Frenchy cont...

[BravesFanForever]

Alright, I give in, you all are right. :dismay: I merely tried to back him up for the sake of hoping he could be the star we want him to be. I do think he is a great right fielder when it comes to the fear of his good arm, but you are right about his batting so far. As for the espn rankings, I looked for something that I could use, and that's all I could find; Actually when I was doing my research, I did see your points that tons of right fielders were better offensively. Yeah, having Vlad only 5 points behind him with Vlad's struggles isn't too good, considering Vlad will only heat up in the hot months.

I lost. :dismay:

[PureBaseballFan]

No one wins or loses it is just a friendly debate between Braves fans. Personally I am always cheering for Frenchy to become that guy we all know he has the talent to be. I think that is why there are so many people that are disappointed in him because we all know he has such great talent and that he could be a dynamic player. This is a forum for discussion so I hope you never feel like you lost because a few people have different stance just be proud of your opinion because if everyone agreed around here it would be pretty boring.

[chip&smoltz95]

gota wonder how much the foot is actually bothering him. Maybe the cox will sit him in one of the DH games following the off day monday.

[SamtheBravesFan]

gota wonder how much the foot is actually bothering him. Maybe the cox will sit him in one of the DH games following the off day monday.

I wouldn't bet on it, really. As for you, BFF, all I was really trying to get you to look at with Guerrero was one of the obvious reasons I think that ESPN Player Ratings has a flaw in it. It struck me as being particularly significant.

Listen, we all want Francoeur to do well. No one wants any of their players to fail. It's just that some players don't have the ability to do as well as we think (or know) that they can do at some points in the season, for whatever reason. Jeff Francoeur is a better batter than what he has shown thus far in the season. It's quite possible that his foot is affecting his power stroke to a large degree.

[cbenson5]

Alright, I give in, you all are right. :dismay: I merely tried to back him up for the sake of hoping he could be the star we want him to be. I do think he is a great right fielder when it comes to the fear of his good arm, but you are right about his batting so far. As for the espn rankings, I looked for something that I could use, and that's all I could find; Actually when I was doing my research, I did see your points that tons of right fielders were better offensively. Yeah, having Vlad only 5 points behind him with Vlad's struggles isn't too good, considering Vlad will only heat up in the hot months.

I lost. :dismay:

Hey Braves Fan,

As others have said we are all Braves fans and want the team to do well. Dissenting opinions make for fun discussions. I've lost my share of battles on here as well. PureBaseball thoroughly whipped me a few months ago when I tried to defend Chuck James. It is all in good fun. I look forward to further discussions with you on this topic and others.

[cbenson5]

Francoeur in my opinion can't be painted as above average or below average as he is likely not either. Francoeur to me is somewhere in the middle right now which basically means he is average, I know people will say I am trying to walk a tightrope but I think he really is in the average zone. To me Francoeur is below average in some aspects of his game and above average in others which to me makes him an average player. Francoeur will never lead the league in OBP but the fact he is learning to go the other way with the ball will bring up his average which started happening last year. Francoeur takes some odd routes to balls but his arm saves runs not just by throwing people out but keeping coaches from sending runners just in case. After Francoeur's first year every baseball analyst said he was going to have problems with OBP and average so it isn't a shock he continues that just 3 years later. For me it comes down to looking at all the rosters and comparing all RFs and overall there are about the same on both sides as worst and better so to me Francoeur isn't the best but he isn't the worst he is just in the middle.

I'm just bringing this over from the Maddux thread to continue the discussion. The first thing I want to say is that I like Francouer and pull for him to do well as I do with every Braves player. I agree with some of the above comments about there being a certain level of frustration with him as he has not developed as quickly as we all had hoped.

I agree with your post to a large extent. I am going to give my assessment of Francouer's performance to date and try to give him the benefit of the doubt everywhere I can. I can accept that BP underrates Francouer defensively. About the best I can honestly say is that he is average at getting to balls in right field. I agree with your statement about him not taking the best routes to fly balls. I mentioned this in the other thread, but I saw him step off with the wrong foot last night on that triple that should (or perhaps I should say 'could') have been caught. I think those factors keep him out of the elite class of defensive outfielders. However, I have no argument against him having an elite arm. That is certainly valuable. However, I am curious as to how much value others think that has. It seems to me a great arm is not as valuable as it was in previous eras. For example, only a handful of players go for triples on a regular basis against any right fielder due to the small ballparks. Therefore, I see the main value of his arm is preventing runners form going from first to third or second to home on a single. I think it is fair to say he is an above average right fielder mainly due to his arm. However, I can not go so far as to say he is great due to his limitations (at least compared to an elite outfielder) at getting to fly balls.

Ok, so BP is wrong and Francouer is solidly above average defensively.

I'll move to baserunning. Francouer is a below average base stealer as he has been caught 11 times in 20 attempts. I'm not sure what I'm basing this on, but I will call him above average at actual base running. Therefore, I believe I am giving him the benefit of the doubt in calling him an average base runner/base stealer. I think a better argument could be made that he is below average than that he is above average. But, let's just say he is average for the purposes of this post.

Now, moving to batting. This is far and away the easiest category to determine as batting statistics present a fairly accurate picture of a ballplayers batting status. This is also the most important category as virtually all baseball scholars believe that any player provides most of his value with his bat. Maybe this is not true for shorstops/catchers, but it is almost certainly true for less important defensive positions such as corner outfielders and first basemen.

Francouer has a 93 OPS+ this season and 99 for his career. The average OPS+ is 100. However, it is about 110 for a corner outfielder or first baseman. Therefore, Francouer is 17 percent below the average for his position this year offensively and 11 percent for his career. The traditional logic is that since OPS+ over weighs slugging percentage to OBP that Francouer is actually worse than that. However, as much as I disagree with the clutch argument I'll say for the purposes of this post that Francouer's clutch ability makes up for this discrepancy.

The question that I am left with is this: Does Francouer's above average defense make up for being 17 percent below average in hitting this year and 11 percent for his career. I really want to say that he is an average player, but I can't honestly do that. For example, a seventeen percent margin is more than the difference between Brian Giles and Manny Ramirez as a hitter.

Now, of course (as Sam said in the other thread) he is only 24. There is still plenty of time for him to improve. Traditional logic says that he will. This is only my assessment of his play to date. This went on far longer than I intended.

[chip&smoltz95]

really nice assessment. I had never noticed the baserunning as a problem. I guess that "likeableness" really does help him with the fans.

[BravesFanForever]

Thanks cBenson5, yea I am looking forward to more discussions with you on this topic as well as others, as well! You def bring up some great points. :applaud: Hopefully Frenchy can turn it around soon, but he is hurting right now. McCann though is killing it!