Free Juan Pierre!

Juan Pierre is valuable to the dodger offense right now, or finally depending upon how you view his acquisition. In addition or finally, he's valuable at the top of the order. The people advocating benching Pierre or batting him 8'th were right up until the all star break, but are very wrong right now. His single season and career splits prove it.

Pierre has always been a second half player.
From the always trusty Baseball-Reference.com:

I Split   G   GS  PA   AB   R   H   BB  SO  SB  CS BA   OBP SLG OPS BAbip tOPS+
+--------+---+---+----+----+---+---+--+---+----+--+---+----+---+----+--------
1st Half  616 590 2760 2517 360 723 159 166 201 66 .287.337.355.692 .305  92
2nd Half  512 485 2286 2090 318 664 122 112 173 59 .318.361.395.756 .333  110

He walks more and strikes out even less in the second half. His Babip goes up 28 points. Most importantly though is he gets on base sporting a career .361 obp and adds a little more power with an ops+ of 110 career in the second half. He also steals at a higher rate and gets caught at a lower rate. That second half player is the guy I like. The first half guy can bat 8'th or be the 4'th outfielder. Even his defense appears to have picked up since he was making routine flies look like adventures at the beginning of the year.

So in my opinion the dodgers shouldn't be benching that second half guy and he should be batting at the top of the order. Punishing Pierre by batting him in the eight spot or benching him in the second half of the season because of his poor first half performance compounds the damage already done by sticking with Pierre in the first half and giving him all those at bats in the first half at the top of the order. Don't know how many wins that cost but maybe that was the price to get the hot second half Pierre. I don't know.

Pierre isn't the only poor first half player currently on the dodgers. Furcal is the same way, just he goes from good to better instead of poor to good as Pierre does. Kent, Nomar, and Gonzo have either an insignificant split or fade a little bit. I didn't look at the kids because they don't have enough of a track record yet.

This season Pierre is having the kind of August you want your speedy top of the order guy to have by posting a .410 obp .368 avg and oh my gosh a .421 slg%. He's hot right now so we need to be playing him. Next season they can bench him till the all star break as far as I'm concerned. Just don't put down Pierre when he doesn't deserve it and is actuallly helping the team.