Juan Francisco

[nsacpi]

Kelly Johnson splits data:

2014 OPS against righties .653
2014 OPS against lefties .708

Career OPS against righties .751
Career OPS against lefties .768

I think he can help us more than the other options being discussed here (Descalso, Callaspo, Juan), but given the reverse splits he is not an ideal guy to use in a platoon. What he does is provide insurance at multiple positions where we are weak. Second. Third. Even catcher indirectly in a scenario where Bethancourt doesn't hit well enough and Gattis ends up catching again.

[GovClintonTyree]

Yes you do. Having a BABIP in the 350 range is one thing. 390 is something else entirely. And guess what, his BABIP in 2014 was .345 which is only 9 points below his career avg. Yes he is a line drive machine when he makes contact. But his strikeout rate was 26% which is atrocious. He also never walks and has no power anymore. So yes the few times he does make contact it's likely a line drive hit. That's awesome. But the rest of his game sucks. He either needs to cut down on the K's or increase his power.

Hey I was just studying CJ a little bit and checked on what you were saying about his LD%. You were right. It actually went up a tick, from 28 to 29%. I was very surprised. I was not surprised to see his career BABIP almost absurdly high.

Which I think leads us to the same place. You said he needs to make more contact. I said he needs to shorten his swing and go the other way and let the ball get deeper so he can recognize breaking balls down and away better, and walk more, which....means he needs to make more contact.

[thewupk]

Hey I was just studying CJ a little bit and checked on what you were saying about his LD%. You were right. It actually went up a tick, from 28 to 29%. I was very surprised. I was not surprised to see his career BABIP almost absurdly high.

Which I think leads us to the same place. You said he needs to make more contact. I said he needs to shorten his swing and go the other way and let the ball get deeper so he can recognize breaking balls down and away better, and walk more, which....means he needs to make more contact.

Chris is an odd player. He does one thing almost better than anyone else in baseball. When he makes contact he's one of the best in the game. It's just the rest of it leaves a lot to be desired.

[Enscheff]

I'm on my phone so I don't feel like verifying the stats, but at the beginning of the offseason I wanted the braves to acquire valbuena from the cubs to platoon at 2b/3b. Is he a decent candidate for that?

[keithlaw]

I'm on my phone so I don't feel like verifying the stats, but at the beginning of the offseason I wanted the braves to acquire valbuena from the cubs to platoon at 2b/3b. Is he a decent candidate for that?

Depends on his defense. Only a 228/311/376 hitter vs RHP for his career

[Enscheff]

Depends on his defense. Only a 228/311/376 hitter vs RHP for his career

Hmm no idea why I thought he would be such a good idea then. I think a LHed hitter that handles RHed pitching well is a dendrite need for this roster. It shouldn't be too hard to fill that spot.

[thewupk]

Hmm no idea why I thought he would be such a good idea then. I think a LHed hitter that handles RHed pitching well is a dendrite need for this roster. It shouldn't be too hard to fill that spot.

It shouldn't. We've come a long way from when we dominated righties and lost to every left handed thrower.

[Knucksie]

A joke that's so funny that the laughs won't come. The Winter Meetings are about to start, and the best that somebody can come up with is "Bring Back Juan Francisco."

[blueagleace1]

Platoon splits do tend to have a lot of volatility over short samples. Which means that CJ's career splits are a better predictor than his 2014 splits. Btw the same is even more true for relievers, who have even smaller samples each season. So expect James Russell to have splits in 2015 that more closely resemble his career numbers.

I agree with you 100%. A couple things about CJ:

1. He has such strong numbers against LHP because of his bat path. What I mean by that is he has an extremely long swing and a swing that produces a ton of bat lag. LHP typically attack RH batters two ways: 1. Hard in and 2. Soft away... with CJ's swing being so long he is able to stay in the zone for an extended period of time and reach those change-ups on the outside corner. When a LHP comes hard and in CJ -as we saw in 2013- has an uncanny ability to go the other way and when he does both of these things he shows how good of a hitter he really is.