Why It's Time the Braves Gave Up on the Jeff Francoeur Experiment

(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Reading ajc.com this morning, I ran across David O'Brien's Wednesday blog on Jeff Francoeur. Frenchy's having a bad year. Again.

I've always been one to say I told you so, so allow me to say I told you so. Here's something I wrote for my own amusement late last September:

Frenchy vs. Andruw

As promised, here's more on Jeff Francoeur's disturbing downward statistical trend.

We all remember Andruw Jones, right? It's hard to think that a player could be more loved by Braves fans, which also shows just how bad he had to get before we were ready for him to be patrolling somebody else's center field.

His strikeouts and poor plate discipline just became too much to overcome his prodigious home run totals. Well, guess what? Frenchy is Andruw Jones, without the power.

And if you're still looking toward a bright future for Francoeur, you may want to stop looking. If Andruw is any indication, the Frenchy you see now is the Frenchy you're probably going to get from here on out.

And that, my friends, means we need a new right fielder.

Here are Frenchy's and Andruw's stats for their first four seasons (Jones first, Francoeur second):

• Games: 505-549
• At-bats: 1,679-2,149
• Runs: 257-278
• Hits: 436-577
• Doubles: 93-117
• Triples: 15-10
• Homers: 80-73
• RBI: 257-324
• Strikeouts: 368-430
• K/AB: 1/4.6-1/5.0
• Walks: 179-115
• Stolen bases: 74-9
• On-base percentage (by season): .265-.336, .329-.293, .321-.338, .365-.294
• Slugging percentage (by season): .443-.549. .416-.449, .515-.444, .483-.359
• Batting average (by season): .217-300, .231-260, .271-.293 ,.275-.239

As you can see, Frenchy comes out ahead in the categories that are dependent primarily on him playing in more games and notching quite a few more at bats. But there are some clear trends, few of which make him look like he'll even approach Andruw Jones' league.

Despite nearly 500 fewer at bats, Jones out homers Francoeur 80-73. But Frenchy makes up for it with average, right? Uhhh, no. Francoeur owns a middling .267-.260 edge.

On-base percentage? Uhhh, no again. Jones' lousy on-base percentage became a running joke in Atlanta, but the .365 he notched in his fourth year is 27 points better than Frenchy's 2007 career-best mark (by comparison, Chipper Jones has never had an OBP lower than .353- and that came in his rookie year).

Yet that hasn't translated to fewer strikeouts for Francoeur. Jones earned a reputation as a whiff machine in Atlanta, and his K every 4.6 at-bats over his first four seasons proved it was more than a hunch. Yet Frenchy is only slightly better, 5.0-1, and here's a real shocker: Andruw more than makes up for it a dominant edge in walks (179-115).

That's right, Andruw Jones is a MORE disciplined hitter than Jeff Francoeur. Let that sink in for a few minutes.

So we've established that Francoeur is just plain bad, even my Andruw Jones standards. But we already knew that, right? The question is, is he going to get better?

My money is on absolutely not.

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