I have a friend who is a Giants fan, this makes me laugh so much.
http://blog.sfgate.com/giants/2013/0...cut-by-royals/
The Giants have reached that stage of this collapsing season where they are hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. The evidence is their signing of outfielder Jeff Francoeur to a minor-league contract. Francoeur, 29, was released by the Royals after hitting .208 with three homers and a paltry .571 OPS in 193 plate appearances.
He is going to Fresno with the understanding that he will be called up to the big-league club sooner rather than later after he gets a few at-bats and does some work in left field, where he has played in two games as a major-leaguer. Francoeur was always a right fielder, with an excellent arm, but the Giants have Hunter Pence there.
This is a standard no-risk Brian Sabean flier. The Royals will pay the all but a couple hundred thousand dollars left on Francoeur’s $7.5 million salary, and the team hopes the Braves’ 2002 first-round draft pick can find new vigor in San Francisco as Pat Burrell did in 2010 after he was cut loose by Tampa Bay amid talk that his hitting days were over. That worked out well for the Giants.
Moreover, Francoeur can’t do any worse at the plate than Juan Perez or Cole Gillespie have during their looks.
Francoeur has not been a good hitter since 2011, when he hit 20 homers and batted .285 with an .805 OPS for the Royals.
Some of my followers on Twitter (@hankschulman) have asked why the Giants just don’t call up Gary Brown or Roger Kieschnick and see what they can do. Believe me, I’ve asked the question. Sabean believes that despite Kieschnick’s All-Star numbers in the Pacific Coast League, and Brown’s improvement over the past month, neither is ready to compete against big-league pitching.
But that question is fluid. If the Giants conclude they have no chance this year — and that date might come a lot sooner than everyone expected — they might decide to look at Brown or Kieschnick with an eye toward 2014.