Kuzul

As we approach the conclusion of a quarter of the MLB season, there is one player who has surprisingly led the Kansas City Royals—Jeff Francoeur.

His bat in the middle of the lineup and his arm coming from the “French Quarter” in Kansas City has created a buzz among the Royals‘ faithful. 

When Dayton Moore decided to sign Francoeur back in December, the reaction among fans was that the GM paid more than he should have for a one-year wonder, especially because that one year was five or six years ago.

After the first month and a half of the season, the right fielder has statistics that are similar to his rookie year when people were calling him the next great player.Fans are wondering is if he can keep this up for the other three quarters of the season.

The stats can spell it both ways.

His isolated power is 12 points better than he has had at any point in his career for a season, which is coming while playing at a fairly big park in Kauffman Stadium with a somewhat small sample size.

Francoeur has a much higher ground-ball to fly-ball ratio than he ever has before. This could mean a couple different things—either his swing is finding gaps better or he is just getting lucky. This is also while his batting average on balls in play is also higher because he is finding the gaps.

Another interesting thing to look at is how he is hitting different kinds of pitches. This season, Francoeur is hitting fastballs better than he ever has before, which could change once pitchers start figuring out that he likes to swing at the pitch.

An alarming fact is that he is swinging more at pitches outside of the zone and less at pitches inside the zone. While interesting, this strategy could quickly backfire when pitchers adjust to this trend.

Another bad trend is that he is striking out more than ever, which could come back to haunt him.

The stat that really jumps off the page at me is that Francoeur has a astronomically high weighted on-base average, which he sits near the top of the league in. The guy is finding a way to get on base, which is a really good thing.

As a fan of the Royals, I would love to see a good guy like Francoeur continue to lead this team this season. If he will or not is still up in the air, and only time will be able to tell what will happen.      

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After an offseason of hearing nothing but how awesome the Kansas City Royals’ prospects and farm system are, it is hard not to be excited for what the future holds. Unfortunately, the future is at least one year away, which is going to make the 2011 season frustrating to say the least. Although there is a lot that the Royals faithful can get excited for this summer.

What fans can look forward to the most is seeing the prospects slowly coming up throughout the summer. With young pitchers Crow and Collins already announced to the opening day roster, Royals fans can literally see the future growing in front of them.

This will gives fans a reason to pack the K in July when Mike Moustakas comes to Kansas City for the first time, or in September when call-ups start, because the future will be playing right in front of us.

This season isn’t only about the future and prospects. We could possibly see some exciting baseball with the players currently on the 40-man roster. The players on the team now know that they are easily replaceable with the talent brewing in Omaha, so they should be playing with all they have this summer to try and save their jobs knowing that this could be one their last shots at the major league level.

Just like when players are in a contract year they turn their talents to another level, we could easily see that reaction with these players this season.

The fans can also hope for breakthrough or good years from players currently on the roster. Billy Butler should be able to stay at or improve his numbers this season, even without protection from anybody else in the lineup.

Soria might see a drop in save totals, but should stay right around where he has been in ERA and WHIP. Also, hopefully opening day starter Luke Hochavar can fulfill his potential and put up a solid season as the No. 1 starter.

Although I am a very optimistic fan of the team, this team is going to struggle to stay under 100 losses this year which is really rough for Royals fans. But it isn’t about this year, right?   

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