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And join the exclusive Delta Airlines Mile High Club?
That's the AJC kids!
I didn't think it would be possible for Franceour to be worse this year than in 08, he's proving me wrong. His walk rate in 09 is 3.2 %.
Can anyone be this good?
Uh, no?
If he is DFA'd doesn't a team that picks him up only pay the MLB minimum and Atlanta pays the rest?
Almost certainly - he's still viewed as a raw-tools sort of guy, and he does have that hot streak when he first came up, which teams still gaze longingly at.
Of course, they'd almost certainly cut him at the end of the season, once they got the front row seats to the full Francoeur experience.
What tools does Francoeur have, really? No average, no power, no on-base, no speed, bad defense. Okay, he has a strong throwing arm. Maybe he can pitch.
Yeah, i wouldn't mind frenchie sitting on the bench four out of every 5 days.
With Delta's impressive list of international destinations, I'm sure Francoeur would travel in comfort and style. Delta Airlines even offers vacation ideas for Copenhagen and dozens of other beautiful cities around the globe.
His new approach traded more balls in play for power by shortening his swing to start it later, but without walks (or speed, to boost SB totals), he would be at best the emptiest .280 hitter to play the game...a Juan Pierre without speed.
First, I'm not sure his new approach was "working" per se. He had drastically cut down on K's, picked up slap hits to RF but completely lost any ISO he once had. I'm not sure a Brett Butler clone, only with a .310 OBP and no ability to steal bases is "working." It was just bad in a new way, and you hoped the reduced K's would stick while he resumed some sort of power stroke.
Of course, all of that is out the window now. I don't know that he's "given up" on the new approach so much as he's not terribly smart and he doesn't have the guy that taught him the new approach available to remind him where he's screwing up. If Francoeur were in Texas perhaps he could go to Jaramillo and say "dude, what have I forgotten" and Rudy could say "this, this and this." Maybe then the new approach would stick long enough to see if any power returned. But he's not a Ranger, and he has to go to Terry Pendleton and say "dude, what's up with this" to which Pendleton will inevitably reply "go up there and be aggressive." The man who broke Andruw is not going to fix Francoeur, if that is even possible.
He'd draw mad crowds at Gwinnett, and at this point that's about all the Braves could hope to get out of him.
How does the ethics part of it work out here? Can Jaramillo help Frenchy during the season?
Dunkin Donuts broke Andruw.
But yeah, I wouldn't expect them to fix Francoeur either...
Except for 7 glorious games in the World Series, you mean.
Unless... they both make the World Series.
Nevermind...
You're right. They won't play each other this year.
I thought it was Krispy Kreme.
American Airlines introduces the The Andruw Jones!
He did have an OPS+ of 100 through age 23, 1550 PAs
Players 1947-09, through age 23, 1000+ PAs, OPS+ between 98 and 102:
Cnt Player OPS+ BA OBP SLG PA From To Ages+----+-----------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+-----+
1 Willie Randolph 102 .269 .357 .352 1790 1975 1978 20-23
2 Claudell Washingt 102 .280 .316 .394 2332 1974 1978 19-23
3 Roy Howell 102 .266 .326 .388 1439 1974 1977 20-23
4 Larry Hisle 102 .239 .321 .411 1017 1968 1970 21-23
5 Ron Swoboda 102 .246 .311 .398 1313 1965 1967 21-23
6 Denis Menke 102 .250 .322 .393 1326 1962 1964 21-23
7 Andy Carey 102 .275 .339 .399 1177 1952 1955 20-23
8 Derek Jeter 101 .300 .368 .415 1453 1995 1997 21-23
9 Harvey Kuenn 101 .308 .346 .389 1512 1952 1954 21-23
10 Gus Bell 101 .270 .323 .436 1613 1950 1952 21-23
11 Jeff Francoeur 100 .280 .319 .463 1656 2005 2007 21-23
12 Wil Cordero 100 .278 .338 .427 1689 1992 1995 20-23
13 Chuck Knoblauch 100 .289 .368 .355 1341 1991 1992 22-23
14 Benito Santiago 100 .276 .304 .420 1164 1986 1988 21-23
15 Don Money 100 .262 .329 .395 1025 1968 1970 21-23
16 Roger Maris 100 .238 .314 .421 1061 1957 1958 22-23
17 Eddie Yost 100 .261 .378 .364 2395 1947 1950 20-23
18 Billy Goodman 100 .303 .397 .373 1048 1947 1949 21-23
19 Rocco Baldelli 99 .285 .326 .425 1249 2003 2004 21-22
20 Adrian Beltre 99 .267 .327 .429 2553 1998 2002 19-23
21 David Green 99 .273 .310 .404 1152 1981 1984 20-23
22 Buddy Bell 99 .265 .323 .373 2284 1972 1975 20-23
23 Bobby Tolan 99 .264 .308 .398 1455 1965 1969 19-23
24 Bob Bailey 99 .257 .328 .377 2407 1962 1966 19-23
25 Jerry Browne 98 .280 .357 .360 1479 1986 1989 20-23
+----+-----------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+-----+
Cnt Player OPS+ BA OBP SLG PA From To Ages
+----+-----------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+-----+
26 Ruppert Jones 98 .249 .316 .399 1257 1976 1978 21-23
most of those guys had pretty decent careers
What gets me about Frenchy is that his flaws in his hitting approach were obvious at the very beginning- even when he was doing well- but the Braves either denied that there were any such flaws or downplayed them- which teams tend to do publicly- I don't know what they were doing in private.
I suspect that TPTB with ATl basically had a collective scouting brain fart with respect to Francoeur- they thought to much about what he could do or what they thought he could do and ignored his weaknesses- many time bnad teams will excessively dwell on a player's flaws and not what they can do well- I think Atl did the opposite here, and in so doing missed that Frenchy's flaws were so severe they were gong to swallow up his positives. I think the work they should have done with Frenchy when he was 18-21- overhauling his w=swing, etc., was not done at that time and now it is likely too late.
In 2006 they knew Johnson was a project and immediatley set about revamping his swing and approach- they failed to realize that with Frenchy for whatever reason.
Too bad Andruw Jones doesn't have a deal with American Airlines.
Shouldn't that be Dutch Airlines?
Edit: Also, 3rd Francoeur article in two days. The one I submitted took so long to get approved that it was buried already!
If by "Dunkin Donuts" you mean "playing every inning of every game for a decade, breaking down the knees and back by running around the outfield and into walls non-stop, and on top of that Terry Pendleton repeatedly telling the most effective hitter on the team this side of Chipper to "be more aggressive, but strike out less" then I suppose you have a point. If JPW is correct that the Braves concentrated too much on "what Francoeur could do" and ignored his greater flaws then that is the exact opposite of what they did with Andruw all those years.
Jay Bruce & Justin Upton could be on that list here soon. Upton's OPS+ will likely be higher than 102 though, and if Bruce can get a little more luck (.206 BABIP this year), he'll go over a 102 OPS+ too.
No I think he meant Andruw got fat and couldn't hit or field anymore.
Hah. Obviously, you're not familiar with Airbus' newest offering: the A350 XWB.
The XWB stands for Xtra Wide-Body.
One could also add letting a player who consistently played through injuries to be cast as a malingerer to this list.
Yes, but his inability to hit or field did correlate with his knees breaking down, an event about which it would be naive to consider his years of carrying excess weight to be necessarily unconnected. And while virtually no other player in history this side of Steve Blass has had a performance decline like Andruw's, severe performance declines as a result of having one's knees go bad are rather common.
Maybe Andruw's knees would have gone south no matter what. But the years of extra stress they endured holding up all that weight surely didn't help.
The problem isn't specific to an individual hitting coach. It is currently personified by Terry Pendleton, but prior to the TP years it was personified by Don Baylor and Clarence Jones. The Braves have never really had modern, results-oriented hitting coaches. The "be aggressive, don't strike out" mantra is really more of an organizational weakness than the fault of any one coach. There's a reason only very special players - Chipper, Andruw, McCann, hopefully Schafer and Heyward - graduate through the Atlanta farm system with star level offensive skills. Far more common are high level "prospects" like Francoeur, or George Lombard, or Mike Kelly. The Braves love them some toolsy athletes. Bottom line, at least for the last 20 years or so: if a prospect doesn't have the natural understanding and ability to control the plate and be selective, the Braves will not teach them how to do so. That just is "the Braves way" of hitting instruction, I'm afraid. Braves fans just have to take refuge in the fact that they seem to know how to find quality pitchers.
He certainly has cooled off in May - but what strikes me is that BB/K ratio is easily the best of his career (small sample size, I know) -- 18 BBs in only 85 PAs, while his K rate has basically moved back to what it was when he was good.
Gotta say, it would be kinda of cool to see Jones successfully transition from the fleet, GG CF type into a Dunn-esque mash, walk, and stand around defensively type.
No one is suggesting that Andruw's lack of conditioning didn't contribute to his breakdown. What we - or at least I am suggesting is that playing every inning for 10 years (including annual trips to the playoffs), oftentimes playing through injuries, contributed to the lack of an off-season conditioning program. When the season ended, Andruw shut down and had a cheeseburger. Because he was beat to holy hell and too tired to work out. This isn't meant to suggest that Andruw couldn't have helped himself by being more committed to his training routine, merely that his breakdown isn't predicated on him being "lazy" as so many often suggest. Andruw Jones played through injury, at the 2nd or 3rd most demanding defensive position, 9 innings per game, 170 games per year, for 10 years. That, more than the occasional donut, is what tore his knees apart.
It would. I'm skeptical but hopeful.
I'd say it's impossible for us to know which issue contributed more to tearing his knees apart. What we do know is that particularly if a player is going to do what Jones did on the field, then simultaenously doing what he did off the field is an extremely bad idea. Jones wasn't lazy so much as he was reckless.
Feh. Jones was a HOF quality baseball player for 10 years. He fell off a cliff due to injuries and general wear and tear. He's made a short-term bounce back as a corner defender/1B with Texas this year. We'll see how long that lasts, but as of right now Jones is far from the only great outfielder to wear down due to overuse and move into the infield corners.
Yes, and those injuries and wear and tear were almost certainly exacerbated by the fact that he spent many years carrying many excess pounds, a factor that was within his capacity to mitigate. Just as it isn't reasonable to overstate the weight issue, it's equally wrong-headed to understate it. It's a prominent, relevant piece of the puzzle that shouldn't be dismissed with a "feh."
As of today, the Braves have 4 of the top 10 (or bottom 10, really) in least pitches per plate appearance, in the national league. All 4 guys are home grown talents, having only played for the Braves organization. That cannot be a random event, and really does support the hack-away organizational philosophy.
It would be interesting to see what voters would do if he could transition into a Dunn clone... if he could string together another 3-4 years of 30+ homers, he'd probably get to the 500 mark. Writers are likely to penalize him for his BA - it's probably doomed to end up in the .250 - .260 range. Whatever the rest of his career holds defensively, you can take away those first 10 years.
Using the HoF standards of counting stats -- I'd have to think 520 HRs, 2200 hits, 1000 BBs, 1500 RBIs, and 10 GGs -- and nothing in the way of roid allegations - gets him in.
Q.E.D.
His capacity to mitigate his weight might itself have been mitigated by the amount recuperation necessary following yet another season's worth of injuries and wear and tear.
Spin it as much as you please, the fact remains that an athlete who doesn't control his weight is begging for long-term trouble.
I don't see how the suggestion that playing hurt might complicate a player's ability to keep himself in peak shape for 10 years absolves the player of his responsibilities.
I'm sorry, but you've lost me here.
I think you lost me further up the thread.
Well, can you give me a little help?
It's my supposition that his decline in performance and concurrent increase in weight was a more complicated issue than simple malingering, that, due to the cumulative effects of playing through injuries for years, he was, to some degree, physically incapable of recovering as quickly and easily as he could when younger. Certainly he did not adequately solve this new problem but it's always surprised me that a majority of Braves fans, in my local, non-partisan experience, focus on his assumed lack of interest in his well being only in terms of weight gain and performance decline rather than what he accomplished on the field, the circumstances of those accomplishments perhaps contributing to decline.
Contrast this with the attitude toward John Smoltz's willingness to pitch until his arm failed then miss an entire season.
Personally, I find both players remarkable in ways both admirable and curious.
I have no disagreement with this. All I'm saying is that the weight he was carrying was a ticking time bomb, and can't be dismissed as irrelevant to the breakdown of his knees.
Then we're in complete agreement as I don't see it as irrelevant, rather as too often unconsidered.
Yes. Imagine living in a city where you get a feature article once a week, on how he is either improving; striving to improve; or in very little need of improvement.
I think Jeffy's looking up at replacement level at this point...
Understatement of the century...
Delmon Young, a player in a similar situation as Francoeur, will probably join that list this year. He's 23 and at 96 right now but his season total should go up some from the 77 he's at so far.
MLB should quietly warn Francoeur and Jaramillo to drop it.
What about this one?
about a year and a half ago I posted a line by line age and level comparison of Delmon Young, Chris Young and Lastings Milledge, in an effort to "prove" that statistically speaking Milledge was as good of a prospect as the two Youngs...
Time has proven me to be substantially correct, the two Youngs are as bad with the bat as Lastings...
Why? Why is it unethical to assist a player who is playing your opponents? Is that part of the unwritten rules? Do you know where I can get a copy of them?
As a Ranger fan, I agree with Szym here. It'd be one thing if Jaramillo had kept it to meeting up with Frenchy in the offseason, giving some general hittingn advice. It's another thing entirely, to me, if he's calling during the season and breaking down Jeff's swing mechaics. Not the least of which is that it's pretty disrespectful (whether he agreed or not) to Pendleton.
(EDIT) ####### I hate typing with a half-busted hand.
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