Comments on: The French God of Walks Revisited

By: J. McCann

J. McCann — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:22:02 +0000

Definitely a shocking and odd season for Frenchy all around. The wierdest thing to me is that after years of killing lefties and not doing well against righties, he was atrocious against lefties in 2008 (while of course continuing to not do well against RHP).

I think it will be a couple of years before the Braves are in a real good position to finish first, so they can afford to play around and play a popular player. If it was me, I would tell Frenchy to not worry about the walks, just go look for his pitch and crush it. I have to imagine he’ll be back to killing lefties in 2009, so he plays against them all the time. Then play him in a lot of home games since the fans like him so much, and sit him a lot against righties on the road. If he can’t deal with not playing 162 games, then cut him and let him whine somewhere else.

By: Joe P.

Joe P. — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 23:12:59 +0000

I think Francoeur’s biggest problem is the batting coach. It seems to me I see a lot of players on the team that exhibit his same problems just to a lesser extent. In my honest opinion the only way Frenchy is going to get better is if Pendleton is fired and a competent batting coach brought in. This will only work if French listens to said competent batting coach. It bother me that instead of working with Francoeur on his aproach they seem to be messing up his swing instead.

By: Ron E.

Ron E. — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:16:46 +0000

The solution is pretty simple. Trade or non-tender him. You don’t play a below replacement level offensive player in RF especially when he no longer is any good defensively and especially when one of the team’s key deficiencies is lack of power production. Thank God Jeff didn’t accept the Braves’ long term deal offer a while back.

By: Marc Schneider

Marc Schneider — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:52:43 +0000

The real problem is that the Braves think the pre-2008 Frenchy was a good player which, as JC points out, is not true. If he “bounces back” to 2006-2007, the Braves might well be satisfied with that because he will always be a popular player. Of course, if they can get a real bat for left field, it won’t be as much of a problem but it’s sort of telling that a guy projected to be a star is now a seventh place hitter.

By: Jason S.

Jason S. — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:23:46 +0000

Braves Journal currently has an article on Frenchy where they are of the opinion that he’s just going to get worse from this point on. The article points out that he’s getting slower, which I think explains why McCann, who I thought might be the slowest position player in baseball, is now a more credible base stealer than Frenchy.

The Braves have really created a Frankenstein monster here in Francouer. I really don’t see a solution to this. Neither Frenchy, nor Cox nor somebody in the organization (whoever made the decision to bring him back after 3 days in AA) is willing to face the fact that this is a deeply flawed baseball player. Frenchy’s ego seems as big as Texas and creating a marketing campaign around him has just reinforced everyone’s impression that “real soon now” he’s going to bounce back to his rookie or 2nd year stats. I see no way he can be traded as he can’t bring what the fans would consider fair value, so we’re stuck with him.

By: jpwf13

jpwf13 — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:40:31 +0000

" Brian McCann, who runs like turkey flies," Theres' a flock of wild turkeys near where I live- they fly a lot better than people think...