Braves Need Outfield Upgrade

Written by Colin on June 12, 2009 – 5:31 am

Batting .240. One home run every 10 games. An on base percentage of .272. Folks, those aren’t last year’s stats.

Jeff Francoeur – “The Natural” – came into Spring Training with a new outlook on life. He was swinging differently, poking opposite field hits again, and promised he’d stick to his guns. But here we are, 25% of the way through the season, and he’s right back where he was last year. He’s playing worse than Garret Anderson, for crying out loud. And that’s saying something.

As much as it pains me to make this assessment, it might be time for Jeff to go. He needs a change of scenery. That’s nothing more than my personal opinion. But I’ve stood up for Jeff for the longest time. He’s just the hole in our lineup that needs patching at this point. Between him and Diaz/Anderson in left, our corner outfield positions have no bite. I’ll go ahead and say it – either Francoeur is moving or Diaz/Anderson are moving before the trade deadline. What other positions do we upgrade? Second base – who are we going to land there? We got McLouth. We need more offense. We can’t have traded for McLouth and still not have enough firepower. The pitching staff is solid. We have to make a run. And I’m not convinced that Francoeur has what it takes to play right field full-time on a contending team.

That’s hard for me to do. I really really REALLY like the guy. I really want him to succeed. I want him to turn it around starting tomorrow and prove me wrong. But a .240 average with a projected 16 home runs isn’t what we need out of a corner outfielder if we are to couple a potent offense with our pitching staff.

If we can keep Francoeur, I’ll be happy. But he’s got to step it up, and I don’t see that happening. He’s gone to the minors for a game or two. He’s changed his swing. He’s reverted to his old hack-and-hope mindset, and now I think it’s time to cut bait.

Tell me how I’m wrong. Convince me otherwise. But for now I’m looking at who can replace Francoeur, Anderson, and Diaz. We have got to get better offensive output from our outfield.


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Posted in Speculation | 14 Comments »

Braves Interested In Penny?

Written by Colin on June 6, 2009 – 7:44 am

ESPN is reporting that the Braves are eyeing – get this – starting pitcher Brad Penny. The Red Sox are said to be eyeing Jeff Francoeur. The idea is that Kawakami has been very effective in his first 45 pitches and that the Braves could add Penny to the rotation and move Kawakami to the bullpen.

That’s ridiculous.

There’s no way the Braves need another starting pitcher right now – especially one who struggled in the early part of this season. The MLB’s Mark Bowman says that if Kawakami struggles, then Kris Medlen will move from the bullpen to the starting rotation in place of Kawakami. I’d have to agree. And I don’t think Kawakami will struggle as much if he gets some actual run support. Once again, the Braves have scored only 1.5 runs on average while Kawakami is in the game. With an earned run average of 4.63, that’s not winning many games. More offense will help that.

No way the Sox are moving Penny to Atlanta. They may be interested in Francoeur, but they’ll have to give up something other than a starting pitcher to move him.


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Posted in General, Speculation | 4 Comments »

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