Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Article Revisit: Juan Francisco To The Yankees?

                                  

On March, 8 of this year I posed the question whether the Yankees should go after Juan Francisco or not. The Brewers cut him out of spring training and he eventually went on to sign with the Toronto Blue Jays so the point is moot now but it's still fun to go back and look. HERE is the original article.

We all heard and read that the Brewers were among the teams scouting the Yankees excess catching depth recently. Milwaukee is said to be dangling Rickie Weeks or Aramis Ramirez but why not Juan Francisco? I think we could use Francisco more for a plethora of reasons, especially if it only costs Austin Romine or John Ryan Murphy.


Francisco would give us another power hitter in the lineup and a huge bat coming off the bench from the left side of the plate. Francisco split time with the Brewers and the Atlanta Braves last season and hit 18 home runs in 348 at bats, that's a home run every 19 at bats for those without a calculator. Over a 162 game season that ranks 11th best in the American League, who couldn't use that?


Francisco also gives us a legitimate backup at both third base and first base. He won't win a Gold Glove award at either position but he is probably a better candidate than Alfonso Soriano at first and Eduardo Nunez at third base defensively right now.


Francisco also looks like he is the odd man out on the Brewers roster thanks to former Yankees Lyle Overbay and Mark Reynolds signing deals with Milwaukee over the winter. The Brewers have excess infielders and we need infielders, the Brewers need a backup catcher and we have more than a couple. Let's make a deal Brian Cashman.

The very first comment on the post was, to paraphrase, that we don't need Francisco. The poster stated that he doesn't hit well and his glove did not make up for the lack of hitting. I believe an exact quote was "we have enough DH's."

Juan Francisco through play on 5/11:

.268/.361/.535 with five home runs and a 1.000 fielding percentage at first base and third base.

2 comments:

Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)