From Sam Mellinger’s profile in the Kansas City Star:
Jeff Francoeur Finally Figuring It Out (Again)
We’ve heard all this before, haven’t we? About Francoeur’s commitment to keeping things simple, and his sincerest efforts to draw just one additional walk every week or two?
I think this part’s new, though ...
Jeff Francoeur is slim. You will notice this right away, especially if you’ve seen him in recent years. He’s 6 feet 5 and 206 pounds now, down from 230 at the end of last season and 244 from when he bulked up for what turned out to be that train-wreck 2008.
This is the key, he thinks. He tried too hard to hit home runs before, dismissed too easily the value of walks, and now that his mind is right, he is sure he will unlock his considerable potential. The muscles got in the way, slowed his bat, or at least slowed his adjustments, and that’s why his production fell off.
This is the ultimate cliché of spring training, of course, even if Francoeur won’t use the phrase “I’m in the best shape of my life.” Guys come in every spring saying they’ve figured out their problems, a little tweak here, hands moved just a touch over there, and voila, baseball stardom and enormous riches are just a formality.
There is enough behind Francoeur’s words to be intrigued. What he says makes sense. If he’s getting back to the physical shape of his productive years with a humbled approach, it only makes sense that he’ll be better.
Well, I’ll buy maybe half of that. Being in his ideal physical shape -- if that’s really what this is -- would seem to be a good thing. But it’s worth wondering, isn’t it, whether Francoeur’s approach has ever been the problem? Generally speaking, hitters don’t succeed or fail because of their approach. Hitters succeed or fail -- and again, we’re speaking generally here -- because of their talent.
And we’ve now got 3,443 plate appearances that suggest Jeff Francoeur, one of the five or six hundred greatest hitters on Earth, just doesn’t have the talent to draw 50 walks in a season or reach base even a third of the time. Or the talent to play every day for a good team.
As is usually true, I hope that I am wrong.
Update: Joe Posnanski on Frenchy and Hope.
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