Melvin and Release Record

[Crash2303]

Checking up on Juan Francisco (a guy I think everyone on this board was upset from being releasing over Overbay), I saw that he followed his monster spring by absolutely tearing up AAA and has continued hot hitting with his callup to the Blue Jays.

http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=464433#gameType='R'&sectionType=career&statType=1&season=2014&level='ALL'

 

this just makes me sick to my stomach. I know its early, but at age 26, it seems a good chance it could be for real. this marks an extreme and rare short-sightedness on behalf of Melvin (a la Tobias Harris for Bucks fans). it has been hit enough, so i won't get into the merit of taking a 37 year old guy with an OPS of .685 over the last three years and average defense over a 26 year guy with at worst a .720 OPS, below average D, but big offensive upside.

 

Melvin has a strong long-term focus- just look at the Wang situation- even in this 'win now' year. Excluding trades, as you are giving something to get something (and his positive trade record has been discussed at length here in the past), the Francisco move not only seems a strategic anomaly, but also one of the few that Melvin released that ended up biting us in the butt. I have been disappointed over lots of players that have been let go over the years, keeping tabs on them, fretting that they'll come back to haunt us- a la, Fautino De Los Santos, Jairo Asencio, Zach Braddock, Chris Dickerson, Travis Ishikawa, and even most recently, Nick Bucci, Cody Scarpetta, Mat Gamel, Mark Rogers, and Jesus Sanchez. but, it seems none of these guys ever end up doing much after they leave the brewers, which gives me faith with the most recent set of releases.

 

the only ones i could think about was Marco Scutaro and Grant Balfour unless you include Rule V guys like Lucas Luetge. am i missing anyone?

[torts]

if milwaukee could have a DH im sure they'd have kept Juan

[Taylor Blue]

His .221/.300/.433 in 240 AB and poor defense last year speaks a lot louder to me than anything he's done in Spring/AAA this year.

[thebruce44]

Its hard to get sick to my stomach over Juan Francisco.

[dlk9s]

I was excited that Doug Melvin put out an LP, but now I am disappointed.

[MadScientist]

Checking up on Juan Francisco (a guy I think everyone on this board was upset from being releasing over Overbay),

I didn't think that many of us were upset about Francisco being release, although there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm for O. Francisco has an MLB bat and looks great when he's on a hot streak, but his little league glove (and I'm talking 8-10 year old's, not LLWS age) was just too much to take for an NL team.

 

Also I though Balfor wasn't a flat out release, he was DFA'd and traded to Tampa for Seth McClung.

[Thurston Fluff]

I can think of several times this season good defense at first helped this team. Gennett has had a couple throws that would have been errors if it wasn't for the first baseman being able to scoop it out of the dirt or keep the foot on the bag as they reached for it. I can't think of a single time I ever saw that out of Francisco. In fact I saw the opposite quite a bit. I could deal with that sort of defense with someone like Prince. I don't see Francisco ever approaching that level of offense. Especially considering he makes Prince look like Carlos Gomez in the field.

[JimH5]

Juan Francisco would have to become an average or above average major league 1st baseman for me to get worked up about his release.

 

And I don't think that's going to happen.

[rwa12]

I don't worry about the guys we cut. If they play well elsewhere, good for them. I'm surprised RA Dickey doesn't top your list of guys we let slip away.

[PrinceEatMeat]

Great AAA stats, and now 3 for 10 in the majors? Man am I heartbroken.

[adambr2]

I'm not too worried about this yet, but I agree that keeping Overbay over Francisco is baffling.

 

It feels like the roster is never complete until there is at least one token aging veteran on it.

[DoubleSwitch]

Juan Francisco is bad. Plus we have another Juan Francisco in AAA named Hunter Morris. Both strike out too much, walk too little, and don't play enough defense to ever make their power work for them, so don't get too bent out of shape just yet. Juan Francisco is not Edwin Encarnacion. Encarnacion was always a good hitter, and Juan has always been a bad hitter. Other than being overweight Dominicans there isn't much similar about them.

[SRB]

Juan Francisco is a DH with a mediocre bat. He put up -0.9 fWAR last season, I'm not going to miss him. That said, Overbay is likely even worse.

 

Considering the Brewers look like a contending team, Melvin needs to trade for a legitimate 1B (or bite the bullet and sign Morales) ASAP. Overbay should not be on the roster, and while Reynolds's power has been nice you can't have a 1B hitting below .200 -- he should be a nice power bat off the bench but nothing more.