His pitch count looks good. Gameday has him at 73.
His pitch count looks good. Gameday has him at 73.
Nice gun there from Francisco. If his footwork allows it, he's certainly got the arm for third.
That's a fair way of looking at it. However, even by that standard, his walk-to-strikeout ratio is far worse than most of those same sluggers you mentioned. So he's not even striking out that much less relative to how much he's walking.
His career walk to K ratio is .16 in the minors. That's awful. Compare that to some of the sluggers you want to use this standard against:
Albert Pujols - OK he's a freak of nature, but still (1.80 in 2009)
Carlos Pena (0.53)
Prince Fielder (0.77)
Mark Reynolds (0.38)
Ryan Howard (0.39)
Adam Dunn (0.66)
Russell Branyan (0.39)
Nelson Cruz (0.42)
Justin Upton (0.42)
And these were the best sluggers I could find (outside of Pujols) with some of the worst rates. I am not even including a whole lot of good sluggers with rates around .7 or .8.
Look at this list and you'll see that Francisco is twice as low a BB-K rate as the lowest guys on the list. Almost three times taking his .16 career rate into account.
For context, not a SINGLE qualified hitter in the majors right now has a BB-K rate as low as Francisco's minor league career. None. Not one. That's 156 players. His career rates put him in the company right now with guys like Aaron Rowand, Clint Barmes, Jeff Francouer, Kevin Kouzmanoff, etc. more than they put him in the company of Adam Dunn, Mark Reynolds or Ryan Howard.
Granted, his power is undeniable. But even by the standard you're using, it does not measure up to what you're suggesting.
I like the guy. Let me make it clear that I think his power will eventually win out. And you're right that he does not strike out a ton, relative to a few of the "swing from the heels" guys in the majors. But make no mistake, no matter how we judge it, he still strikes out a lot - not a ton, but enough to be considered less than average.
"No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda
No problem. I honestly thought Joey was going to be one of the only reasons for me to watch games through these last few weeks of the season but the entire team has been playing quite well. It's been fun to watch but I don't like baseball as much when Joey is on the bench, LOL
ITA about Sutton. He's handled himself quite well and I'd love to see him as part of the bench next year.
"I tried to play golf, but I found out I wasn't very good." -Joey Votto on his offseason hobby search
An MLB.com reporter asked what one thing Votto couldn’t do. “I can’t skate or play hockey,” Votto said. “Well, I can skate ... but I can’t stop.”
First real meatball served up by Maloney there to Matsui. Slow bender right over the heart of the plate.
Now he's WAY high. Might be time to start the pen warming up. He looks to be tiring.
Linedrive off the LF wall. Kepp held to a single though.
Yeah, I think Matt's spent.
Two responses. If you're talking BB to K rate, then Francisco suffers by the low number of walks. My point is that he compensates for the walks, in part, but clearly his walks are low. I'd rather look at K to at bat rates.
Also, looking at JF's minor league career numbers is, IMO, not a very fair measure. His first full year at Dayton, at age 19-20, he fanned over 160 times as I recall. That year skews his numbers. He then dramatically improved the last two seasons.
Compare his K/at bat rates for the last two seasons and his numbers are far more favorable.
Sac fly to Stubbs. 10-2
One more out Matt....you can do it!
"I tried to play golf, but I found out I wasn't very good." -Joey Votto on his offseason hobby search
An MLB.com reporter asked what one thing Votto couldn’t do. “I can’t skate or play hockey,” Votto said. “Well, I can skate ... but I can’t stop.”
"Maloney's an Ohio kid. Sandusky, just outside of Columbus" :O) Astros announcers DO know their Buckeye geography. *grin*
Ramon Ramirez warming up.
That is HILARIOUS that they dropped the rookies off at the other end of the mall so they had to walk all the way to the hotel in those dresses!!
YAY for Matt tonight! Nice job.
"I tried to play golf, but I found out I wasn't very good." -Joey Votto on his offseason hobby search
An MLB.com reporter asked what one thing Votto couldn’t do. “I can’t skate or play hockey,” Votto said. “Well, I can skate ... but I can’t stop.”
Big K to end the inning. Great outing by Matt. Absolutely solid! He should be done though. 10-2 good guys.
"I tried to play golf, but I found out I wasn't very good." -Joey Votto on his offseason hobby search
An MLB.com reporter asked what one thing Votto couldn’t do. “I can’t skate or play hockey,” Votto said. “Well, I can skate ... but I can’t stop.”
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