked)
Here’s a comment by somebody named “hunterscubs”:
It should be noted that this “hunterscubs” guy might not be the brightest candle in the castle.
He repeated the same post about 10 times and then started adding to it.
personally i like the part where in the old juan pierre thread, a ram baller tries to make the claim that juan pierre is a better player than curtis granderson or kenny lofton.
and is it just me, or is that white sox team on paper the worst thing you could buy with that money? mark teahen, andruw jones, juan pierre, alex rios, alexei ramirez, gordon beckham? ugh. if they didnt have like 2 good pitchers i would be wondering how they could win any games.
BUT HE HAD 200 HITS!
Oh, and go fuck yourself A-Ram Baller.
Do they have ivory on the South Side?
“So…Kermit, you suck at baseball. And Juan Pierre and every other major and minor leaguer don’t.”
Is he serious? No one who played the game ever sucked? He’s a Cubs fan and can say this seriously? This guy may be one biggest douche bags ever, and if anyone every told me to get a baseball job at ESPN I would be deeply offended.
Juan Pierre >>> Curtis Granderson
It took 4 long years but Pierre, Peavy, and Santo are all finally going to be headlining in Chicago this year. Now if Kenny could just make a Roberts deal.
Roger Bossard better set his lawn mower extra low, otherwise Juan won’t get one out of the infield this year.
Hate all you want but that move really hurts the Dodgers. As sad as it seems, JP was far more productive than our own Uncle Milty. I’m not going to go on any rant, but LA was the best place for him. Now he will revert back to the Cubs version of himself.
Is this guy seriously back to comment on JP again? I don’t want any version of him he fucking sucks ass.
This guy has an arm that would make Theriot jealous. Who’s going to rock the little league hat under the helmet look the next time Manny gets busted for fertility drugs/horse meds/Peruvian sex trafficking? Today is a sad day for Dodgers fans.
Pierre had a lower OBP and SLG than Bradley (though not by much – Pierre was just five points behind Bradley in slugging despite hitting all of no home runs, which should tell you something about how bad a season Bradley really had), and fewer HR (obviously) and RBI. I don’t know where anyone gets off saying he was more productive than Bradley. His OPS+ was a little higher, mostly, I’m assuming, because he plays in a pitcher’s park, as though playing anywhere else would have given him more power.
The funniest thing about the Juan Pierre 200 hits argument is that is usually comes from the same people who claimed Sammy Sosa’s home runs as meaningless.
Sosa’s meaningless dingers > Pierre’s hollow 200-hit season
@Ryan Beariot –
True fact – the White Sox had the second best ERA in the American League last year.
Hitting was so-so, defense and base running sucked.
Moon-
Yeah, but let’s compare hitters, completely unobjectively because i’m not pulling up baseballreference.com. if you want to later destroy my writing, go ahead, i may even reconsider. We’re doing hitters because that’s where most of my disgust at that team appears, and they havent really changed any pitchers enough for me to care.
players who stayed on the team who suck:
AJ Pierzynski – wait, that shithead hit 300? as a 33 year old catcher? I’m calling bullshit on that one, because fuck that guy.
Alexei Ramirez – He’s good, but he didn’t save my fantasy team. So fuck that guy too. He also lost his power (2b and hr were down) and his ability to hit the ball (avg too)
Gordon Beckham – mediocre 2b who hit double digit home runs and (if my memory serves me correctly) a shithead haircut. 500 ABs gives you 18 HR which while it would be great if WE could get a 2b able to do that, it’s not the next coming of Ryne Sandberg. the reason it’s not is because those other at bats came from Jayson Nix. The white sox now have 2 mediocre to good 2b when they need one. And they can’t play either of them at third, more on that later. Meanwhile, we get fontenot. Once again, fuck those guys, and that includes fontenot for the hell of it.
Mark Kotsay – I’m lazy, he sucks. Next player please!
Paul Konerko – does not suck, but the fact that he didnt get 100 RBIs, nor did Dye – yeah, that team sucks.
Carlos Quentin- injured, was good two years ago. let’s see if he still is. am i taking him in a fantasy league? not this upcoming year, i’ll let someone else bite that bullet.
players they lost and who’s replacing them:
JIM THOME becomes Andruw Jones: There is not a single year in the entirety of baseball where I would replace Thome with Jones. Even during Jones’s 4-5 good years at the turn of the century, Thome was better. And I like Thome as a person, because he’s a Cub fan and because he didnt eat his way out of a job. Jones, meanwhile, hit 214 and that was a giant improvement for him. No thank you to that fat load of crap.
Scott Podsednik being replaced by Juan Pierre – you took the one the fans liked, who was goodish, and hit a few HR (which cellular field helps i bet) and replaced him with Juan Pierre, who hits 1 HR a year. same number of stolen bases, and monetarily it ain’t worth it.
Josh Fields becomes Mark Teahen – monetarily, not the best of plans. choose the young guy who had a good season two years ago or the older guy who has been shipped around the field more times than Mark Derosa. “I’m a second baseman!” yeah, whatever, Teahen. But the real reason this is bad is because you replace Beckham (who thanks to wikipedia I learned played 3rd for most of the year when he got back) with Teahen. At best, Teahen will hit 20 HR. And if he does, it’s a miracle. most likely, 15. congrats, you just paid for a broken year from aramis ramirez. granted, Nix has a terrible average, but he’s also young and i’m willing to bet if he had coaching and regular playing time, he could be good. but they won’t, so he won’t.
Dewayne Wise/Jermayne Dye becomes alex rios – well wise sucked hard and is only known for that one catch, and dye is decent, even though i hate him. that doesnt mean rios is a good idea. he hits like shit, his power is dropping, as are his stolen bases, and they have him signed for how many more years now?
granted, the OF switch is not as noticeable…but they took jermayne dye, jim thome, and scott podsednik (essentially 57 HR, 30 SB) and replaced it with Juan Pierre, Alex Rios, and Andruw Jones (34 HR and 59 SB). i’m not sure of the exact conversion, but those numbers from the second group are assuming Andruw Jones and Alex Rios don’t get worse next year, which I am not willing to bet on. plus if andruw jones hits 250, it’ll be a miracle.
at best? maybe 2nd place because the AL central sucks. but the twins will take it again i feel.
sorry to rant so much about the white sox, but i really think most of that team is a mess of lazy fat slobs who are only going to get lazier or fatter. That team looks to be the suckiest bunch of sucks who ever sucked.
For all the “he hits .300!” or “he gets 200 hits!” fools, figured this should be shared in case anyone missed it.
And I have an idea. We should all get together and have a trophy made for this wonderful Lifetime Achievement award Pierre received. It could have a little leaguer (in bunting stance ideally) standing on top of a baseball with a huge hole drilled through it. We can present it to him on opening day :)
looks as if I messed that up somehow. Anyway, it seems as though you need to click the red text for the link