Trade Francouer

As much as I’d like to agree with you, unfortunately I am not sure he has much value outside of Atlanta. I am as tired as the next guy of watching him ground into double plays, but the facts are that he is a decent defender (sometimes) with a very average bat. I think that if Atlanta fans just accept that fact that he isn’t Chipper Jones (maybe lower their expectations), then he really isn’t that bad. But he really needs to learn the strike zone!

You can’t blame him for turning down the long-term contract. I mean, if I felt like I could have a big year and get a bigger paycheck I would. Here’s the thing, fans want to rag on guys for not having team loyalty or whatever, but baseball is a business and that door swings both ways. Obviously Francoeur thought he was worth more and decided to take his chances at a better deal later on. I personally think that is much of his problem this year, because he thinks he needs to hit 50 HRs to get that better deal. Obviously, this isn’t working out for Jeff or the Braves.

I am very vocal about my disappointment with Frenchy right now, but deep down I realize he’s a talented player and he’s not playing at his capability. One thing that I’m getting a little sick of hearing is how everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon of him being a below-average player or a AAAA or whatever. I disagree. Last year, he had an OPS of .917 with RISP. That’s not bad in my book. It is clear that this year he’s struggling, and I’m hoping he’ll pull out of the funk soon.

As for trading him. Trading him while he’s at his lowest value? Makes no sense. Basically, this is like the horrible game show Deal or No Deal. Jeff’s opening up some big value cases, driving the value of his case down. Meaning, I think he’s going to agree to a deal that isn’t as ludicrous as he thought he’d get after this season. Just my opinion. I think he’ll be around for a while yet, and I also think he’ll start playing better eventually. In the meantime, I’m not opposed to some more scheduled days off for him…

There’s a Francoeur discussion going on in another thread, but I’ll take it here, since it’s topical.

It’s obvious that Francoeur can’t handle pressure very well. Bases loaded, one out? GIDP. Rolling base hit to RF that if he plays cleanly, he’l have a chance to gun down the winning run at the plate? Miss the ball.

The biggest problem, though, IMO, is that when he came up to the bigs, everyone suddenly anointed him as the heir to the Throne of Jones. He’s good looking, well-spoken, and all over everything in Braves’ promotions (so I’m told, I’m not in the Atlanta area so I don’t know for sure). Everyone called him the Natural. Expectations were practically Ruth-sized. He was good for awhile, but when pitchers caught up with him, it all went downhill. Combine that with the pressure of being the face of the franchise and contract talks, and you get what we’ve got this year.

The other teams know what we know, that he’s not hitting. I doubt he’ll fetch much on the block, especially getting close, or in a contract year (I forget which it is).

I think he’s got great talent and will be a solid, even above-average player, but like many players with such huge expectations (Kobe Bryant, for instance), he’s being forced to be at a point that he’s personally not at yet.

It’s a little crazy, but I’m thinking that, if he’s still got some options, send him back to Richmond for a month or so, let him settle down and find his swing, and bring him back up when he can be more relaxed and maybe everyone’s expectations won’t be so high. It would be like a second beginning for him. I doubt it’ll happen, and it would probably hurt his bargaining power in contract talks, but it might help.

He still has 3 years of arbitration and is only 24 years old. That means his team controls him for the next 3 seasons. He’s had 100+ RBI seasons the last 2 years and is on pace for around 90 RBIs this season. I’m sure he still has trade value. Supposedly, Wren is looking at starters to trade for that we can control for a few years. Why not dangle Francouer? San Francisco or Cincinnati should be interested. Cincinnati will only have Bruce next year in the outfield.

Frenchy’s a good player. He could be a great player. But he’s not playing to his capacity right now. Bobby’ll figure it out. A few days off, a few days in AAA, wherever, whatever, i have no doubt he’ll step it up.

As far as contracts, he pissed me off by not signing early, but its a gamble for him. Had he been doing great this year, he’d have played that well. I think he’s young, cocky, and not harnessing his talent the way we want and he could be.

But I have faith, I think Bobby’s realizing he needs a few days off, to humble up, practice, whatever. He can still turn this season around. Hey – if we’re getting updates on Hampton still, we can for sure think Frenchy might even get 30 HR.

Snarky comment first – spell check “Francoeur.”

I’m kidding. Everyone messes it up. Pujols damn weird last names.

I’m under the belief that all of Francoeur’s problems are mostly mental, partially physical. Start of the season he toe-tapped. Last few games, he hasn’t. His hips swing out too much in these games. His left-elbow bows out too much in previous games. He is constantly tinkering, and truly has not found his real swing yet. Raw physical talent can only get you so far in the big leagues, and he’s figuring this out the hard way.

As for the money issue, I can’t help but wonder how much his dad or family influence his choices. From the 3,649 times I’ve seen the Jeff Francoeur “In my Own Words” show, his parents pretty much groomed him to be a big leaguer before he played pee-wee ball. We’ve all heard of stories of parents-thinking-they’re-agents, so I’m curious how much of Francoeur’s decisions to turn down McCann-money were his alone, or if they were a result of possible family intervention. It was a gamble, and unfortunately, Jeff’s on the losing end of things right now, because “potential” is a good word, but is worthless unless it’s actually tapped into. He’s got the potential to be a really good player, but we’ve only seem split-second flashes of it this season, where we saw so much of it last.

I don’t know how much value he’d have outside of Atlanta, but I most certainly don’t believe he’ll thrive nearly as much as he does here. Look at how long it took for many people to actually turn on him – Parkview class of 2002 seems further and further away now, doesn’t it?

Right now, I don’t think he has a lot of trade value. He strikes out too much, kills rallies with horrendous situational hitting, and has reverted back to a confused, scatter-brained rookie again. It’s almost funny, because everything he should be doing, Omar Infante is doing. Taking what the pitchers are giving him, and going the other way. When the pitchers get tired of being taken the other way, they’ll give him something to pull, or send up the middle. All the things that made Francoeur such an intimidating plate presence last season.

I rag on him in bar-speak and the open threads like nobody else’s business. I want to go to games and hold up signs that would really make him question his ability, or at least realize that fans care enough to try to anger him into being better. I want to see him ride the bench right now. But a lot of it is because sometimes it feels like he’s taking his job for granted. But the fact of the matter is that I still want to see him succeed, and be a corner stone for this franchise for years to come.

He doesn’t need to be the successor to Chipper Jones, he doesn’t need to be the next Mark McGwire. He just needs to be the best fucking Jeff Francoeur he can be, and not a single Braves fan will buy it right now, that what we see right now, is close to that. That’s why I rag on him, because I want to cheer for him again, not dread seeing him step to the plate.

Seriously guys. Trading Frenchy? I’ll admit I get grouchy when he grounds into a DP when he has a chance to drive in runs, but trade him? He led the MAJORS in outfield assists last year. Has anyone noticed that teams have learned you don’t run on him. Thats a weapon in an of itself. So hes in a funk, ok. Hes also been getting plunked alot this year too (6). The last one drilled him on the hand and he still stayed in. We forget that he had one of longest active streaks in the majors for consecutive games (you have to pull him off the field). I’ll take his funks here and there for a guy that wants to play that much. One other thing, as much as we critize him for swinging at the first pitch, i believe he hits around .300 when swinging at the first pitch.

Some other stats, we complain about when he pulls the old GIDP, but Tex leads with 11, Escobar 10, Chipper/Kotsay/Frenchy 8, I don’t hear complaining about them so stop the whinning. He also has 5 assists.

Player A: .282/.330/.478 line over 1416 MiL AB with 262 K and 46/67 SB.
Player B: .286/.361/.458 line over 1567 MiL AB with 329 K and 44/67 SB.

Player B is Brandon Jones – widely regarded as a decent propsect, but no big deal – and Player A is Jeff Francouer. How many of you would be upset if someone brought up the idea of trading B. Jones?

Back before his rookie season, Baseball America ranked Frenchy as the #14 prospect in all of baseball, but they also had Joel Guzman (SS, Dodgers) at #5, Andy Marte at #9 and Dallas McPherson (3B, Angels) at #12! While it’s hard to argue with most of their top 25, they’re clearly not infallible. The truth of the matter is that Our “Natural” is a toolsy prospect that can’t seem to learn the game of baseball. In other words, his skills do not match his tools and, judging from his track record, they never have and likely never will. Is it possible that he’ll turn it around? Sure. Am I expecting him to do that? Absolutely not.

That said, Frenchy’s stock has to be at an all-time low and there’s no point in forcing a trade now. The best we can do is bat him low in the order for now and give him some time off when we recover some of our outfield depth.

Due to TBS shenanigans, I am no longer to watch the Braves on television anymore. However, I caught more than a fair share of the games last year. Strictly non-scientifically speaking, this is what I got from watching Francoeur at the plate:

- He was the guy I wanted to see at the plate in a crucial two-out, RISP situation. He didn’t always get the big home run, but he always seemed to come through in those clutch situations (statistical aside: the numbers seem to prove this, so part of his struggles this year appear to be regression to the mean).
- He hit an awful lot of line drives that seemed to find its way into a glove (statistical aside: you would think BABIP would confirm this, but here they are: ‘07 .337, career .308. strange).
- He hit a lot of off-the-wall doubles, which seems the natural progression would be that those doubles would turn to home runs. Obviously, hasn’t happened.
- The biggest concern to me was that Francoeur would swing and completely miss an inordinate amount of pitches. In true Joe Morgan fashion, there are good swings and bad swings, and it was disheartening that Francoeur, a noted free swinger, would miss so many pitches. It’s fine if you’re a free swinger and can connect more often than not (i.e., a younger Vlad Guerrero), but if you’re swinging through a ton of strikes (and balls), maybe you’re just not that good.

That last point in particular is what I wanted to ask about. For those who watch the Braves consistently, I’m wondering: are Francoeur’s struggles attributable to plain bad luck (i.e., hard hit balls right at defenders, good at-bats that just end up as strikeouts, etc.), or is he simply struggling and missing pitches?

Again, this is completely non-statistical, and just me scouting Francoeur from the television. I’m interested in your thoughts.