A few notes while perusing Baseball Prospectus's report on Cubs' hitters:

• Derrek Lee has a .330 MLVr, which measures the "additional number of runs a given player will contribute to a lineup that otherwise consists of average offensive performers" per game. (The league average is 0.000.) That would put him 19th in the majors, if he had enough plate appearances to qualify. Last year, Lee led the league at .534 (Albert Pujols finished second at half a run lower).

• Juan Pierre, Ronny Cedeno, and Neifi Perez have combined to have 27.5% of the team’s total plate appearances, and they have a -.161 MLVr between them.

• The league average OBA is .334. Of the Cubs’ 15 position players with at least 50 plate appearances this season, 6 are at or above that level. The league average slugging average is .425. The Cubs have seven players at that level. The big problem is the number of at-bats given to players who are well below those levels.

• Juan Pierre has not added any value through stolen bases. His stolen base percentage (71%) is just about at the break even point.

• The league hits 45.6% of its batted balls on the ground. The Cubs have or have had four players who are at 60% or above: Matt Murton, Freddie Bynum, Tony Womack, and Juan Pierre.

• The Cubs have five players who are at least 48% below the league average walk rate: Jacque Jones, Freddie Bynum, Juan Pierre, Ronny Cedeno, and Neifi Perez.

• Neifi Perez has been predictably bad this season, but he has “only” the 23rd worst MLVr in the majors this season among the 277 players with at least 150 plate appearances. The worst? There’s no competition: former Cub Rondell White, who has a -.625 MLVr, 64% worse than the second worst hitter, White Sox’ CF Brian Anderson (-.381).