Dip into the Wells

I was cruising around the Cubs site when I saw their current poll. "Should the Cubs try to sign Juan Pierre to a long-term deal?" The current results are 79% to 21% in favor of re-signing him. Honestly I can't understand why. While he's not a horrible lead-off batter, he's really not all that great either, especially not for what he'll command for a salary. I went through and ranked all 30 teams' leadoff guys by OBP (On Base Percentage) to see how Juan stacks up. These leadoff guys were derived from the depth charts provided by Rototimes.com.

	Player	Team	Runs	OBP
1.	Reed Johnson	TOR	76	.390
2.	Grady Sizemore	CLE	114	.377
3.	Dave Roberts	SD	66	.376
4.	Jamey Carroll	COL	69	.371
5.	Maicer Izturis	LAA	57	.369
6.	David DeJesus	KC	69	.368
7.	Johnny Damon	NYY	103	.367
8.	Jason Kendall	OAK	64	.367
9.	Ryan Freel	CIN	64	.366
10.	Ichiro Suzuki	SEA	87	.365
11.	Gary Matthews	TEX	83	.364
12.	Rickie Weeks	MIL	73	.363
13.	Brian Roberts	BAL	75	.361
14.	Rafael Furcal	LAD	94	.360
15.	Alfonso Soriano	WAS	105	.360
16.	Jose Reyes	NYM	111	.353
17.	Luis Castillo	MIN	78	.352
18.	Marcus Giles	ATL	78	.351
19.	Carl Crawford	TB	75	.346
20.	Alfredo Almezaga	FLA	37	.342
21.	Jimmy Rollins	PHI	109	.342
22.	Curtis Granderson	DET	74	.339
23.	Juan Pierre	CHC	71	.335
24.	Aaron Miles	STL	37	.333
25.	Willy Taveras	HOU	74	.331
26.	Scott Podsednik	CHW	82	.330
27.	Eric Byrnes	ARI	69	.328
28.	Coco Crisp	BOS	54	.319
29.	Randy Winn	SF	75	.318
30.	Chris Duffy	PIT	31	.281

I think its safe to say that Pierre is being overvalued as a leadoff hitter, especially when you look at much cheaper options like Maicer Izturis, David DeJesus and Jamey Carroll. Hell even at a hair over $2 million, Dave Roberts is a bargain compared to Pierre. My point is, there's bound to be a cheaper more reliable option at the leadoff spot for next season than Juan Pierre.

So who would play CF then? No, not Felix Pie. As much as some people are pushing for this, he really should have another year in AAA before coming up to the bigs full-time. What the Cubs need to do is get Vernon Wells to play CF. Wells is currently 27 years old, and would provide the Cubs with a much more dependable bat to protect Derrek Lee. Imagine having the 3-4-5 slots in the order filled with Wells, Lee, and Ramirez (on the assumption that A-Ram doesn't try to leave)? That would be pretty tough to pitch around. And on defense, Wells would be an upgrade over Pierre, bringing his 2 Gold Gloves (2004, 2005) with him. Wells isn't for certain that he wants to stay in Toronto and I'm sure plenty of teams will be throwing offers at him (reports are that Wells could command as much as $15/year). Yeah he'll be expensive, but the Cubs already spend a lot of money (7th largest payroll), so there's really no excuse not to be in the running for his services.





Come on! Lets go out and get Vernon Wells. Him and Zambrano can refine their celebratory "point to the sky" technique.