Fantasy player spotlight: Juan Pierre

As pointed out earlier this week in the ADP article, there are a number of players who are being chosen either too high or too low early in the fantasy draft season. Among these, the one who might bring you the most value is a very speedy outfielder in Chicago.

Juan Pierre's been a prolific basestealer during his career. In fact, he’s MLB’s active leader with 459 steals, and he averaged 54 from 2001-07. His numbers fell off in 2008 and 2009, but only because Manny Ramirez took his job. When he did play, he was as fast as ever on the basepaths.

2007: Stole 36 of his 40 bases before Ramirez was acquired in late July
2008: Stole 21 bases during Ramirez’s 50-game suspension

At age 32, Pierre doesn’t seem to have lost any speed, as he maintains a 50-plus steal pace when he plays.

Pierre’s speed also helps him to consistently high batting averages – he’s a .301 career hitter who's never been below .276 and only below .290 twice in nine seasons. That’s a big deal, because even though his walk rate is subpar, he has a decent .348 career on-base percentage and averaged 97 runs scored from 2001-07. He should get on base enough to score 90-100 runs again now that he’s back in a full-time role.

The White Sox haven’t always run a lot under Ozzie Guillen, but reports indicate speed will be a bigger part of their game this season. Here’s a look at their MLB rank in stolen-base attempts since Guillen took over as manager:

2004: 14th
2005: 2nd
2006: 14th
2007: 16th
2008: 25th
2009: 8th

The common denominator in the two busiest Sox years on the bases was leadoff hitter Scott Podsednik, who swiped 30 bases in 43 attempts in 132 games last year and 59 bases in 82 attempts in 2005. Guillen appears very willing to let his tablesetter run with abandon … and I don’t use the word “abandon” lightly. Chicago’s ranks in stolen-base percentage under Guillen have been:

2004: 28th
2005: 22nd
2006: 23rd
2007: 29th
2008: 28th
2009: 22nd

Judging by the numbers alone, Guillen doesn’t seem to worry much about his team’s efficiency on the bases – just that they try to apply pressure on opposing pitchers and catchers. If you own Pierre in a typical fantasy league, that’s great news, because you won’t be penalized when he gets caught. He’ll just run and run and run, and you’ll rack up the totals.

If, for the sake of argument, we just use Podsednik’s average of 44.5 steals from those two big seasons (he also stole 40 bases in 2006), here’s where he would've ranked on baseball’s stolen-base list over the last three seasons:

2009: 4th
2008: 5th
2007: 7th

Not too shabby, right? Considering that Podsednik's basically a poor man’s Pierre, Guillen’s new leadoff hitter has an excellent chance to crack the major's top five in steals and maybe even lead the pack altogether.

“Wait,” you ask. “What about guys like Jacoby Ellsbury (70 stolen bases last season), Michael Bourn (61) and Carl Crawford (60)?”

I thought about them, too, since they’re probably the top three fantasy thieves. Ellsbury's averaged 60 in his two full big league seasons, while Bourn averaged 51 in the same timeframe and Crawford's averaged 50 over seven years. All could out-swipe Pierre this season, but our man is at least in the mix for the MLB lead.

Why are we spending so much time on a bunch of fantasy speed guys? Because of where they’re being drafted, that's why. Here are the ADPs for our fleet foursome:

Crawford: 16.05 (third among outfielders)
Ellsbury: 20.49 (fourth)
Bourn: 92.52 (30th)
Pierre: 212.21 (53rd)

When I was a kid and my dad taught me about betting horses – I placed my first Kentucky Derby bet at age nine – one of the things he told me was to look for the higher-odds horse with a decent chance to win as opposed to simply betting the favorite. While such bargain hunting isn’t exactly a foreign notion to fantasy owners, it obviously applies here.

Pierre might or might not steal more bases than the big three this season, but getting the potential big-league leader in steals at that draft position would look like an incredible stroke of genius for you. If it’s because some sites' default rankings are undervaluing Pierre based on his part-time roles in 2008 and 2009 instead of on his skills, that’s fine (he’s currently 394th in FOXSports.com’s default rankings, by the way). You’ll take a deal like this whenever you can get it, right? If I could get 5:1 odds on him leading the majors in steals, I'd take it.

Pierre's 18th on my outfielder list, and 58th overall, but in most drafts you won’t need to take him that early. Be safe and get him as a third outfielder in a mixed league – somewhere around the 150th pick would make you very likely to get him unless someone else is drooling as much over this article (and Pierre) as you are. He's a near-lock to steal 50 bases, and it’s easy to see a scenario in which Guillen gets him up to 60 or 65. He has a good chance to be the single biggest fantasy draft bargain of 2010.