Man without a Party

 

The recent trade sending Ryan Church packing south in return for Jeff Francoeur has put me in the awkward position of defending a trade contrary to the opinion of fans and bloggers who I usually agree with. Entering the All-Star Break, the Mets are six-and-half games back of first place in the NL East and the Wild Card. In addition, they are at least two-three weeks away from anyone meaningful returning. Hardly anyone aside from David Wright can be considered above average, and their rotation is Santana and numerous question marks.

Hence, this team is not making the playoffs.  As I wrote at Flushing University, the Mets are better off losing with Jeff Francoeur in the outfield than Ryan Church, since Francoeur is young enough to still cash in on his promise. I am not sure if this is Omar’s motive; I just learned today that the Mets will either have to pay Francoeur at least $2.7 million next year, or non-tender him, which indicates Omar truly thinks he can make a difference down the stetch.

Regardless, last year at Fan Graphs, David Golebiewski wrote this about Francoeur’s 2008 season:

He did experience pretty awful luck on balls in play, as his expected BABIP (.327) was much higher than his actual BABIP (.277). If we adjust for that, his line improves to .289/.344/.409.

That is right. Just a year ago, Francoeur outperformed what ZIPS projects Ryan Church to finish with this year (.273/.335/.397). Granted, his LD% this year (18.2%), warrants his .285 BABIP, but I expect we will see quite a bit more power out of Frenchy before the season’s over. But the changes in his game may not be immediate, both at the plate and in the field. But if given time to settle into a new environment and work with Howard Johnson and co. he can be ready to go as a fourth outfielder or even starter in 2010.

Tim Marchman is certainly no fan of this deal, but props to him for recognizing this justification:

1) The Mets have given up the season.At least in what I’ve been reading this doesn’t seem to have received much attention, but this seems to me to be by far the most important thing about the move. You can say that the people who run the Mets are fools, and maybe they are in a global sense; still, their computers work just like yours. They’re surely aware that between the beginning of 2008 and the time they traded for him Francoeur hit .240/.290/.357, and that even if they can fix him he’s not a solution for this year. They’re also surely aware that they just filled a gaping hole in the lineup of a division rival. This is a white flag move.