The Slump Is Over

The longest slump in the history of man ended last night as for the first time in Francoeur's below replacement level career, he had a better month than his previous month's hitting totals. Admittedly, it would have been hard for him to go any lower than the level he was already at, but I will still give him credit for sucking less.

In the month of April, Francoeur hit a career-low of .216/.230/.371, embarrassingly bad numbers all around. However, he did show himself to be a more competent hitter in May where he put up numbers of .280/.295/.496. As I wrote about before, his on-base percentage will never be anything to write home about since with a .013 BB/PA ratio, if Francoeur is not hitting, he will not be on base.

The most impressive part of Francoeur's hitting resume is his isolated power, which was .216 for May, a mark that would have landed him in the upper quartile of MLB players. The problem is Francoeur is able to display his power infrequently because he is too busy swinging at bad pitches. Maybe if he saw more than 3.25 P/PA, he would have a chance to become a more complete hitter, hitting with both average and power. Until that day comes, the Braves will have to be happy with his 3.56 RC/27 and his -9 Batting Runs Above Average (BRAA).

Unrelated to his offense is the problem with Francoeur's defense. He may have one of the strongest arms in baseball, but that is certainly not being reflected in his -8 Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA), which begs a question. What does Francoeur do to justify his roster spot?

We will see if anything changes over the month of June so we can better answer that question.