Personally, I would give him a break, but it seems like he keeps doing stupid things that cause the fans to get annoyed with him. Two examples:

1) He gets sent to AA last year and says “"I was upset [Thursday] night when I got home,” Francoeur said. "[Friday] morning, when I woke up, it was anger that I was feeling. Then by the time I got here, I told myself, ‘You know what? There’s not a damn thing I can do about it now. So there’s no reason to sit back and think about it.’

- Actually, there was a “damn thing” you could do. He could have gone down to AA, not complained, and worked on his hitting and plate discipline. He was one of the worst players in all of baseball last year.

2) Comes into the arbitration process this year and asks for a huge raise.

- He has to stop thinking that he is entitled to be on this team. I think the Braves made a huge mistake in bringing him up too fast from the minors a few years ago, but he can’t think that just because he’s driven in 100 runs a couple of times and won a Gold Glove that he is untouchable. You have to realize what your shortcomings are and try to improve them.

After last year, league average would look nice.

He was a high draft pick and had half of a season of outstanding play. Since then he’s been pretty mediocre. I don’t understand why people are so enamored with him, so I really don’t understand why people get all pushed out of shape when others make fun of him. What part of his play justifies this type of loyalty? Now, if all the defenders are young girls or other folks who like good-looking young men, I guess that makes sense. But if that’s all you’re after, I’m sure you can find plenty of that on the internets—and none of those guys is getting paid $3 million bucks to suck…or are they?

But we know he can be better. If everything clicks for him, he’ll have a Garrett Anderson career, which is nothing to be ashamed of. I think his debut was just TOO good, and he set the bar too high for himself.

As it stands today, I believe Jeff Francoeur definitely remains in the Braves’ longterm plans.

Your points that he has made some immature blunders when speaking with the press and is, therefore, an ego-driven jerk, and (shockingly!) wants to be well-compensated, suggests that your analysis is not primarily based upon the factors that the professionals in the Braves’ front office will ultimately make the decision.

I do, however, acknowledge that it is significant that unlike his buddy McCann, they have not locked him up … so far; and that this tells us, at minimum that they are waiting to see him become more consistently productive. If that happens this year, he will, I expect, get a big 4-5 year deal. If not, they will run him through arbitration again and give him at least one more year to prove he deserves be a middle of the lineup fixture.

Bottom line: He is a young player with a great deal of athleticism and physical tools, who in three and one half seasons has hit for both power and average (inconsistently), been very good in the field, and shown great durability. So, despite one bad season, he obviously has a large upside and will continue be given every chance to succeed.

I have previously predicted a big bounceback season in ’09 and a very good career.

For the team’s sake, I truly hope that I’m right.

I was watching either baseball tonight or ESPN, and they were talking about his new stance. I guess he’s leaning back more and that he’s facing the pitcher more than what he used to. They said that now he should start seeing the ball more.

Last year he had not so good of a year, but hey, it’s a new season and he’s made some changes. I think he’ll have one heck of a season. I believe in him.