There hasn't yet been an official announcement, but the Brewers appear to be in the process of parting ways with first baseman Juan Francisco. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Todd Rosiak reports (via Twitter) that Francisco's locker has been cleared out, a possible sign that the Brewers have designated Francisco for assignment. The move likely means the Brewers will have veterans Mark Reynolds and Lyle Overbay play first base.
Francisco was set to make $1.35MM in his first year of arbitration eligibility as a Super Two. He hit .227/.296/.422 in 385 plate appearances with the Brewers last season, not an especially impressive line, given that he is not a strong defensive player.
Just so poor defensively with only a HR swing offensively. It’s the right move too bad they didn’t trade him to an AL team needing a LH power bat/DH
If you get rid of the “LH” at the end there, you could easily be describing Mark Reynolds…
Francisco has never produced like Reynolds has offensively. Francisco’s upside is what can be produced by Reynolds on average. Also Reynold’s splits are more stable. Neither are great options to plug in at 1b for a season but Reynolds has the edge when dealing with roster implications. Brewers minors 1b are leftys. I expect when one excels in AAA, if Overbay isn’t holding his own, he will be DFA’d for the callup of that player.
He’s never gotten to play as much as Reynolds either. think this is a terrible move. He’s only 26 years old I think. I would much rather keep Francisco and let him get some more major league experience, then put a well past his prime Lyle Overbay out there.
I think it’s more or less a 25man roster move. Dump Juan Fran now, use Overbay and when the occasion comes the Minor League options are ready DFA Overbay off the 25man and use them. It’s probably tougher to do that with Juan Fran.
Overbay really did a pretty decent job for the Yankees last year. He’s not an All-Star, but he’ll do in a pinch.
I believe this is the part where Juan Fransisco joins the Blue Jays and becomes a 40 HR hitter
Wouldn’t be surprising at all.
glenstein = nostradamus
I’d just like to point that out now that Fat Juan is killing it with Toronto.
Oh and Overbay has been as expected. .585 OPS ish, except his D has been worse than expected.
Classic Milwaukee Brewers’ ERROR….
I take it you’ve never seen him play.
I have. He’s pretty good. Overbay is toast. Reynolds isn’t very good.
I wouldn’t have been disappointed if they kept him cause he has potential, but this team can contend. You can’t get .227/.296/.422 and bad defense out of first base.
I’d guess that Juan would have improved on that line and its probably high for what they’re going to get from what they kept. I don’t believe defense will be better either.
They can contend but there is no reason to keep Overbay. He’s not going to play defense like he did 10 or 15 years ago or hit doubles the same way either. I mean this is it for him. Couldn’t they just sign him to a 1 day contract and then add yet another coaching position for him? How about Leadership Coach?
Fair enough, but don’t you want to hear the Oooooo chant again at Miller park?
What’s your over/under to how long before boos are louder than Os given his offense?
That’s the beauty of the Oooooo chant. No one can tell the difference between the Oooooos and the boos. I do hope they have Overbay on a very short leash.
I still sometimes have a moment of confusion when the Luuuuuc chant happens. I really don’t think he’ll be on a short leash, but I hope I’m wrong. The danger is that Attanasio already mentioned that Melvin has the go ahead to spend at the deadline and they prepared a list of prospects to use.
I wonder what, if anything, the Yankees would have to give the Brewers to get him. They could use a backup 1B who can also play 3B.
If Francisco qualified as a backup 1b who can also play 3b, the Brewers would stick with him and not keep Overbay.
Francisco is bad at third, but he’s not terrible. There are guys worse then him with jobs in the bigs.
You’re wrong. He’s gone because Roenicke and Melvin love grizzled veterans who bring presence and leadership. They are completely enamored with Overbay. He looks awful so far this Spring. Roenicke’s spin is that Spring numbers don’t matter – even 0/26. Meanwhile they’re keeping Weeks and citing his good Spring numbers.
This is why I’m glad I’m not a brewers fan, Melvin is ok, but can’t stand Roenicke
They are keeping Weeks because he is a better option than Gennett. Unlike most fans, they are fully aware of the fluke nature of Gennett’s season (just look at minor league numbers, people!). Not to mention, they need a platoon bat for Gennett because he can’t hit lefties to save his life.
And just an fyi, using “grizzled veterans” as the reason the Brewers keep players is even more lazy than the Brewers efforts to explain their roster moves.
Gennettt hit lefties in the minors. Are you using the tiny rookie sample when he came up and faced a lot of late inning specialists as your evidence? You could also note age related to level but it wouldn’t fit the story line. Weeks looks absolutely awful. He is in the discussion for worst defender in baseball at any position. The notion that he should start over Irving Falu is a stretch. He’s there because Melvin loves him like a son and he has a huge contract. Melvin is consistent – the contract plays regardless of how many better players he could replace them with.
“Gennett hit lefties in the minors”
2013 – .235/.262/.330
2012 – .241/.271/.335
2011 – .282/.325/.342
2010 – .330/.395/.455
Guess whose lefty splits got exposed as they started facing competent lefties!!!
“Weeks looks absolutely awful.” “He’s there because Melvin loves him like a son…”
Yes, because .323/.488/.484 is absolutely awful!!!
“The notion that he should start over Irving Falu is a stretch.”
That notion that you think Falu should start over him shows just how blindly biased you are about this. You complain about them looking at Weeks spring training numbers and then deem Falu better for his numbers despite being a career minor leaguer. Hypocrisy now???
It’s become quite obvious that you just make claims with absolutely nothing to back them up. Just please stop this hilarity.
Roenicke says he hit lefties just fine in the minors! Oops. I’ve also seen different numbers than you cited. Could there be shenanigans?
Are those Rickie’s ST stats? I’ll surrender then. Its not like its hard to find grimly awful numbers for huge parts of Weeks time with the Brewers.
Irving Falu can play defense. Weeks can’t. Being unable to make multiple plays on a frequent basis destroys any advantage that would happen if he were to hit like he has during a small part of his career. Year after year the Weeks cult refers to a half season and expects it to happen again. Really its fascinating.
I never deemed Falu superior because of ST stats. Save your fantasies for someone else.
Weeks won’t regularly play the field after he finishes his 40 million or whatever it is contract. I guess in your world that means that all the other teams are clueless.
Seeing as I went on baseball reference to Scooter Gennett’s minor league numbers and looked at his season splits…
And seeing as you don’t think getting on base (OBP) is important for a career leadoff hitter, I don’t think you are one to judge the offensive performance of Weeks in his career. (Obvious blind bias is obvious)
Defensive performance makes Falu a better option? That’s funny, because Carlos Gomez rode the bench for years because he couldn’t hit in the majors. If being an elite defender in CF wasn’t enough to secure consistent playing time, what makes you think a good defender at 2B would earn Falu a job over the superior offensive player in Weeks? Who’s in fantasy land again???
I think that Francisco could be good in Yankee Stadium. Unless Soriano can play 1B when the Yankees want to DH or rest Mark Texeira, I don’t know who is going to play the position.
Exactly – Francisco is a mess defensively at a position with the most touches (for balls in play). Expect to see plenty of late inning defensive replacements at first for Overbay, easily the most capable defender of the trio despite his age.
I’d rather see Francisco make the roster since he’s got the greater long term potential being a decade younger, but it’s obvious Melvin wants to compete this year and Overbay will provide a much more consistent, experienced glove and bat.
Well yeah, he’s got a lot of experience – he’s really old. The bat is bad and the glove isn’t that good any more. Doing that consistently isn’t a plus in my mind. Francisco wasn’t that bad.
Vs RHP in 2013
Overbay – .258/.317/.432/.748
Francisco – .234/.305/.443/.748
Ruh roh!!! A wash for the left-handed portion of the platoon.
As for being not that good any more, that still makes him light years better than Francisco. I find it hilarious you are defending the defensive ability of a guy who played all of 500 innings at first base, for the first time of his career. Yes, he was as bad as it sounds like he would be in that situation.
I guess those slash lines are proof. It also says you think that Narron is faking his job and is dead weight. Five hundred innings may be better than however many tens of thousands old Lyle played. Its great that Ueck can tell stories about him though. It should sell tickets. It should make the coaching staff enjoy their jobs more. It won’t help them win games though.
Overbay wasn’t on the roster in 2013, and Narron was helping Francisco alter his batting style. Your trolling of the Brewers organization is being exposed pretty bad.
Let me spell it out for you… Francisco is N O T a competent defender, and defensive metrics back it up. Take a minute to go on fangraphs and compare the defensive metrics of Francisco to Prince Fielder to get a gauge of how bad he is and then Overbay. No contest who the better defender is. Whatever offensive contributions that Francisco will provide in excess of Overbay will easily be negated by Overbay’s better defense.
It sounds as if you’re claiming that Overbay didn’t play last season. It still sounds as if you think Narron was not only lying about JF but is incompetent. Winning the Fangraphs attempt at measuring sweepstakes isn’t really relevant to the real world. You seem to also think that really old people don’t lose athletic ability. There’s a reason he came for the price he did. The Brewers have a few 1st baseman they could use who almost certainly would be better defenders. They don’t, not because of offense, but because Melvin and Roenicke love the romance and experience of having really old players on their team.
What are you talking about with Narron? You brought him up out of nowhere to prove some point (and failed at making any coherent point). Did you bring up Narron to contest 2013 stats – because I pointed out that Narron had absolutely no effect on Overbay because Overbay wasn’t on the roster in ’13. Seriously; what are your semi-coherent ramblings about???
The nice thing about fangraphs is that they attempt to quantify defense objectively rather than let their blatantly biased opinions drive their perceptions of players.
And Overbay came at the price he did because he is a defense first player at a position that is largely offensive driven. Rofl…way to prove my point.
Was thinking the same thing. And the pure power he has would play quite well in Yankee Stadium.
Not a big Francisco fan but he’s at least as good as Overbay at this point with more upside. Don’t like this move at all.
Really strange. More than likely offers more power, but loses some value on defense. Walked eight times and had 1.231 OPS over spring.
Maybe the Pirates or the Astros take a chance on him
Do you think the pirates can go after francisco or are they still interested in moreland and davis?
they might and the brewers may have the trading player on the roster. the rule 5 kid, wang.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that conversation takes place, but I’d bet that Pirates would want more than Juan. He might be worth it, but his trade value isn’t particularly high. As a side note the Braves cut the guy who the Brewers used to trade for him if I recall correctly.
well the bucs are shopping relievers and outfielders. the bullpen is full. wang would have to be rostered if returned, or risk rule 5 next year. which if returned he would be a fa, and they could lose him with no return.
I was thinking that, too. It seems just Brewers enough for us to take Overbay over Francisco, and then use Francisco to trade for the rights to Wang, allowing us to send him to the minors and keep Zach Duke on the roster. The situation is almost too Brewers-y for us not to try it.
Dunno if the Pirates will go for that, though. I think it’d probably be a fair trade, but it really depends on what the Pirates want more: to prevent a division rival from keeping one of their players (Wang), or to finally have a left-handed part for a 1B platoon.
Wang is valuable. Juan will probably be traded for close to nothing.
Like I said, it depends on the Pirates and their desperation for a left-handed part of a 1B platoon. They’ve been looking for one all offseason. Again, I dunno if they’ll go for it, but it’s certainly a conversation that should happen between the two clubs.
The Brewers wouldn’t need to make decisions like this, if Melvin would have replaced Prince with a real first baseman.
That can be contributed as much to the bad luck of Gamel suffering his knee injuries (and to a lesser extent Hart) as it is to the carousel that Melvin has created. They at least had a plan – until it went up in flames 21 games into 2012.
Bad defense at 1B? This isn’t like he’s playing shortstop. Go with Francisco/Reynolds platoon and get 40 homers. Yes they’ll strike out a lot, but that’s their game. Overbay’s game? Great D at 1B with Matt Garza type production at the plate.
Overbay will give you a good glove for all of those 2 groundballs hit his way but he’ll also put up a slash line of .180/.280/.200. Enjoy!