francouer isn’t half the player wright is, yes i know theyre both young but so am i so lets cool it with that comp

so when francouer slumps theres just a bit more reason for concern, especially when he has never consistently handled the breaking pitch anyway…and if you’ve watched the braves in the last 3yrs and were more scared by francouer than chipper, mccann, teix, etc. then we must be watching different games

in fact its funny that people like john kill the mets for rushing prospects, when the braves consistently rush prospects (often to their detriment, anyone else wondering why saltalamacchia sucks?) yet the braves are always ALWAYS lauded for their infinite organizational wisdom and class

he wasnt scaring pitchers…just too many ways to get him out.

Both Andruw Jones and Jeff Francoeur have encountered massive slumps with Pendelton. However, I think that the causes for their slumps are pretty disparate. Francoeur is an extreme free swinger, while Andruw Jones just took big hacks and actually did draw walks.

Looking deeper at Frenchy, this signifies a few things about the Braves. To start, he was still on pace for about 80RBI, so the orgo obviously doesn’t care about that. Furthermore, his plate discipline is actually still progressing, as he was on pace to K about 10 fewer times than last season and walk about the same number of times. Even his power is really still pretty similar (on pace for about 35 2b’s and 15 HR). It’s his very low BA that doesn’t have much of an isoOBP buffer to sustain him. His BABIP sucks, and while I don’t know his expected BA, it sounds like he’s not hitting the ball as hard as he used to.

Given that Francoeur came up almost 3 years exactly, I think the timing of this demotion is terrible. This could very well take a bad situation and make it worse by really hurting his confidence. Francoeur is a star player, and he cannot be happy with this demotion, even if it is the vogue thing to do. My inclination would actually be to let Francoeur sort himself out in the majors. He’s still providing terrific defense and he is making more contact. My guess is that eventually he’ll get hot and wind up with his 100RBI, and I think there’s something to be said for that. It looks like he’s in a really rough 2 month slump, and he’s bound to come out of it soon. I think it’s better that he learn to adapt in the majors, rather than the minors. I’d have given him a bit longer and let him clear his head during the ASB. Hopefully, he’d come back and get back to hitting somewhere around 280-290 the rest of the way. I think a better comp to a player who really struggled might be another Met, Jose Reyes. The Mets let him ride it out and he came around, and I think Frenchy will do the same.

I know that it’s a common refrain, but Francoeur is still very young with a world of potential, and I really believe these are growing pains. He’ll come out of it and start producing in a big way again. The Braves just need to give it time, and I don’t know that sending him to the minors was very prudent. Here’s my bet : Francoeur gets it all in order and has an absolutely monster 2nd half, akin to his 2005 season. And I think this would have happened either with or without the demotion. I still believe, strongly, Francoeur is on his way to superstardom.

If you can come up with prospects of the past 15 years whom the Braves have left too long at AAA, I’d be interested to hear about them. Their best prospects tend to whoosh through AAA (Andruw Jones, Kevin Millwood) or skip it altogether (Rafael Furcal, Francoeur, McCann). Marcus Giles came to mind, as they jerked him around a bit in 2001 and 2002. Phil Stockman too, perhaps, if you want to stretch a point. But I don’t think that’s really an organizational tendency. I’m interested to hear who you have in mind.

Also, I’d be willing to bet Terry Pendleton has relatively little to do with Teixeira’s success, as Tex was already one of the more celebrated sluggers in the game, and even less to do with Chipper’s, as Chipper’s primary hitting coach has always been his father. (The same is true for McCann, the second-best hitter on our team this year.)

The thing about Francoeur is that he has never deserved the stardom he has accrued. He had a great half-season his rookie year when pitchers kept throwing him fastballs for him to pound. His last month and a half of that season was awful—.239/.296/.384 in his last 38 games, which is coincidentally more or less his exact line for the 2008 season (.234/.287/.374). His 2006 line was only slightly better, .260/.293/.449, numbers which are still simply unacceptable for a starting corner outfielder. He wasn’t ready then, and he isn’t ready now.

Sooner or later you have to consider his major league time a sunk cost which must be ignored if you want to have any hope for his future development. He ain’t getting better in the major leagues. His slightly improved walk and strikeout rates are offset by a precipitous drop in slugging, ISO, and BA. In other words, he can’t hit. That’s not a problem that can be solved in the major leagues, even if he is supposed to be a “star.”

He’s on a Francoeurian pace of 5 in his last 23 games. Not to mention the 28 Ks in those same games too.

Rick Ankiel’s batting line his rookie season, as a pitcher: .250/.292/.382 (67 OPS+). Francoeur, this year: .234/.287/.374 (76 OPS+). Ankiel was basically as good of a hitter as Francoeur is now when he was a pitcher. I hope Frenchy will some day become as good a hitter as Ankiel is now. I’ve lost a whole lot of faith in his ability to reach even one iota of his potential.