The Francoeur Rumor
A few days ago I wondered whether the snark level surrounding Dayton Moore and the Kansas City Royals had grown out of hand. They are what they are: an extremely easy target given their record and history of transgressions. At the same time, the farm system is having a nice year. Even if part of that is because the Royals stubbornly refused to promote Alex Gordon amongst others. The Royals’ front office has smart people within. They have a bunch of nice people too. There is no reason to wish ill will or outcomes upon them. None. In fact, you hope they get everything in order so one of the more loyal fan bases in the game can experience playoff baseball again.
But then rumors like this happen and all the warm fuzzy thoughts quickly vanish to where they came. The Royals like Jeff Francoeur? Well of course they like Jeff Francoeur. They seemingly like every former product of the Braves’ farm system that eventually washed out of the organization for one reason or another. Just last night, Thursday night, they had Bruce Chen and Kyle Davies pitching for them. Francoeur isn’t quite the hitting version of that pair because he actually had two very good seasons with Atlanta in 2005 and 2007, but … well, put it this way: 7.1 of Francoeur’s 7.3 career WAR came in those two seasons.
He’s never walked much. He probably never will. He may never replicate the power surge from 2005; at least not over a period longer than 300 plate appearances. His BABIP is .271, which is well below his career norm, but not absurdly so. Look, he’s probably better than his .292 wOBA suggests, but what is his upside? Is it .320? Is it .330? Is it .340? Probably not. He’s just not a good player even when you ignore the fielding, which is about average — give or take a run here or there — despite a strong arm and so-so baserunning despite a supposedly high baseball IQ.
Here is the thing: the Royals could actually acquire Francoeur and have it turn out to be a useful move. For all the jokes and all the ridiculous bravado around Francoeur’s clubhouse demeanor – supposedly, he is the one who dictates when the rest of the team shaves … and this is highlighted as an endearing quality to have in the clubhouse; only in baseball would being the guy in charge of everyone else’s facial hair be such an important position – Francoeur could actually be a decent platoon mate. For his career, he’s hit lefties at a .345 wOBA clip. Take away the .249 figure in 2008 and he’s always maintained a wOBA above .350 versus southpaws until this season. That is absolutely useful.
There are three issues with this idea: 1) The Mets will almost certainly want more than a player of that ilk is worth; 2) Kansas City will almost certainly not value Francoeur as a platoon player either, and by extension, won’t use him as one; 3) Francoeur is being paid $5 million this season; right-handed hitting corner outfielders with average defense who hit lefties aren’t exactly a rare flock of bird. Put that all in a bowl and mix it and you’ll produce some quality snark cakes. Hopefully the Royals ditch the recipe. For everyone’s sake.
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Think you meant .292 Woba
I’m pretty sure Francoeur doesn’t know what wOBA means or what it measures. But I am sure that he would love to have a .392 wOBA.
Do they put wOBA on the scoreboard?
I wish.
Of course, why would Dayton Moore want a player with a .392 wOBA, that’s like the entire Royals infield combined.
Put it this way, -0.7 of my career 7.3 WAR has come in the last 3 years. You didn’t mention that my ZiPS RoS wOBA projection is .318. Also, shouldn’t you regress my platoon split?
Whooa!!! Jeff Francoeur reads fangraphs!
Whooa!!! Jeff Francoeur can read!
Would be fantastic for someone to get Frenchy far far away from Flushing! It’d also make that pompous ass Mike Francesa eat his words when he chewed out a caller last week for suggesting the Mets move him – “Who’s going to want Francoeur!? The Mets are stuck with him” He cried. Well Mike, Frenchy’s not being paid too much and with that said, when there’s a will, there’s a way.
I’m so confused by the Royals front office. They seem to do everything right on the minor league side and with the draft, but every major league move is ridiculous. Whether it’s not calling up players or trading for Yuniesky Betancourt (then calling him the best defensive SS in the league), or now reportedly considering Jeff Francoeur. I have trouble understanding how these are the same people.
Demoting Alex Gordon so Callaspo can have more playing time, and letting Brayan Pena rot on the bench, as well.
It’s all Dayton Moore’s fault. Whatever the stats people within the Royals organization say, he does the exact opposite.
They’ve had one good minor league season, which isn’t even over yet. Let’s hold off on “they do everything right” in the minor leagues. They don’t.
I don’t now, just having Moustakas and Hosmer puts their system ahead half the rest.
Wil Myers
Eric Hosmer
Christian Colon
Mike Moustakas
Alex Gordon
Billy Butler
Zach Greinke
Mike Montgomery
John Lamb
Aaron Crow
Some exciting progress over the last few years and still some potential beyond these guys…
Any GM that adds this player giving up more than just money should be fired, immediately.
He’s already given up players for Yuniesky Betancourt and Mike Jacobs. On any other team, he’d be fired three times already.
I’m torn, because part of me wants to laugh, and part of me just feels bad.
I won’t add to the silliness of the discussion of the Royals and Francoeur (a match made in heaven clearly).
I will play the “composition” Nazi and add this: the second sentence in the fourth paragraph could not have been more run-on. Within the dash clause that you added, you had an ellipse and a semicolon sentence tacked on. It was crazy. Otherwise, great read as usual RJ.
Also, “to where they came” might have more succinctly employed the English “whence they came”. As long as we’re helping out the author here.
I didn’t notice that, Michael. Yes, the second sentence of the fourth paragraph was pretty darn long! It makes me kind of sad and frustrated that there are so many incompetent people managing baseball teams. (Both GM’s and managers) For the Tigers, Jim Leyland does idiotic things like bat Don Kelly (Triple A scrub, utility player) 2nd just so the batting order is not altered.
Fans are pretty incompetent, too. They say, “Danny Haren has a 4.4 ERA in the National League, he would sure suck in the American League with the DH.” What? ERA isn’t 100% correlated with performance? I’ll be darned…
So, i’m from lawrence kansas. I go to a ton of Royals games and know a ton of Royals “fans”. They are hands down the most ignorant group of baseball fans I’ve ever met. All they do is boo every superstar of the other team like crazy or some player who left them, even through a Royals facilitated trade, like they betrayed them and left some sort of baseball mecca. They, like their announcers think the Royals are always a 100 win group of talent and anything they do poorly is just a short term bout of bad luck while every opposing team has no business beating them. They chant steroids when Andy Pettitte is pitching to Jose Guillen and have no idea that it was HGH and Jose Guillen was also in the Mitchell Report. Any time they lose they don’t care but when they win they shove it down your throat, even if it’s one out of a four game series. They show up in the 3rd inning and leave in 7th. Even the Royals stadium workers are petty mini Nazi’s who have nothing in their lives except the fake power of being an usher. They demand a better product without supporting the team in any way or fashion. Now before I get hate mail, there are obviously exceptions. I am only 24 so I only know of the Royal fans recently but it’s an entire joke.
What kind of support are fans supposed to give the team? They raise prices, demand hundred+ million dollar bonds from taxpayers, and continue to build crappy, old, boring baseball teams. I used to buy partial-season tickets, but then I realized that watching terrible baseball wasn’t much fun. Blind fan-dom is a recipe for lots of frustrating summers and a much lighter wallet.
Thank Vishnu most of the Royals fans I hang out with are nothing like this.
Francoeur is often cited as an example of how players are rated differently by sabermetrics folks than by old-timers or casual fans. His stats just struck me, though. Here are two players’ stats from 2009, as you’d see them on your TV:
BA HR RBI
A: .279 15 76
B: .283 16 79
Most folks would look at that and say, OK, player B is a tad better. They’d pick him first in fantasy baseball, but it would be close. Well, player A is Brian Roberts, an above-average hitting second baseman who had a strong but unspectacular 2009 with the Orioles. His .356 OBP and .451 SLG were good enough for a .356 wOBA, and great endurance (#5 in PA in MLB) allowed him to rack up 16.1 WAR batting runs for a 3.9 WAR. Francoeur, of course, is player A, and he sucked. With a .309 OBP and .423 SLG, he managed a .313 wOBA, just unacceptable for a rightfielder. Of 34 ML rightfielders with at least 400 PA, he ranked 29th in wOBA.
The point of all this is that the average fan will look at Francoeur when he comes to the plate (in 2009, at least) and not think, “What a shitty hitter!” Without looking at the appropriate stats, they’d think he’s a serviceable outfielder, perhaps lacking somewhat in the homer department. In fact, his slugging percentage was close to the average for ML rightfielders–it’s his favorite stat, on-base percentage, that really does him in. But until broadcasts starting telling fans the information that actually matters, they–and Dayton Moore, apparently–will continue to misunderstand the depth of Jeff Francoeur’s suckitude.
I’m surprised nobodies mentioned Rick Ankiel yet. He seems like a carbon copy of Francouer from the left side.
Despite twice in the same sentence? Who’s the copy editor around here?
Cistulli has been too busy learning Panatone color charts and Fangraphs font substitution to edit every single post… Clearly MS Comic Sans is far more important than sloppy writing. :)
If the Royals are so gullible to take Frenchy, do you think their fans wouldn’t mind buying all the old Francoeur merchandise we still have cluttering up the warehouses in Atlanta? We tried to unload them on the homeless shelters, but turns out that even the homeless have standards. Whoda’ thunk?
Scott Podsednik, Yuni Betancourt, and Jeff Francoeur on the same team?
Oh good lord, it’s every FJM smartass reader’s dream.
As a Twins fan, I’m happy these clowns are in their division. This is the tonic their starting pitchers need to get back on track.
@Ken_Rosenthal #Mets talking to #Royals. Names in play from Royals: Meche, Farnsworth, Guillen. From Mets: O. Perez, L. Castillo, Francoeur. (more)
This is epic
Best trade ever. We’ve had plenty of a bad player w bad contract for another. Have we ever seen a basket of so many in one trade before?
Francoeur would only be a good player if he could play for a team with a small ballpark(would increase make his gun for an arm look even better, help his so-so fielding, and his obvious power might show up in his numbers.)
He’s a good baserunner, and as stated, take away 2008 where he only hit 11 homeruns, his career wouldn’t look as bad. He’s only 26, and occasionally players take a long time to actually mature.
It’s doubtful, but throw him in the right lineup away from the New York media and give him a hitter friendly park, he could be a productive hitter.
But by the time they’re 26 and still show basically no plate discipline, they don’t tend to mature. Very ,very, very, VERY few players build that skill so late. It would be like picking up a winning lotto ticket on the way to work. Considering that he still doesn’t slug tremendously well and his fielding is so-so, even a slightly better OBP wouldn’t make him an all star. So if you’re holding on to him, you have to be hoping he’s going to develop better BB capabilities AND develop more power as he ages. While not losing any of his bat speed, because then his AVG would plummet and he’d not even be an MLB-level player.
Could it happen? Possibly? There is a chance he could, if all things went right, be an above average MLB player again. But there is a much greater chance that he never ever learns how to take a walk and is washed out in a year or two.