Over at ESPN.com, Brendan Roberts has a great article looking at the Pierre-Kemp-Ethier situation. He makes a detailed case that Pierre is the one who will end up with more AB's once the season is over, despite supposedly losing his starting job once Spring Training ended. He could very well be right.
The main argument is that Pierre is a "Torre guy" because of a couple of reasons: 1) He's a veteran with a proven track record. 2) He causes trouble on the bases. Again, both good points. While fantasy owners don't like it, here is a perfect case where team needs in real life differ from what fantasy heads are thinking.
The final prediction was that Kemp will end up with more AB's than Ethier, which is not the case currently. Roberts didn't seem all that enamored with Ethier, but liked Kemp. Time will tell.
In my mind, what hurts Kemp the most when it comes to getting PT is that he's a righty and Pierre is a lefty, so Pierre will get more chances to start based on matchups. If Kemp didn't have the reputation of zoning out too many times, this may not be an issue. Unfortunately, it does. I've had plenty of negative things to stay about Pierre going into the season, but I'll be the first to admit that games like last night against Peavy and the Padres is what he's capable of doing.
I'm higher on Ethier than Roberts is, maybe because I think he has more potential to be a good hitter. But, even I would have a hard time arguing that he has more upside than Kemp, because Kemp has more power and speed. One thing I did predict correctly prior to Opening Day was that all 3 would see their fair share of playing time, because none of them is bad enough to simply be taken out of the equation altogether. Look for that to continue.
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