Juggling the Chairs on the Deck of a Sinking Ballclub

by Joshua Worley

From Ken Gurnick's latest dodgers.com piece: They'll need more than the 1-for-8 they got from Juan Pierre and Rafael Furcal at the top of the batting order, prompting Little to concede he was "close" to shaking up the lineup.

Quote from Grady Little in the same article: "I keep having confidence that they can get it going," he said, "but at the same time, we're not in position where we repeat things that constantly aren't working for us. We may have to do some juggling."

I'm sure Little realizes the problem is Pierre, not Furcal. But I don't have any faith that "juggle" means anything more than putting Pierre down at the eight spot, which will still give him about 4 PA a game. Moving the on-base challenged Pierre down in the order might gain the Dodgers 0.04 extra baserunners per game, or about one extra baserunner every 25 games. ( I assume the following: Abreu and Pierre flip; Pierre will have about a 0.300 OBP moving forward, 0.350 for Abreu, and that the leadoff hitter gets an extra PA over the 8 hitter 7/9 of the time. If Abreu moves to the second spot and Furcal slides to leadoff it's much the same. )

I fear that if the Dodgers lose to Peavy tonight they won't see first place again this season.