Fair point that Pierre may no longer be as overrated, but until last year he was a starter ahead of a younger, cheaper, better player. So people that matter in baseball circles thought enough of him to bat him leadoff, even.

I still maintain David Eckstein is the most overrated player in the game. Most beat writers, analysts, and baseball people think he’s a “gamer”, which apparently is a euphemism for “not very good at the game of baseball”.

Keep in mind overrated doesn’t mean the worst, just overrated.

IMHO, I wouldn’t call Juan Pierre overrated because, for the past 4-5 years, the circles I mix with, and the articles I read, the majority of sources I’ve read/heard rip him pretty bad, quite often stating that he has no business starting in the Majors. I guess he’s so overrated that he’s no longer overrated, if that makes sense. Of course most of what I read is saber/roto oriented, Baseball Prospectus, Baseball HQ etc. that genre.

If Guillen can return to the form I saw briefly last year at 1B towards the end of the year, I’ll be happy.

I will admit that, there was a brief stretch last year in which he played an average 1B. That was tolerable. But this year the snafus in the field have returned, in batallions . Seeing him do his part, defensively, to turn 1 run gems by Verlander into 10+ run routes, its tough to take. Last year we saw him blow scores of double play balls, not catch literally dozens of ground balls that he would catch easily if he just bent over farther, I’m not even asking him to dive, just bend over a little more and he’d field it and retire the batter easily. But no. Like Bartleby the scriviner, he prefers not to.

Kudos to him this week though for his key contributions offensively during the rallies. I’d also love nothing more than for him to turn it around defensively and make this post look silly, but until he does, I’ll have to start closing my eyes when the ball is hit his way.

And Phil is right on: Put some ducks on the pond for Carlos!

NP.

You nailed the main reasons, but I’d also like to add the fact that his rather embarrassing defensive play made people think that his hitting was not worth talking about.

Now if we can just get my second favorite Tiger back out there in center field…