Pierre appears to be odd man out in LA outfield
With Andruw Jones signing on with the team to play center field, Juan Pierre appears to be out of the Dodgers outfield altogether. With Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier showing this spring that they can be legitimate every day outfielders, Pierre hasn’t done anything to help his case by batting just .186 throughout the spring.
With center field clearly belonging to Jones, that leaves each of the corners up for grabs between Ethier, Kemp and Pierre. It seems as if Kemp and Ethier and moved into the lead for those two spots with their play this spring. Ethier went 3-for-4 with a homer in yesterday’s split-squad game, taking his batting average to .300 in the spring and is currently leading the team with four home runs. Kemp is batting .302 with two homers this spring, while Pierre is batting .186, as previously mentioned.
If Pierre isn’t going to start, the Dodgers would probably prefer to dump Pierre and his salary off on another team, however, to trade him they’ll probably have to assume a large portion of his remaining contract. Pierre isn’t a great option off the bench because of his lack of power. The main tool he brings to a team, speed, is not as useful off the bench because he would have less opportunities to get on base and use it to create havoc.
There are plenty of teams looking for another outfielder right now, but most of the teams who are searching for an outfielder are looking for someone that can play right field, or a right handed batter in the Mets case.
Filed under: Los Angeles Dodgers