Pierre is right where he belongs

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- There’s a boxer in the house.

“Yeah, last year, I got beat up pretty good,” says Juan Pierre.

There’s defiance in the house.

“If people really think the reason we lost last year was because my arm wasn’t strong enough, or because I didn’t get on base enough, hey, that’s cool, I’ll be the man, I’ll take it,” says Pierre.

There’s resolve in the house.

“I’m coming into this season with a chip on my shoulder . . . just like every season,” says Pierre.

Fans don’t appreciate him. Statisticians can’t calculate him. Bloggers downright brutalize him.

I like him.

Now that the Dodgers have added Rafael Furcal’s health and Andruw Jones’ pop, I think Juan Pierre’s presence at the top of the lineup will be as oversized as his cap.

Now that the Dodgers have moved him to left field, I think Juan Pierre will fit as easily there as his bat fits on a bunt.

Now that Joe Torre is installing an aggressive running game, I think Pierre’s ability on the basepaths will be as evident as the dirt streaks on his jersey.

Now that it can be a complement instead of a cornerstone, I think the idea of Juan Pierre will work.

Hate him or not.

“My game is not pretty, it’s just not pretty,” Pierre says. “You have to be an old-school guy to appreciate it.”

That’s one more reason this will be a good year for Juan Pierre.

Torre is one of those old-school guys who appreciates him.

“He does things the right way,” Torre says.

Contrary to the winter hopes of many Dodgers fans, Torre’s lineups have indicated that Pierre will be the starting left fielder ahead of Andre Ethier.

It makes sense.

Pierre adds an irreplaceable speed component to the top of the Dodgers order. And, in left field, what Pierre lacks in arm, he can overcome with that speed.

“Johnny Damon never had much of an arm, we moved him to left field, it worked out fine,” says Torre. “You can offset that kind of arm with your aggressive play. You can get good jumps, get to balls that other guys can’t.”

Pierre also brings something that, during last season’s doldrums, everyone seemed to forget.

You can find it in a locked box in his Fort Lauderdale home.

He’s one of only three Dodgers with a World Series ring.

“The young guys know about it, they ask about it sometimes,” Pierre says. “But I don’t like wearing it. I’d rather lead with my actions.”

Those actions were uninspiring early last year, the first of a five-year, $44-million contract that was questioned before the ink was dry.

Trying too hard, he spent much of the early season surrounded by boos for a mediocre batting average, an awful on-base percentage and general ineffectiveness.

“Yeah, I heard everybody,” Pierre says. “It was like, ‘Pierre, you stink’ . . . ‘Pierre, go away’ . . . I heard it all.”

Funny, but the most active guy on the team never made a move.

He never even turned his head.

“To say anything would have been the worst thing in the world,” he says. “Hey, I signed the big contract. I’ll take the heat.”

By the end of the season, the team was in such turmoil that nobody seemed to notice the only player who had calmed down was Pierre.

He batted .308 after the All-Star break, three points higher than his average during Florida’s 2003 world championship year. He finished with 41 runs batted in, the same as in the championship year.

He scored four fewer runs (96), stole one fewer base (64), and, with the exception of a lack of plate discipline amid a lousy offense, he performed just as he did in Florida.

In the end, Juan Pierre did exactly what Juan Pierre does.

While unfairly taking the fall for a team that crumbled around him.

“In Florida, when we won, it was like, ‘Oh, Pierre and Luis Castillo are the table-setters, they’re the keys,’ ” Pierre says. “Here, when we struggled, it’s like, ‘What is that?’ ”

This was also the first time Pierre had been criticized for his arm.

“I’ve had the same arm my whole life and I’d never been criticized like this,” he says. “I couldn’t understand it. It’s never been an issue before.”

Placing Pierre’s weak arm under the spotlight -- and, in fact, putting his whole game at risk -- was the injury to Furcal.

The Dodgers shortstop couldn’t reach many shallow center-field balls that shortstops usually reach. He also couldn’t move Pierre along the bases as a good No. 2 hitter should do.

Without a rangy shortstop, Pierre was playing a center field that was twice as big. Without a productive No. 2 hitter, Pierre was a sports car stuck on a pot-holed road.

By the end of the season, he was listed as a Ned Colletti mistake the size of Jason Schmidt.

By the end the season, he was also gone. He flew home to Fort Lauderdale, and was the only regular not to spend one winter moment in Los Angeles.

He said he wasn’t avoiding the fans, he was staying away from the uncertainty.

“I just didn’t know the situation out here, I didn’t know where I fit in, it was easier to get my work done and stay out of it,” he says.

The situation is, he’s nothing like the Jason Schmidt mistake.

The truth is, the idea of Juan Pierre was a good one, and still is.

--

Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.