Yeah, this trade gets the 'what the?' treatment in that you recognize the names but it still gets a collective shrug. Church will be fine and Francoeur probably won't improve much, so this looks more like Minaya just wants the gimpy risk out of town for the ineffective big pop guy. Okay then..
Jeff Francoeur? Because the Mets didn't already have enough guys who are good at making outs?
Remind me why they traded Church for Francoeur when they could have had someone like Eric Hinske for a bag of balls and used Church in a different trade if they really wanted to move him?
ive felt for awhile that a new place could be good for Francoeur. hes only 25 years old and still has potential to be a good HR hitter with 25-30+ HR a season ..but going to the Mets is not going to give him much of a chance at that with that new ballpark. what do the Mets do with him? do they keep him and give him a chance themselves? or do they move him somewhere else? if the Mets plan to keep him and give him a chance in RF themselves this is just going to stall Francoeur ever further.
I agree with Special FNK that Francouer has needed a change of scenery for a while now. He could find his bat again. But I also agree that New York is about the least ideal place for him to go. The park is less forgiving, the fans even more so. There were still plenty of Francouer jereys in the crowds at Turner Field, since he is a local boy, but he won't have nearly as much support if and when he struggles at CitiField. For a guy who is already somewhat of a head case, this is a recipe for disaster.
That being said, there is still an outside chance that this "clean slate" gives him the psychological boost he has needed. But even if that is the case, unless he learns to take pitches and work the count, something he never did in Atlanta, it will unfortunately be more of the same from Frenchy.
Who is the hitting coach in NY? Can he do more than Terry Pendleton was able to? I've never thought much of Pendleton's work as batting coach for the Braves.
Atlanta Journal Constitution Braves beat reporter Mark Bradley, writing today about Francouer:
"He’s not a bad guy — on the contrary, he’s a fine fellow — but neither is he easy to coach. He’d been a success in every sport at every level but couldn’t master the adjustments every successful big-league hitter must make. It’s not that he didn’t try to change. He changed his swing several times. Trouble was, he couldn’t change himself.
Francoeur is a baseball player with a football mentality, and that doesn’t cut it over the long haul. A baseball player must be measured in his approach. The same aggressiveness that made Francoeur one of the greatest high school football players this blessed state has ever seen — as a Parkview (High School) junior, he averaged a touchdown catch as a wide receiver and an interception as a defensive back per game — ultimately rendered him a substandard big-league hitter.
Terry Pendleton and Bobby Cox get hammered for not imparting plate discipline on their prized pupil, but Francoeur was swinging at everything before he became a Brave. He batted eight times in a playoff doubleheader his senior season at Parkview; seven times he swung at the first pitch. He could get away with it then because he was just so gifted, but gifts alone don’t cut it in the major leagues. Not for long."
Last edited by kaiser on Fri Jul 10, 2009 7:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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by dday0606 » Fri Jul 10, 2009 6:31 pm 
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