Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
January 21, 2009
The Right Improvement

Jeff Francoeur is spending the winter working on his hitting:

What makes him think things will be so different? Changes he made this offseason to his stance. After nonstop tinkering last summer, Francoeur has locked into one approach he thinks will work. Using some advice and video recommended by former Braves Mark DeRosa and Mark Teixeira, Francoeur adopted a more balanced position at the plate, with his hands farther back and a shorter stride. He's been working it into his muscle memory, hitting four times a week since Nov. 15.

Chipper Jones likes the look of what Francoeur has been doing at Jones' indoor hitting facility in Suwanee. "His weight distribution is right where it needs to be and his mindset is right where it needs to be," Jones said. "His mindset is from gap to gap. You can't be out on your front foot the way he was all year last year, and head moving up and down, and his stride was too long, and thinking about pulling the ball around the left field foul pole. His weight distribution is allowing him to think right center to left center and he is killing balls, just absolutely crushing it. ...

"If what he's doing now translates to game time at-bats, then he's going to have a really good year," Jones said.

Okay, but where are the pitch recognition drills? There's no doubt Francoeur can crush a ball in the strike zone, but the opposition knows there's no reason to throw a pitch over the plate to Jeff. Until he learns to wait for his pitch, he'll be a limited offensive player.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:50 AM | Offense | TrackBack (0)
Comments

How true. Let's hope the doesn't neglect that aspect. But if his stance and swing are better that has to bode well for the braves this season. Hopefully he can learn pitch selection throughout this season. I suspect the Braves would take 270/25/80 year from him. (I got the order right, avg/hr/rbi didn't I)

Posted by: Yaramah at January 21, 2009 07:09 PM

His swing mechanics do need some serious work though. His swing and stride are so long that he has to make up his mind to swing or not to swing before he sees where the ball is going. JAlbert at swingtraining.net breaks down Francoeur's swing here: http://blog.swingtraining.net/2006/08/04/jeff-francoeur-part-2.aspx

It sounds like DeRosa, Teixeira and Chipper are making some of the same suggestions that JAlbert does. The Braves need Francoeur to at least put up '07-like numbers if they are going to compete this coming season. The Braves have no power outside of the always-injured Chipper and McCann, who could use more days off than he got last season.

Posted by: Jaik Jarrkjens at January 21, 2009 08:23 PM

You're venturing into the territory of not understanding what they are explaining again. If he's able to wait longer he should have better pitch recognition. However when they're talking about working it into his muscle memory is where the 'but' is though. I think he's going to have a hard time doing this.

Posted by: bandit at January 22, 2009 10:28 AM
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