“I’m on pace for 100 RBIs, 20 home runs and 40 doubles. I think I’ll take that. If the critics don’t like that, I don’t really care … I’ve always said if you play six months, you’re going to have one bad month …”
— Jeff Francoeur, announcing that he intends to break established patterns and limit his bad months to one this season.
Yes, that was cheap. It’s just how I roll. But my Francoeur fixation aside, I like that he doesn’t give a rat’s patootie what people like me say about him. As I said back in spring training, it’s pretty impossible to have ire for the guy on a personal level. It’s really the people who try to pump him up as something he isn’t that get on my nerves.
And as crazy as it sounds coming from me, I want him to have a good second half. The “Jeff Francoeur: superstar!” stuff is annoying, but I’d like to see the “Jeff Francoeur: competent enough right fielder to hang around the league for many years on Reggie Sanders-style short-term, low money deals” dynamic take root.