Playoffs? Are we talking about the playoffs? Those A's teams failed miserably in the playoffs. They did well to get there but they also had some poor divisions they got to play against. But thats unimportant. What matters is winning and they failed there. The only one who has made moneyball work for him is Theo. Thats it. Colletti is responsible for Kershaw, acquiring Casey Blake, bringing in Manny, signing good role players like Wolf and Hudson. Hes had some bad FA signings but every big market team does...take it from a Met fan on that. The only things Depodesta deserves complimentary credit for is drafting well (billingsley, kemp) and acquiring Ethier. He let Werth walk for nothing. You keep bringing up his career average. I keep saying Francoeur has shown he can hit at this level and he has 3 solid years to prove it. I know his career stats. I know his good and bad ones. I know that hes hitting 321/3/16 and that is plenty acceptable to me. If he carves out a niche as a better Jose Guillen minus the attitude Im perfectly fine with that because all we gave up was crappy Ryan Church who was going to be non tendered anyway. For the record I think he will peak out higher then Guillen but if that's his midway point and that is as good as it gets that is perfectly acceptable to me. Francoeur isn't my favorite player but I know he still has potential. Not all of the good hitters have good OBP's: Cody Ross, Robinson Cano, Freddy Sanchez, Mike Lowell, Nelson Cruz, and Brandon Phillips are all examples of players who are high BA guys who usually carry OBP's in the 310-330 range over the last few years. I wouldnt complain about having any of those in my starting lineup as a 6th hitter (likely Francoeur's destination). If Francoeur reaches that level of a slightly below average obp but hits 290/25/95 every year well Im perfectly fine with that.
I brought up playoffs because you mentioned how the A's teams never won. Those teams have been successful. They haven't done well in the playoffs but again the playoffs are a complete crapshoot, just getting in is something to be proud of. And those A's teams that got they won in 2000- 91 games, 2001- 102 games, 2002- 103 games, 2003- 96 games, 2004- 91 games (and didn't even make the playoffs), 2005- 88 games and 2006- 93 games. It's not like they backed into the playoffs like St. Louis in 2006. Those A's teams were actually good. Again the playoffs are a complete crap shoot but you have to give Beane credit for the teams he put together with the playoff he had. Werth was hurt and the doctors screwed up his injury by saying it was one thing when it was something else. And because of that missed the whole 2006 season and when he did play he played hurt and wasn't very good. Depodesta was the one that traded for Werth in the first place. Also it was Colletti that let Werth walk not Depodesta, as he was fired in 2005. But regardless all GMs let players walk and they turn out to be stars in other places. All GMs make good and bad trades and good and bad signings. Fair enough. It's hard to argue against Francoeur when you bring up the names of Guillen and Church. I'd probably rather have Francoeur than those guys on the hope he could turn it around and if not he'd make a good defensive replacement for me. Francoeur's OBP isn't even slightly average though. It's way below average. And I agree the guys you listed OBP's aren't very good (especially Phillips, Ross and Cruz) but at least they hit the ball and are decent to good hitters while almost all of them hitting for power (minus Sanchez) and some have speed (Cruz and Phillips). Francoeur does neither. Plus all of those players are better than Francoeur. And that stat line of 290/25/95 is probably best case/ceiling but that 290 average is probably wishful thinking.
I can't believe the Francoeur battle is being fought again. It's pretty simple: it comes down to misplaced faith vs. cold, hard numbers. That's all there is to it. I'm not going to rehash the numbers I previously posted, but any belief that Francoeur has been a good baseball player for more than about 1/3 of his career is based on erroneous facts. That's all there is to it. He was awesome for his 1/2 season as a rookie, cosmically overrated his second season (his 100 RBI disguised otherwise dreadful numbers), decent in his third year, and was among the worst players in baseball right up until he was traded to the Mets. He has been surprisingly good as a Met; it's impossible to dispute that the Mets have won the trade so far: Church has been useless in Atlanta while Francoeur is hitting very well. So, there's that. Huzzah. The chances of that continuing are, in my mind, slim. However, maybe the Mets finally got him to change his approach. Maybe Warthen talking about how the Mets had pitched him helped a lot. After all, he's still 25. I reiterate that I believe this to be a statistical blip and nothing more, but maybe he's Jose Guillen Part 2. It's not impossible, and it's certainly more encouraging than if he'd continued putting up toilet bowl numbers in RF.
It's not as if he never changed his approach in Atlanta. He changed his approach this past April. He had a good month. And then as he always does he reverted back to the player you lovingly nicknamed Out Machine. He gets comfortable when something is working for him and goes back to his old ways.
I have said everything I am going to say on Francoeur and I am not going to waste anymore of my time arguing with stat geeks, simple as that. I really got better things to do in the summertime.
Shhh....let me live in this fantasy world a little bit longer. It's nice here; Out Machine is actually taking pitches more than once per week, and hitting the cover off the ball as a result. And hey, there's Scarlett Johanssen and Christina Hendricks bringing me a tall Sam Adams in a frosted mug, and they both want to sit on my lap while I drink it.
FTR, Im about as anti-stat as anyone dude. But looking at his numbers in conjunction with what I know about baseball and swing mechanics (not to mention Ive seen just about every game Francoeur has ever played) it's hard for me to agree that he'll rebound.
i haven't been in here for the Francoeur debate, but im glad we have him... i'll take 100 RBIs masking crappy numbers... because driving in runs is what wins you games, not your OPS%, or all the hits you have that dont contribute to runs... the numbers i like on Francoeur are easy and us Mets fans should realize how important they are... 2005 RISP: .338 RISP 2 outs: .359 2006 RISP: .320 RISP 2 outs: .267 2007 RISP: .341 RISP 2 outs: .331 2008 RISP: .192 RISP 2 outs: .175 2009 RISP: .274 RISP 2 outs: .339 Obviously that 2008 was a horrible year, but i dont see that as being under 1/3rd of his career... hes a run producer, which is what we needed
He's always been great with 2 outs and RISP, which is one of the reasons I defended him last year. That's what has irked me so much about the guy - that he could be so clutch in certain situations but an automatic out when no one's on base or in scoring position. Thats another reason I don't but the hometown pressure thing, because just going strictly by what he does in clutch situations it looks like he's done pretty well.
The thing is that RBI's are very misleading. A poor hitter who always has runners on for him is going to drive in more runs than a good hitter who is always batting with the bases empty or a runner on first. The idea is that if you replace that bad hitter with a better one in the same situation runs will increase. For example Hanley Ramirez only had 67 RBI all of last season. This year he's in a totally different situation and has 67 RBI already. Also I think you guys are under appreciating getting on base when no-one else is. Your team can't score runs if players can't get on base, and even just a single with two outs can spark a big inning.
First, it's not just 2008. He was horrible in 2008, horrible in 2006 (please, for the love of all things holy, stop beating this "youngest player to 100 RBI!" nonsense into the ground; an average major league hitter would have had 120 RBI hitting in that spot in that order, given how potent the Braves were) and was horrible for the first half of 2009. For 2 1/2 solid seasons he was a very bad hitter. For one season, he was a respectable hitter (2007). For 1/2 season he was an excellent hitter, and that was 4 years ago. Second, I would be more surprised if Out Machine DIDN'T have decent numbers with runners in scoring position. When there's men on base, pitchers have to throw strikes; there's less room for error. Francoeur has the physical skills to be an excellent hitter, I would never deny that. He's got excellent hand-eye coordination and he's a big, strong guy. He absolutely passes the eye test for a major league hitter. The problem is that he has absolutely no idea what's a ball and what's a strike. None. As a result, pitchers can throw him garbage, knowing that he'll whiff at it, or loft it harmlessly to center field. With men on base, and knowing they can't afford a walk, they pitch to Francoeur, and he drives the ball. In any case, the whole idea of "clutch hitting" is at best questionable. Third, if he's such a vaunted "run producer", if he has this mythic ability to get hits "when they count" why write off so easily the runs he costs his team by being a 6'4, 220 pound bag of suck when there's no one on base? Why ignore opportunity costs? Francoeur has some gaudy RBI totals, it's true. However, I would argue that those were due to: a. the awesome Braves lineup from 2005-2007 putting runners on base in huge numbers, b. his incapacity to tell a ball from a strike and subsequent refusal to take a pitch, c. his impressive ability to stay healthy and rack up massive numbers of plate appearances. His run totals are significantly less impressive. It's great to drive in runs; but they're just as valuable when you yourself are scoring them. Francoeur hasn't scored a lot of runs. Why? Because he doesn't get on base. *Sigh* Scarlett, Christina, grab me another beer, will you? Then make out with each other. Thanks.
Baseball America Top 12 Prospects 12) Ike Davis, 1B, Mets Team: Double-A Binghamton (Eastern) Age: 22 Why He's Here: .385/.467/.692 (10-for-26), 2 HR, 2 2B, 6 RBIs, 6 R, 4 BB, 4 SO The Scoop: Davis has clubbed more home runs this season (12) and compiled a higher slugging percentage (.486) than any of the other four first-round first basemen from the '08 draft. That's a group that includes Yonder Alonso, Justin Smoak, David Cooper and Allan Dykstra. To be fair, Smoak began the year in Double-A and has moved up to Triple-A, unlike Davis, who started in high Class A, but then Smoak has enjoyed much friendlier hitting environments along the way. Also in the team photo: • You won't find low Class A Savannah SS Wilmer Flores' (Mets) name among the South Atlantic League leaders, not with the way he started. But the 17-year-old Venezuelan batted .391/.444/.565 (9 for 23) on the week, with a home run, a double, six runs scored and five RBIs. His season has been trending up, as he has now hit .300 or better in July and August -- a combined 53 for 173 (.306) --and has raised his season line to .286/.325/.368 through 85 games. While Flores possesses very little speed and hasn't hit for a ton of game power, his bat control remains impressive. He has just 42 whiffs on the year, and since July he has fanned in just 10 percent of his at-bats. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/more/07/28/hot.prospects/1.html
That really wasn't directed at you, you can make an arguement without soley needing stats and numbers. But I think it's just absolutely ridiculous for some people to ignore his first three years as if they didn't happen and assume that 2008 and 1st part of this year is the norm. You just can't do that man and when you try to argue otherwise with them it's pointless when they can't lift their eyes off the stat sheets. And to be honest I have little respect if any for their opinions. People don't watch the game like they use to and it's why I loathe fantasy sports, it's deprived people of common sense.
His...2007...season...was...terrible. A batting order with 9 versions of the 2007 Jeff Francoeur would have won 40% of their games. If you can't/won't understand other stats, why on earth wouldn't you accept something like offensive winning percentage, which is as basic as it gets: "how many games would a team composed of 9 of this guy win?" Why oh why do you keep perpetuating this myth that Out Machine was the second coming of Hank Aaron before 2008? It's not backed up by even a rudimentary examination of the numbers. I've watched Francoeur. I've watched him swing at terrible pitches. I've watched him hit those terrible pitches to harmless spots on the field, and get up 2-3 innings later and do it again. When he was a Brave, I rejoiced when he came to the plate. I don't need the half-assed announcing of Tim F'ing McCarver to tell me what's going on. (The same guy who famously bemoaned "all those slow guys clogging up the basepaths.") I don't need some crotchety old fart complaining about these newfangled gizmos and stats and how life was so much better back in the good old days, con'starn'it!
Yet for all the sabermetrics being thrown out there frenchy is in the top 10 in the nl in BA and rbi since the deal. Obp is much more important for a tablesetter then a middle of the order bat that you're looking to as someone to get those runners home. To insinuate otherwise is just lacking in baseball common sense imo
Just read this, interesting. Cliff Lee is moving to Philadelphia and a ballpark that tends to punish fly-ball pitchers. Lee has fly-ball tendencies (54.5 pct of balls in play)
see the problem with this argument is you can flip anything that could be construed as good and act like its nothing... baseball has TOO many stats you can flip a million ways... hes good with RISP but only because the pitchers have to throw strikes? cmon thats a cop out, his BA with RISP is good for WHATEVER reason, who cares what excuse you want to make for that, and thats something as a TEAM we have been lacking in... we needed a guy in the middle of the lineup to get hits with men on base... "Out Machine" has been consistently good in that regard... i dont care if you wanna blame it on that potent braves lineup he used to hit in, haha, or he had so many guys on base and pitchers had to throw strikes, or whatever else you can conjure up... fact is he excels in that regard, and is now doing it for us as well... and whoever was talking about hanley ramirez, he had that many RBIs because he was batting leadoff last year.... now hes in the 3 hole and hes put in a run producing role...
Josh Johnson is batting .333 with two home runs in RISP 2 Out situations this year. RISP stats are overrated. You don't see a 98 MPH fastball better because there are guys on base, and if you do then you have concentration issues and shouldn't be starting period. The only thing that can happen is that you can choke under pressure. You can't really get "better" in baseball.
He hit in the 3 spot last season at times as well. You don't attribute his lack of RBI to his nearly .250 RISP average last season though, funny because thats what makes Jeff such a great player.
Since this was obviously directed towards me I'll respond because my ego is way too big to let this go. The stats I've been using with Francoeur are basic stats (BA, OBP, SLG, OPS). In fact if you go to a baseball game and look up on the scoreboard you'll most likely see those stats posted on the Jumbotron when the player is at bat. I didn't even get into more complex stats that the 'stat geeks' use to measure the value of a player, if I did trust me it would help my arguement more. It's not my fault that when you make blanket statements like 'Francoeur is a good hitter' and I responded by saying 'No he's not because he has a career .267 batting average'. How is that wrong of me or me counting too much on stats or living in a fantasy world? It's basic stuff that you learn that in Baseball 101. You keep going back to RBIs yet me and 2 other people both explained to you that RBIs are not a good measure of how good a hitter is and why; yet you fail to grasp that as. It's not my fault that you don't understand that aspect. And again Francoeur's first 3 years weren't as good as you think they were. You can't just focus on HRs and RBIs and even if you did he was probably around the league average for corner OFers in those years as other corner OFers were putting up huge numbers. Also don't assume just because people are 'stat geeks' they don't watch the games, that's just non sense. That's the most common and cliche excuse people use to knock them because they most likely don't understand them. It is possible to be both a stat geek and actually watch the games. It doesn't take a super scout to realize Francoeur is a hacker at the plate so you have your pitches throw balls off the plate to get him to chase bad pitches, hence why his BA and OBP are so low. Just like you don't have to be a super scout to realize Jason Bay can't hit an outside off speed pitch and chases them like they're girls in mini skirts. The funniest thing you said was how fantasy sports deprive people of common sense, which is coming from the guy who wants to base the value of a player only on HR, RBIs and BA (which happen to be the most common stats used in fantasy baseball). If anything this hurts your argues so give me a break. What's next you telling me wins and losses are the best way to judge a pitcher?
Francoeur has been good since the deal. I won't deny that but again it is a very small sample size. Back at the end of April, Nick Swisher would have been the MVP of the AL, now look at him. It's great that he's been doing well but you need to give him more at bats to see if he can keep it up or it's just a hot steak. If he was batting .200 since the trade you'd be arguing to give him more time too. So it needs to go both ways, let's wait another month or 2. And no I can't agree with your OBP statement. OBP is important for everyone. I think its important to have your top of the order guys to be able to reach base more/better than the others in the line up but it's important for everyone. The 7, 8, 9 batters don't go up to the plate for show they're trying to drive in runs too. The whole point is getting on base so you give your team a chance to score. Plus those middle of the order hitters usually have high OBPs anyway.
No RISP stats are underappreciated. Last two years the Mets were towards the bottom of the league in BA with RISP and as a result were dependent on home runs. This lead to vast inconsistencies in the Mets offense over the past couple of years. There would be offensive outbursts and then a 2 game dry spell. This year they have been near the top of the league with risp and its been one of the few things keeping them around 500 where they have no business being right now. Theyre dead last in the league in homers this year, barely ahead of Albert Pujols. Quite the opposite bro, situational hitting is a lost art. La Russa's teams seem to do it well every year and the mets did it very well under Bobby V. Its a good explanation sometimes for why undermanned teams sometimes perform better then their personnel says they should be performing.
Ill give Francoeur as much time as you want. He's back to what he was when he first came up, of that I am all but certain. But if you need more proof, we can give it more time As far as the rest of this I simply cant agree. I gave example after example of productive hitters without great OBP. To be clear Im not saying it is unimportant, just not as important as some people make it out to be. You can win with Jeff Francoeur type players in your lineup, of that I am certain.
Those productive hitters (meaning they actually got hits) had good either hit a lot of HRs and/or had speed. And most of their OBPs (minus Cruz, Phillips and maybe Ross- I honestly can't remember) weren't terrible, the OBPs weren't good by any means but at least they were over .330 or so (again if I remember correctly, I looked them all up this morning so I could be off or wrong on a player or too). Francoeur doesn't do any of those, plus Francoeur isn't a productive hitter. But I disgess. But the rest we'll have to wait and see. I'm just trying to be fair with the sample size because if Francoeur batted .200 in his first 14 games with the Mets I wouldn't be posting what a bust he's been or that he's done.
I didn't check the stats on hanley, sorry i dont have his BA with RISP memorized, but as i look at them now, he had 56 ABs in the 3 hole last year... thats probably 15 games, i dont think that will really make much of a difference... but obviously his BA with RISP sucked last year, and this year its excellent, and now he'll have many more RBIs, thanks for helping my point... and i never said Jeff is a great player... just people in here seem to bash him for his OBP and other crap, fine, but hes a run producer and he'll get the hits with runners on, as anyone who actually watches the Mets you would know thats EXACTLY what we needed... so he doesn't create many chances, hes striking out a lot and hes not disciplined... but when theres a man on 2nd with 2 outs and we're down by one, hes a guy who even statistically you want up in that situation... i also liked the fact he was still a young guy and people can improve, no one denies that he has natural ability, but hes sloppy, hes undisciplined, hes a lot of things, but that doesn't mean he cant change... and again i look at his career and i say he had 1 bad season out of 3.5 coming into this year, he was the top 1 or 2 RBIs guy for that potent braves lineup in '06 and '07, and regardless of WHY, thats a fact, and thats something we needed....
either way hes on the team now, if your a Mets fan, ROOT for him to do well... dont hope he fails so you can say, i told you so... anyway double header today with Santana up this morning... 2nd inning starting off good, double by Murphy, Single by Francouer, RBI single by Sullivan, excellent we need to give Santana the run support so he can just cruise...
Oh I can tell, you have done nothing but poh bah away any logic anybody throws at you with what else? Stats, stats, stats.... Francoeur IS a good hitter, minus the last year and a half he has shown that, but YOU keep ignoring his first three years why? Because it hurts your case and you rather just dismiss them as flukes. You don't dismiss three years work, if he had just one good year yes you can, three? Hell no. And I have NEVER heard anyone with a .267 avg be described as a stinky hitter. And their is your own self admitted ego again, you say so so you must be correct and everyone else is the fool. Here is something you can't dismiss and has nothing to do with stats, so I am not sure if you are going to be able to follow this are not but here goes: Not everyone can excel hitting with RISP, it's a special knack and a reason why players like Carlos Delgado, Manny Ramirez and Lance Berkman do it on a consistent basis again and again. To ignore this skill is complete nonsense and short sightedness. I love stats and numbers as much as the next day, I can spend a whole afternoon lost on Baseball-Reference.com but the difference between you and me I use both numbers, common logic and what I see on the field to base my judgements on, you on the other hand rely soley on stats and numbers. And by the way, hackers can be good hitters, where you getting the idea they can't is baffling.
Billy Wagner starts minor league rehab Saturday. Its amazing, but he just maybe the first injured player back to the major league roster.
Because stats are evidence/facts you use to back up opinions. That's why people use them. If you said something that was true and the stats backed it up then people would have a better time believe it. For instance I say that Jeff Francoeur doesn't get on base a lot and back it up by showing you his walk rate and his OBP. Giving you an opinion then backing it up with facts. How exactly is a player with a .267 avg a good hitter? Seriously explain that to me. I have NEVER heard anyone with a .267 avg be described as a good hitter. Seriously if anyone is reading this and wants to disagree with me please speak up. We're just talking about BA here. And I'm not ignoring his first 3 years. I'm telling you that his first 3 years aren't as good as you think they are because you just focus on HR, RBI and BA and there's better stats to use to measure how good of a hitter the person is. You talk about how he's a power hitter yet he's SLG % isn't good (which measures more than just HRs, it measures his doubles, triples etc.). You can't just keep looking at those 3 stats because they're not true indictors, something you don't get. No it's because they're right and actually explain why using RBIs as a measure is misleading. You don't get it though. You know what's different about Delgado, Ramirez, and Berkman compared to Francoeur? Besides from the fact that they aren't even in the same league compare to Francoeur but they have high BA/OBP/SLG and also score over 100 runs themselves too. So not only do they help the team by reaching base and driving guys in, they score runs themselves. You take Ramirez, Delgado or Berkman and bat them first their BA/OBP/SLG would probably be the same but they would score even more runs but take a big hit in the RBI department. You take Francoeur and put him at the lead off spot and all you'll have is the 2nd batter of the game coming up with no one on base and 1 out 70% of the time. I did look up Francoeur numbers with RISP (was I allowed to do that?) and yeah he does have decent (obviously not as good as the players you mentioned above) stat lines. It would be an interesting study as to why. I don't think people can totally dismiss Phunwin's theory that it might have something to do with pitchers throwing him more strikes in those spots. But even if that was true, Francoeur still has to make contact and do something with the pitch, which he is. His problem is when there's either no one on base, a runner on 1st or the bases loaded (granted 90 at bats is small sample) that's when he has the problem. Which makes it even more interesting. You should check out baseballreference more than and learn the other stats out there which go more in depth and really show you the measure of just how good/bad a player is. And I'm being totally serious because you really can't just go by RBI and BA alone, baseball has become more advance now. And obviously I don't base my judgements on stats alone, I do watch games too. Sure hackers can be good hitters. Vlad Guerrero comes to mind instantly. The thing is Vlad was a huge offensive force in his prime and not only did he put up huge numbers all around. he got on base a ton too. The problem is Francoeur isn't a good hitter and pitchers have been taking advantage of that.
Nah Reyes ran the bases today and then Beltran said he is coming back in 2-2.5 weeks. They'll probably all be coming back around the same time. Nice win today. Santana's best outing in a month+.
Ray Finkle - I am very comfortable with the case I have made and you are coming across as someone who thinks to win a debate is to outlast the other person by trying to get the last word in and I have really have no interest in playing that game. Especially with someone who thinks he knows better than everyone. No offense. Plus I got things I do before I WATCH another Mets game this evening. Good day sir, now you can get the last word in I am sure you so much relish.
This has nothing to do with outlasting the other person. You've been making posts in which you have been responding to me directly and asking me direct questions therefore I have been responding back with questions. Isn't that the whole point of forums and message boards? I was fine with my stance and done with the Francoeur debate with you on Tuesday night. It wasn't until you called me out in 2 seperate posts then I felt the need to respond again. I don't care if you call me out but when I respond don't try to take the high road and dump things on me. And no I'm not offended by any means nor do I think I know better than everyone else, as there are a lot of knowledgeble people on these boards. People disagree with things all the time that doesn't automatically make me think I'm better or smarter, that's just way too many assumptions on your part. I was actually trying to help you out. But you're right it's probably for the best we both just walk away and let it go. Have fun watching the Mets, they've been playing well lately.
Don't worry about it. It's all good, I don't hold grudges. The issue is over with and we're moving on.
That'll teach you to read the bergen record. Its been all over rotoworld and yahoo sports for a couple of days.
