Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? Okay, so 2009 is a bust because of injuries – but Beltran is getting older and may not be able to play CF anymore for a full season. After dodging the injury-prone label that dogged Reyes a few years ago, he’s back with an injury that just can’t seem to heal itself. Wright is all sorts of messed up. We have glaring holes in the OF, 1B and C. Pelfrey has regressed. Maine has really regressed. Ollie is awful. Santana is getting older. Murphy has been a bust and doesn’t have the confidence of his manager. The manager seems to have ulterior motives besides just managing the roster he’s been given. All of are reinforcements in the minors are years away from being contributors. And I’m just supposed to shrug my shoulders at the fact that this GM, who has had almost every major move and signing he’s made since 2006 backfire (save for Santana and K-Rod), just acquired perhaps one of the worst offensive players in baseball.

I’m glad you’re so open minded. I was open minded three years ago and was proven wrong again, and again, and again. And now I acknowledge it. So don’t start talking about “fans like you” to me.

I consider the Braves organization to be one of the best in baseball. I would kill to have Bobby Cox as our manager. If he tired of Francoeur then what does that say for what we just traded for. To me this sounds like an NBA trade. The Mets will get a guy and have the option not to tender him a contract so they basically wash their hands of either player for next year.

The only way this trade works is if Minaya has had conversations with other teams for a package. If Church was the problem getting done but Francoeur would suffice then fine. But I doubt that this is the case.

What really pi**es me off is that even though David lennon thinks their will be an organizational review at years end, Minaya will keep his job due to the numerous injuries. Well if he did his job and stocked the farm which he promised to do when he took the job, we would be in better shape. So we will have this crappy team culture next year as well.

We need new blood at the top, especially if players like Reyes, Wright and Beltran are going to be surrounded by players going forward or if we are going to trade one in the off-season. Why is it that Minaya gets a pass? He has been here long enough with well over 100 million to play with. The results and depth should be better.

I feel happy for Church because even though he is going to a team that won’t make the playoffs he will be treated like a pro under Bobby Cox. Our circus continues.

IT DOES NOT take much of a look beyond improving his OBP which consequently should improve his SLG, and surprise his productivity will be up.

These spreadsheet stats are designed to over accentuate the obvious, which is why fantasy baseball junkies LOVE THEM, they love to overstate the obvious.

Whether Francouer can in fact change his game around, remains to be seen, other players have done it, and they nor the coaches and scouts discussed how to VORP and WARP themselves into shape.

The defensive stat metrics are so flawed and do NOT take into account so many real life nuisances of how the game is played who pitches against what hitter and how a team positions players let alone the fact that on one of Francouers most key values, his arm, teams absolutely no longer run on it.

His offensive game is flawed but other players with as much or less physical talent as Francouer were able to figure it out.

I’d rather take the dice roll on trying to work with a 25 year old like Francouer vs. the 30 year old enigma that can’t touch third base.

http://www.metsminorleagueblog.com/2009/07/11/church-for-francouer-wtf/#comments