Juan Pierre Speaks On 2003 Marlins, Miguel Cabrera & More

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The stolen base is a lost art in the game of baseball these days. With the Bill James line of thinking and the infiltration of sabermetrics on seemingly every baseball experts mind, many fans and media pundits believe that walks are as valuable as hits and have devalued the stolen base. Well in the last 15 years no player in Major League Baseball has shown how valuable stolen bases can be to winning baseball games more than Juan Pierre. With 614 career stolen bases Juan Pierre is the only player in the top 20 All-Time in stolen bases that played the bulk of his career in the 2000’s. He is the greatest example of what you can become in the major leagues if you maximize every last ounce of potential you have. Pierre was never the biggest, nor was he the strongest but he always outworked everybody and was the among fastest players in the league during his prime. I got a chance to catch up with Juan and see how he is doing these days as well as reminisce on the 2003 Florida Marlins world series team.

Jay-Z once rapped the following “I used to run the base like Juan Pierre”, the trademark of Pierre’s game was so well-known that the most famous rapper in the world mentioned his name in a rather big song. Pierre is hands down the best base stealer of the last 15 years in baseball and for some reason his body of work has been very overlooked. He never made an All-Star team in his entire career but he stole 50 bases or more on 5 different occasions. He led the league in steals three times in his career (2001, 2003, 2010) and was the most feared base stealer in the game for a decade and some change.

The crazy thing about the career of Juan Pierre is that people really don’t understand how great he was as a player. With 2,217 career hits Pierre has a higher hit total than guys like Joe Dimaggio, Willie McCovey, Ken Griffey Jr, Don Mattingly, Johnny Bench and Harmon Killibrew. Every one of those names I just mentioned are guys that are in the baseball hall of fame, are going to the hall of fame or have won an MVP award. Juan Pierre has more hits than those guys and it’s not because he has played a lot more years than them, it’s because he is a better hitter. All of the aforementioned names have all played more seasons than Pierre with exception of Mattingly who played the same amount of seasons as Juan with 14.

He out hits hall of famers with less seasons played, is the best base stealer of the last 15 years and had the most hits on a world championship team. All of that but he has no All-Star appearances and you never hear the media talk about him as a possible hall of fame candidate. When you look at the cold hard facts though its hard to ignore Pierre’s body of work. He is a 3-time stolen base champion, 2-time hit leader, he has four seasons with 200 hits or more, stole 40 bases or more in 9 of his 14 seasons and finished 10th in MVP voting during the 2003 season when he won a world series. That’s a solid body of work from a guy many people overlook. Most people don’t even know he has a top 10 finish in MVP voting and it’s sad because that season in 2003 was arguably the best season any leadoff hitter not named Ichiro has ever had in the steroid era.

Juan Pierre is one of only 12 players in the history of Major League Baseball with at least 600 career stolen bases and 2,000 base hits. The other 11 guys are Ricky Henderson, Lou Brock, Ty Cobb,Tim Raines, Joe Morgan, Max Carey, Honus Wagner,George Davis, Kenny Lofton, Bert Campaneris and Eddie Collins. Thats pretty historic when you consider that Juan Pierre is in the same class as guys who won MVP, are in the hall of fame and have multiple all-star appearances. Juan Pierre put together a career that deserves some Cooperstown consideration.

Money When It Matters

Some players never get the chance to perform on the games biggest stage so its imperative that if you make a run in the playoffs that you perform to the best of your abilities because you never know if you’ll be back. Juan Pierre was the leadoff hitter for the 2003 world series champion Florida Marlins. It was his job to set the tone night in and night out and he did an exceptional job at that in the regular season but as we all know performing in the playoffs is a different story. The Marlins were underdogs in every series they competed in whether it was against the Chicago Cubs or versus the New York Yankees. Those 2 teams were the media darlings and the prohibited favorites to win it all.

Pierre’s 2-run single off of David Wells in game 1 of the 2003 World series would be the deciding factor into the Marlins winning 3-2 in the first game of the fall classic. Pierre also scored on a sacrifice fly from Ivan Rodriguez in the 1st inning. So Pierre made his presence felt versus the almighty New York Yankees and got the Marlins off on the right foot versus a team trying to rebuild a dynasty.

Pierre was the teams table setter along with Luis Castillo and as far as his NLCS and World Series performance Pierre was money when it mattered most. With 17 hits in 54 at bats Pierre posted a batting average of .314 as well as adding 3 doubles, 2 triples, 4 runs batted in (3 of them in the world series), 2 stolen bases, 7 walks and 24 total bases. His production was exactly what the doctor ordered for the Fish in 2003 and he played a vital role in the Marlins capturing their 2nd championship in franchise history. Little did Pierre know back then that it would be his first and last crack at winning a title and he cashed in when he had the chance.

So with all that said here is my interview with Juan Pierre, had a lot of fun with this one.