Man, I am as big of a Francoeur hater as their is, but watching his interview on the Braves pre-game show was sad. The guy was almost in tears, playing for the Braves was his life's goal and McCann was his best friend growing up. This was a dream come true, ideal scenario turned nightmare for him. I felt bad for him before I remember he is making $3.5 million for his pathetic performance. Oh well, addition by subtraction, and pawning him off on the Mets is LOL. First trade with the Mets since 1996, I wonder why??? Haha, pwned. And if he ever harnesses his talent (doubtful), we will just bring him back when he becomes a free agent.

BTW I dunno if anyone noticed in this thread, but Cox is a genius for platooning his closers. BPro wrote a good article here about it:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...articleid=9215

Awesome trade even though Church really isn't good.

Yeah, Church is about league-average. But when you trade someone who is worse than replacement level for him... that's one hell of a trade.

I mean obviously Wren is a genius. The fact that he got rid of failcore for a really good platoon partner for diaz is <3 <3 <3

fyp

wait wat

A++++ on the frenchy trade. <3 wren

My poast is not clear? Cox bunts in almost every situation imaginable, first inning, man on second nobody out, up one nobody out, doesn't matter, he orders a bunt, way, way too much and this has been proven to be a tuuuurrible strategy. When I made that poast I was very frustrated as he had left Hanson in the sixth to bunt with a man on first, up one and nobody out. Hanson proceeded to bunt pop out, no runs were scored and Bobby didn't even send him out in the bottom of the inning to pitch so he clearly just preferred a bunt. Then Francouer gets a leadoff double when the game is tied in the top of the 8th, and he sends Conrad to bunt him to 3rd because I guess he thinks the only way we can score is on a sac fly, god forbid you ask someone to get a single in three tries and maybe, maybe just let yourself have a big inning as well. Of course Francouer was stranded.

Cox does sh** like this all the time and it annoys the hell out of me. I don't really remember if Cox did this stuff when I was younger and the Braves went on that sick run of 14 straight titles, but I would bet he did and could be convinced that Cox's tuuuuurrrrrrrrible strategy was part of the reason that the Braves ran bad in the playoffs and only won one World Series during that run. Another turrribbllle thing he does is run his bullpen into the ground (this year Moylan is No. 1 in appearances and M. Gonzalez is No. 2, neither of these guys has the greatest medical history to remotely justify this), and I could see that being a big factor in underperforming in the playoffs as well.

He is great at managing relationships with players and communicating with them which is great if that has any effect on performance but his stategerie is tuuuurrrrrible .

Meh, I don't feel that sorry for him. He got offered a contract extension after his second year in the bigs and basically laughed it off (while McCann took his, lol) and said he was too good to be signing an early extension. He whined like a bitch and was all butt hurt that the team sent him to the minors last year (for 4 f'ing days) and seems to take no responsibility for the path his career has taken.

Yeah, the sad part is more the fall from grace. This guy was on top of the world, and now his hometown team has such a low opinion of him that they have no problem sending him to one of their biggest rivals when he is 25 and has his whole career ahead of him. In the Mets thread, I brought up how when asked about his low OBP he said something to the effect of "if OBP is so important then how come its not on the Jumbotron?" Whether strike-zone judgment is a skill that is primarily the result of innate ability or he is just stubborn, he clearly has not made the necessary strides to correct a huge weakness that was obvious from the start and mandatory to be a competent MLB hitter. This is clearly a wake-up call for him, and trading him to the Mets is basically a slap in the face. He must know now that if he doesn't learn basic strike zone judgment then he will be out of the league within the next few years, but then again he does not strike me as the brightest guy in the world so who knows.

Oh yeah, Francouer also mentioned something about his wife being excited to go to NYC and that making him feel better about it. I don't know know why that was funny to me, I guess because Teixeira signed with the Yanks for the same reason. Whatever it takes to make the wimmenz happy while they are banging sloots on da road trips.

I thought you guys might like this:

lol

pwn, i agree with you about Moylan and Gonzo being overused. But bunting with a runner on first or second or both and no outs is almost always the right play when a team plays so many close, low scoring games like the braves do.

I am right, right? can someone back me up on this

Honestly I think Bobby has done a great job this year. Doesn't change how i feel about the team needing a different kind of guy at the helm but he's been sharp.

Pretty sure that is not right. Needing one run in the bottom of the ninth it is obviously okay but its like he thinks you only need to score one or two runs to win a game. He even bunts Prado from the two hole alot in the beginning of games. Yes, we got the leadoff man on, now lets kill this inning!!! We wouldnt want to try to get as many men as possible on base before Chipper and McCann. You know that we are going to win 1-0 if we get the run in, really???? How do we know that we are not going to lose the game 3-2 or 4-2, and regret not taking the opportunities we had early in the games to have big innings.

How does bunting with a man on second ever make sense??? If you let him swing away, there is a decent chance that he will just knock the guy in on his own. If he makes an out their are lots of ways to get him over to third anyway. And there is no risk of a double play. Alright, the batter might strike out, hit a grounder to third, or pop out and that sucks. However, when you bunt you are basically betting that the guy who comes out with a guy on third and one out isn't going to do one of these things else your bunt is completely wasted as there is not a ton of difference btw a guy on second and a guy on third with two outs (certainly not enough to justify to giving away on out). Of course there is also a chance of a guy bunting unsuccessfully which blows balls the most when it happens. You've employed a losing strategy and you can't even go out and execute that. Fail.

FYP

Why the papers keep saying he was his best friend cracks me up. They played summer and travel ball that is all. I don't ever remember Brian and Jeff hanging out much during the school year. I remember myself and a ton of people from Duluth and McCann all going to that outdoor Skynard concert a few years back his SR year and getting wasted laughing at some of them falling in piss creeks. Frenchy was not with us. Just an example of how you would figure a best friend would be with you at things like that. I never saw much evidence although I didn't play high school baseball so I never saw either of them as friends in the summer time. McCann's best friends were people from Hull middle and Duluth High School. I wish the media would quit sensationalizing their best friends from birth type story they keep doing. I'm sure they got to be best friends once they got drafted and played together.

And I personally don't feel the least bit sorry for Francouer. Isn't there an analogy football coaches like to make to QB's when they tell them that "Peyton Manning can't make that throw, Brett Farve can't make that throw, Tom Brady can't make that throw, so why are you trying to be the only one who can." I'm sure people tried explaining over and over to Francouer that nobody else could get on base at a high rate swinging at everything like he did, and making contact with pitches that weren't going to go anywhere. He doesn't have the one thing he needs and if we all had it we'd all be playing baseball for a living, an eye for what's a good pitch and a bad pitch. Not necessarily a ball or a strike, but a pitch if he does make contact, he'll rip. IMO unless he changes drastically, he will be on the bench or out of baseball in 3 years. Maybe I'm being harsh but he was the biggest baby who made you cringe wanting to see him do good but just knew with his plate discipline it was never going to happen. Best of luck Francouer. You seemed like a really good guy. I wish you the best and hope you strike out every time you play the Braves. That will be some payback for all the times you did it for our team!

LOL this is funny

Kyleb, since you like analyzing pitching and who looks to have the best mechanics and is flawed the most and who is going to hurt themselves, I have to ask if you've ever done the same thing on batting?

Even if you haven't done this, where in all of your years of watching baseball would Francouer's hitting/plate discipline rate as far as bottom of the pack goes?

I don't do this, but Fangraphs could tell you if you looked at O-Swing% (% of pitches swung at outside the zone). I would imagine that Frenchy rates extremely low in this regard.

He's about as patient as Vlad or Soriano, which is only a problem if you don't have the freakish plate coverage that Vlad and Soriano have. And he doesn't.

Braves run so bad...

Good to see kyleb in this thread.

Braves pwning the Mets. Frenchy first pitch swinging as usual.

Go ahead and put Tommy Hanson in the HoF IMO.

Yeah, pretty sick game yesterday for him.

My Braves curse is well documented (0 for 6) on games I have attended this year but I am tempted to head down tomorrow night to watch Timmah throw.

Also, why won't the goddamn Phils lose? Best stretch of the season and the Braves are losing games in the standings.

Team is rolling right now. Without checking it, it feels like it's been ****ing years since anything like it.

But yeah the Phillies never ever lose

Fangraphs did a column about the MLB top 50 highest trade value, taking into account age, salary, and projection going forward.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index...ade-value-5-1/

McCann was 6th in all of MLB.

Wieters was 5th.

ASALJK;LAKSJFLKFSALKJ;SF

Re Wieters:
If Baltimore offered Wieters for McCann straight up right now I'd laugh in their face and tell them to call me back when Wieters makes his 4th all-star game.

3-R HR to straight away CF and about 9 inches from another HR for a double off the wall earlier tonight.

Sigh Phillies.

Lincecum vs JJ tomorrow. If we can just score 1 run off him that might be enough.

trade value involves contracts. they aren't claiming that wieters is better than mccann right now, but he is cheaper and comes with 1-2 extra years of service.

and you're not an mlb gm for a reason afaik