Juan Francisco Promoted to Reds; Jay Bruce Off the DL

[camisadelgolf]

http://twitter.com/cincinnatiReds

Reds promote IF/OF Juan Francisco, reinstate Jay Bruce from the DL.

[GIDP]

I guess I understand it

[NeilHamburger]

LOL it figures. My least favorite prospect is on the fast track.

[Kc61]

Originally Posted by NeilHamburger

LOL it figures. My least favorite prospect is on the fast track.

Probably you don't like extra base hits and RBIs. You're going to win with walks. Good luck, hope it works out.

Francisco is a forty man roster player who had a big second half so he gets promoted. His option is already burned for this year. The move has no roster impact.

That's why guys like Frazier aren't coming up. Not yet on the forty.

The obvious omission is Alonso, but he will soon be in the Arizona Fall League so they are resting him. He is on the forty as well.

Most significant is Bruce -- he needs to level out that swing and avoid all those pop ups. Let's hope he has a good last couple of weeks with the big club.

Interesting note -- they refer to Francisco as IF/OF. Not as a "third baseman."

[HokieRed]

Good move in both cases. I'm not surprised about the non-3bman designation for Francisco. I think the Rolen trade made it very clear that defense at that position is going to be considered of paramount importance. Don't see how it can be otherwise for a team in a park where the pitchers have got to be persuaded to get as many ground outs as possible.

[NeilHamburger]

You win with players who work the count, have high OBP, get the other teams pitchers to get into deep counts and into the middle relief. That's how you win over an extended period of time, along with great defense and pitching.

If I'm constructing a team Fransico is the type of prospect I trade, while Alonso is the type of keep. There's no room for free swinging, low OBP, bad defensive players on my team.

[Kc61]

Originally Posted by NeilHamburger

You win with players who work the count, have high OBP, get the other teams pitchers to get into deep counts and into the middle relief. That's how you win over an extended period of time, along with great defense and pitching.

If I'm constructing a team Fransico is the type of prospect I trade, while Alonso is the type of keep. There's no room for free swinging, low OBP, bad defensive players on my team.

No. You win with players who have special skills. You win with players who bring more to the table than the usual decent all around solid non-special player.

It is best if all players could have everything. Few do. You can't field a 25 man team with players who have it all. There aren't that many.

So when you have a guy with huge extra base power, who consistently knocks in lots of runs, hits for a solid average, and strikes out relatively infrequently for a power hitter, you try to keep him if you can.

As for defense, Francisco made a lot of errors at AA. It's apparently a poor field. He has a cannon for an arm and did better defensively at AAA. At 22, he may be able to handle third, but certainly is worth a try in LF.

As for Alonso, he surely will walk more and hit for a better OBP than Francisco. How great is his power potential? Unclear at this point, hopefully as good, but hasn't shown it quite yet.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by Kc61

So when you have a guy with huge extra base power, who consistently knocks in lots of runs, hits for a solid average, and strikes out relatively infrequently for a power hitter, you try to keep him if you can.

Except that Francisco won't hit for a solid average or get to 1B at anything resembling a good rate because he walks one time for every 5 times he strikes out and well, no one does that in the majors and has success. Ever. In the history of the game.

Right now, Francisco would be lucky to hit .250/.275/.450 in the major leagues. His plate approach just won't work in the majors. It hasn't ever worked for anyone in the past and it won't work for him. He certainly could improve things, but right now, he simply isn't ready.

[Bumstead]

I agree with Doug but I think it's nice that the Reds recognize that he had a good season and are rewarding him with a call up.

KC - Where's he going to play on the Reds when he makes it full-time? Where will his glove be effective enough for his bat to over-ride his poor defense?

I think he has plenty of potential, but he has a lot of work to do in the areas of 1) pitch selection and 2) defense. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Bum

[Bumstead]

Maybe Francisco turns into a Pete Incaviglia type? I thought maybe Rob Deer or Dave Kingman but both of those had significantly better walk rates; Incaviglia probably does too...he's the only guy with similar ratios that I could come up with that hits the ball hard and drives in runs. Hopefully he can change his path.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pl...ncavpe01.shtml

[camisadelgolf]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

Right now, Francisco would be lucky to hit .250/.275/.450 in the major leagues. His plate approach just won't work in the majors. It hasn't ever worked for anyone in the past and it won't work for him. He certainly could improve things, but right now, he simply isn't ready.

Not that these players were superstars, but some solid players that had peripherals similar to Francisco's at the Major League level include Tony Armas, Cory Snyder, Jim Presley, Don Demeter, Pedro Munoz, Jose Guillen, etc., and I'm sure there are many more.

There's no doubt that Francisco has a lot of room for improvement, but just because something hasn't happened in the past doesn't make it impossible. If you want to bring up history, history shows that a player can overcome his deficiencies as long as other parts of his game are good enough to compensate.

Currently, Carlos Gomez of the Twins has an absolutely horrible K/BB rate, but he's playing everyday because he can compensate with elite defense. Although Francisco doesn't have anything resembling elite defense, he has incredible power and may be able to use that to turn himself into an above-replacement level player or more. Only time will tell. In the meantime, I don't think it's safe to assume that Francisco can't help the Reds win some time soon.

[icehole3]

I think the same way everyone was patient with Stubbs, the same should be said with Cisco, he's to young to be thrown out with the bath water.

[malcontent]

Anyone know when he started hitting only lefty?

[camisadelgolf]

Originally Posted by malcontent

Anyone know when he started hitting only lefty?

I think it was either at the end of 2006 or beginning of 2007.

[GOYA]

A lot of talk about Cisco when I think Bruce merits more questioning. Cisco is supposed to be in AA and Bruce is supposed to be in the bigs. In their time playing together Cisco proved himself vastly more productive.