Juan Francisco

[reds44]

How high is his upside? I was watching the game with my brother (a White Sox fan) yesterday and he brought up an interesting comparison for him, Pablo Sandoval.

Sandoval's career minor league numbers:
.303/.342/.445/.787

Francisco's career minor league numbers:
.281/.311/.482/.793

Is there any chance that Francisco can either A. develop a little more patience at the plate or B. be able to hit over .300 in the majors so his lack of any sort of patience is as much of a factor?

Everytime I watch him hit, I can't help but come away impressed, so I'm just trying to figure out if there's any chance he can become an everyday player.

[bucksfan2]

I think Francisco has the highest ceiling out of any hitter in the Reds organization sans Yorman Rodriguez. I doubt he reaches that ceiling because he has shown he swings at everything. If Francisco develops some plate discipline I think he could be an offensive monster.

[OnBaseMachine]

He has a beautiful swing and great bat speed. Unfortunately, his plate discipline is subpar at this point. If he can ever improve his plate discipline he'll be an offensive monster, IMO.

[WMR]

His offensive approach somewhat reminds me of Vlad Guerrero.

Of course, he can't hit bad balls like Guerrero.

[KronoRed]

His offensive approach somewhat reminds me of Vlad Guerrero.

Of course, he can't hit bad balls like Guerrero.

Can't walk like him either.

Jeff Francoeur anyone?

[Mario-Rijo]

Can't walk like him either.

Jeff Francoeur anyone?

That would be the best possible semi-successful player he could be compared to IMO. And even then Francisco comes up short in the comparison, which is telling. Follow Jeff's career arc and that is best case scenario.

[dougdirt]

That would be the best possible semi-successful player he could be compared to IMO. And even then Francisco comes up short in the comparison, which is telling. Follow Jeff's career arc and that is best case scenario.

I don't think its even close to the best case scenario. Its likely a best case scenario in the 'likely to happen' world, but its not the best case scenario at all.

[Mario-Rijo]

I don't think its even close to the best case scenario. Its likely a best case scenario in the 'likely to happen' world, but its not the best case scenario at all.

Right, that is what I meant. That is if I am reading you right. You do mean Francisco isn't likely to reach those heights, right?

[Kc61]

With all his flaws, I would like to see Francisco stay with the Reds, platoon in left field with Gomes, maybe occasionally play third.

Against righty pitching, Francisco would add a major dimension to the Reds' lineup.

If his problems with plate discipline get the best of him, he could then be sent down for more seasoning.

He potentially adds much more than Dickerson or Nix from the left side. I would try him.

[mth123]

With all his flaws, I would like to see Francisco stay with the Reds, platoon in left field with Gomes, maybe occasionally play third.

Against righty pitching, Francisco would add a major dimension to the Reds' lineup.

If his problems with plate discipline get the best of him, he could then be sent down for more seasoning.

He potentially adds much more than Dickerson or Nix from the left side. I would try him.

Me too. The Reds lack an ideal option to be the LH half of a LF platoon. Dickerson lacks power to the point of being detrimental. Nix has power and not much else. Francisco has oodles of upside, even more power and though his plate discipline is poor, he hasn't failed with it at any level. If Gomes isn't the full time guy, Francisco should be the platoon partner unless a better option could be brought in from outside the organization. JF has earned the right to fail IMO.

[RedsManRick]

How high is his upside? I was watching the game with my brother (a White Sox fan) yesterday and he brought up an interesting comparison for him, Pablo Sandoval.

Sandoval's career minor league numbers:
.303/.342/.445/.787

Francisco's career minor league numbers:
.281/.311/.482/.793

Is there any chance that Francisco can either A. develop a little more patience at the plate or B. be able to hit over .300 in the majors so his lack of any sort of patience is as much of a factor?

Everytime I watch him hit, I can't help but come away impressed, so I'm just trying to figure out if there's any chance he can become an everyday player.

It is an interesting comparison. Here's some more data:

Age	Lg	PA	BB%	K%	HR%	BIP%	BABIP	ISO
20	A	470	4.7%	15.7%	0.2%	79.4%	.313	.055
21	A+	423	3.8%	12.3%	2.6%	81.3%	.305	.190
22	A+	301	7.6%	13.0%	4.0%	75.4%	.384	.238
22	AA	184	4.3%	10.9%	4.3%	80.4%	.345	.211
Total		1378	5.0%	13.4%	2.3%	79.2%	.330	.157

Age	Lg	PA	BB%	K%	HR%	BIP%	BABIP	ISO				
19	R	36	0.0%	22.2%	0.0%	77.8%	.429	.083
19	R	190	3.2%	19.2%	1.6%	76.0%	.331	.126
20	A	562	4.1%	30.1%	4.4%	61.4%	.337	.195
21	A+	541	3.5%	23.8%	4.3%	68.4%	.321	.219
22	AA	464	4.3%	20.8%	4.7%	70.2%	.309	.220
22	AAA	99	4.0%	26.1%	5.1%	64.8%	.431	.239
Total		1892	3.8%	24.6%	4.1%	67.5%	.332	.201

A few things stand out to me:

• Sandoval put the ball in play much more often. Given his averages and 600 PA, Sandoval's would see 157 non-HR hits per 600 . For Fransisco, that number is 134. That's about 40 points of batting average difference.
• Sandoval walked a little bit more than Fransisco.
• Fransisco hit for more power throughout his career, but for a similar amount over the last season. Doubles are power too.
• Both guys were hit lucky from a BABIP, though .330ish could very well be standard for the minor leagues given the lower quality pitching and fielding.

Lastly, looking at Sandoval's 2009 in the majors, we should recognize that he was very hit lucky, with a .350 BABIP despite just an 18.6 LD% in 2009. That is not sustainable and it's very unlikely he puts up the same batting average in 2010. His K rate went up slightly but his walk rate jumped BIG TIME, to 8.2% in 2009. If he sustains that level, it will allow him to continue to put up a decent OBP when his average falls back to the .290-.300 range.

I agree that he's an interesting comp for Fransisco. However, we should continue to recognize that Fransisco is extremely unlikely to succeed in the majors without a big uptick in his walk rate. While he could sustain what seems to be a reasonable OPS, the composition of that OPS would be grossly SLG heavy, which makes it much less valuable in practice.

[dougdirt]

Francisco swings like Sandoval does, but that is about where the comp ends. Sandoval makes a lot more contact, which means his average and OBP are going to start off a lot higher from the ground up. He also walks more than Francisco does.

[RedsManRick]

Francisco swings like Sandoval does, but that is about where the comp ends. Sandoval makes a lot more contact, which means his average and OBP are going to start off a lot higher from the ground up. He also walks more than Francisco does.

I was surprised to see that in 2009, Sandoval was roughly league average in terms of contact rate. I assumed he'd be in the upper 20%. I think he's due for a fairly big batting average regression in 2010. His 20th percentile PECOTA seems likely to me: .298/.351/.473

I don't think Fransisco has contact issues, just plate discipline issues. I'm beginning to think of him as Wily Mo Pena with more development time and better hand-eye coordination. If he can simply learn to lay off the breaking stuff out of the zone (easier said than done, I realize...), his BB% will go up, his K% will go down, and he'll be an absolute beast.

[osuceltic]

I was surprised to see that in 2009, Sandoval was roughly league average in terms of contact rate. I assumed he'd be in the upper 20%. For me, it really reinforces the notion that if Fransisco can simply learn to lay off the breaking stuff out of the zone (easier said than done, I realize...) he could be an absolute beast. I'm beginning to think of him as Wily Mo Pena with more development time and better hand-eye coordination.

And two other advantages -- he's left-handed, which puts him at a real advantage against the large majority of pitchers, and he simply has a better stroke. That's tougher to quantify, but I believe it to be true. And I actually thought Wily Mo had some moments when he looked like he might put it together.

[Mario-Rijo]

I was surprised to see that in 2009, Sandoval was roughly league average in terms of contact rate. I assumed he'd be in the upper 20%. I think he's due for a fairly big batting average regression in 2010. His 20th percentile PECOTA seems likely to me: .298/.351/.473

I don't think Fransisco has contact issues, just plate discipline issues. I'm beginning to think of him as Wily Mo Pena with more development time and better hand-eye coordination. If he can simply learn to lay off the breaking stuff out of the zone (easier said than done, I realize...), his BB% will go up, his K% will go down, and he'll be an absolute beast.

I think we'll all soon see that he does indeed have contact issues in addition to plate discipline issues and the former is maybe even a bigger problem. It's simple, you can't possibly curl up like that, get out on that front foot and continue to make contact. His balance will look fine as long as he is getting fastballs but those breaking balls will eventually throw his timing off and then when he begins to wait on those (because he'll start getting a lot of them) the fastball will start to get past him too. Pretty soon the opposition will have him severely out of sync.