Let Pie be Pie
You're going to hear something an awful lot tomorrow - at least, presuming you frequent any sort of Cubs message or such. I think that pretty well describes my target demographic here, so I hope you won't think me presumptuous for, well, presuming.
Anyway.
You will hear a lot of people talk about how horrible it was that Felix Pie hit that home run, and how it will hurt his development as a total ballplayer. It's total nonsense.
Take a look at Pie's minor league numbers. Those are power hitter numbers. In 2007, he had an isolated slugging (slugging minus batting average) of .201; the league average was .158. That's very good for a 22-year-old. He has very similar power numbers in his preceeding seasons. Kid's got some pop to his bat.
What I'm trying to say is - maybe Pie will never be a "complete player," which seems to me mostly to be defined by an inability to do the really important things in baseball, like hit for extra bases. Maybe Pie is simply destined to be a Felix Pie sort of player.
Rather than wishing for him to become a young Kenny Lofton type, why not simply accept him for what he is - a young Jacque Jones sort with a better arm; good speed and defensive range combined with some occasional home run power - and try to encourage him to be the best he can be at that? If Pie goes out there and simply plays the game the best way he can - by which I mean play some great defense, get some hits here and there and have the ability to drive in runs from time to time with his doubles and home runs - and can be valuable to the team, why not simply accept that?
[Please don't say Reed Johnson. Please don't say Reed Johnson. Please don't say Reed Johnson. I'm serious here; my sanity is tenuous at best these days as-is and if I have to spend any more time discussing the various merits of Scrappy White People I will probably break. I am entirely at my Scrappy White People limit.]
You really think Pie's
You really think Pie's ceiling is Jacque Jones? That seems a little surprising, given how ballyhooed he's been as a prospect. Given my understanding of the minor league stats I've seen from him, I'd always thought his ceiling was something more like a lefty Soriano with somewhat less pop. Is that unrealistic?
Jacque Jones was criminally underrated...
...and had it not been after midnight I might have realized that I wasn't being entirely clear there. [Short version - Jones was a great defensive center fielder with a rag arm and acceptable offense from a premium position; moving him to right field pretty much doomed him, but what are you going to do about Torii Hunter?]
And yes, Pie could have Soriano's career track, offensively. That's the high end, obviously. But it's not reasonable to expect Pie to step in and hit like Soriano this season - Soriano didn't hit like Soriano at 23, either. So, for right now, a Jacque Joneseque performance is about what I'd expect (I mean Jones before his inexplicable falloff last season - premium defense, 15-20 home run power and a lot of strikeouts.)
Pie only really needs to hit well enough to keep from offsetting all of his defensive value; Johnson, even if he were to outhit Pie over a full season (and that's far from assured; Johnson's on the decline and has never hit righties particularly well anyway), Pie's defense makes him at least as good assuming Pie can hit SOMETHING. And I'm not even sure I mean "hit as well as Ryan Theriot" here.
Ok.
It sounded like you were saying that Pie's career ceiling was that of a Jacque Jones, which is what confused me. If the organization had been freaking out all this time over the second coming of J.J. I would have been quite perplexed.
David Eckstein
also Ryan Theriot.
Aaron Rowand?
Pete Rose!
Pie
Hey I know it borders on propaganda, but I'm loving what I'm hearing from cubs.com about Pie. The coaches seem really high on him, and I love the fact that he seems to be getting a level dedication from the coaching staff that matches his own propensity to work. You have to wonder if the relatively small number of homegrown position players on the cubs roster in the past was to some degree a function of inept coaching (especially once they arrived at the big league level (Dusty sucks)).