He's not gonna take it: Jeff Francoeur's aggressive approach at the plate has made him a leading contender for N.L. Rookie of the Year

Ray Glier

Braves hitting coach Terry Pendleton bounces off the top step of the dugout when he sees an opponent having trouble locating a pitch between the on-deck circles.

"Make this guy throw strikes; make him throw strikes," Pendleton preaches.

He is talking to everyone in the dugout except rookie right fielder Jeff Francoeur.

"We just leave him alone," Pendleton says. "We're just going to let him ride this hot streak. Why mess up a good thing? The kid is hitting .340, .350; leave him alone. Let him be aggressive."

"That's what I say, too: Leave him alone," says rookie catcher Brian McCann, Francoeur's best friend on the team. "He was hitting .380, and people were complaining he doesn't walk enough. It's absurd--the dumbest thing I've heard in my entire life."

Francoeur did not draw his first walk until his 131st plate appearance, and it was intentional. In his first 52 games, he walked eight times--three times intentionally.

Yeah, so? That was the sentiment in the Braves' clubhouse. Look at the numbers: .332 with 12 homers and 38 RBIs. Francoeur wasn't called up from Class AA until shortly before the All-Star break, but he has emerged as the leading candidate for National League Rookie of the Year. The Braves, four games back in the N.L. East when Francoeur arrived, entered the week with a if 6-game lead and are closing in on their 14th consecutive division title. Though Andruw Jones has led the charge with an MVP-worthy season, Francoeur has emerged as what a longtime major league scout calls "the best of the best group of young players I've ever seen come into the league (on the same team)."

Besides his offensive production, Francoeur is tied for the N.L. lead in assists among outfielders and, though he has only one stolen base, he has displayed the speed that made him a five-tool prospect when the Braves drafted him with the 23rd pick in 2002. Still, it's his hitting that has been the most impressive.

Pedro Guerrero, a former slugger for the Dodgers and Cardinals, once quipped to a tentative rookie, "Swing hard in case you hit it." Certainly, that is Francoeur's style. He frequently has been compared to Angels free swinger Vladimir Guerrero, though one scout says, "He's not a wild free swinger like Guerrero."

GETTING TO KNOW HIM

What is intriguing about Francoeur, 21, is the league's response to his wide-open approach and the countermeasures he has taken. In his first 39 games, Francoeur hit .359 with a grand total of two walks. Then he drew a walk in each of his next four games but had only one hit in 10 at-bats. That was the start of a 10-game span during which Francoeur went 7-for-30 (.233), his first taste of a slump. As the Brewers' Ned Yost, the second manager to deal with Francoeur, had predicted, pitchers seemed to be adjusting.

Indeed, there is a book on Francoeur now, a blueprint put together by scouts preparing for the stretch run. Francoeur's struggles over a 10-day stretch were a small sample, to be sure, but scouts say they are relevant.

"I've seen him hit a changeup for a home run, a curveball for a home run, but not that real good fastball inside," says one scout who has been following the Braves. "I'm talking about that 92 (mph) and above inside pitch. He can get beat on that."

Not too long ago, Mets ace Pedro Martinez threw a fastball high and inside to Francoeur. It was just 90 mph, but Francoeur swung and missed for Strike 3. He suddenly was being challenged with a fastball inside after more than a month of being served pitches off the plate and in the dirt.

Now he's reacting back. "He's aggressive once he gets in the box," says the scout, "but when he gets two strikes now, he looks more disciplined. He's learning."

Francoeur has started to "spit on" more pitches, baseball parlance for laying off obvious balls out of the strike zone. "I've actually started to walk a little bit--how about that?" he says. "They've made adjustments to me, and now I'm making adjustments. It's going to take time to learn when they are going to let me beat them or make someone else beat them and when I need to have good patience."

Patience never has been a hallmark of Francoeur, one of four Braves rookies who grew up in Atlanta, but that never bothered the club as he made his way through the minors. He is a 6-4, 220-pound run-producing thumper.

"If it was turned loose in his direction, there was a pretty good chance he was going to swing at it, but we never told him to lose some of the aggressiveness," says Brian Snitker, Francoeur's manager in Class A and AA. "The last thing you want to do is temper somebody's aggressiveness. There are enough players we see that we want to be more ready to hit. If they're sitting there waiting on a good pitch and all of sudden it's there and they're not ready, that's a problem."

Francoeur's aggressiveness seemed to catch major league pitchers off-guard. In the minors, pitchers might miss the strike zone by a foot. In the majors, they miss by 3 inches, well within Francoeur's range.

In late July, the Nationals' Sun-Woo Kim delivered Francoeur an ankle-high changeup that he golfed over the center field wall at Turner Field. Nine days later, the Cardinals' Jason Isringhausen offered up a breaking ball that was 3 inches off the plate and Francoeur lashed it to right-center for a double.

Francoeur, quickly becoming accustomed to having his approach questioned, grins when he is asked about it. He is not offended if people think he doesn't have an idea at the plate because his job is not to be selective but to drive in runs. "I'm a different hitter than Chipper Jones," Francoeur says. "He goes up looking for certain pitches to hit. I'm going up there looking for something over the plate and trying to hit it hard."

Well, it might be over the plate, but it also might be over the plate at his ankles or over the plate at his neck.

"A good bad-ball hitter, that's what I call him," Braves catcher Eddie Perez says. "Those guys like him you don't want to face. Where's the hole?" Perez starts mapping the plate with his hands and an imaginary strike zone. "He hits it up here, down there, out there, in here," Perez says.

Big-league pitchers are figuring that out, too. In their first encounter, Nationals righthander Esteban Loaiza challenged Francoeur, and he had two hits in three at-bats. When they met a month later, Loaiza mixed up his selections and held Francoeur hitless in two at-bats.

WHAT A SURPRISE

If big-league pitchers were baffled early on by Francoeur, they weren't alone. Scouts admit being surprised by his sudden breakthrough. Francoeur hit only .275 with 13 homers in his 84 games with the Class AA Mississippi Braves. A month into his major league debut, he was at .403.

"I saw him the week before he was called up, and my boss asked me, 'What do you think of this guy,' and I said he wasn't ready," says one scout. "He gets here and starts hitting home runs, and my boss said, 'I thought you said he wasn't ready.'"

'I think he's one of those guys that the better competition he plays, the better he plays. Those are the kind of guys you love," says another scout.

So has Francoeur arrived?

"I'm with Ned Yost," said one of the scouts. "He said let's wait and see what he does the second time around the league."

The second time Yost and the Brewers got a crack at Francoeur, he had a 3-for-12 series and struck out four times. Except for Houston, every team the Braves might face in the postseason will be getting at least its second shot at Francoeur.

"I don't think this will continue in the playoffs," says another. "He's going to see just the No. 1, the No. 2 or the No. 3 pitcher, guys like (Chris) Carpenter and (Roy) Oswalt. He's not going to see the 4 and 5 guys who will make mistakes to him. But you have to love his upside. He's going to be a very good player."

Based on the early returns, he already is.

The Braves have plenty more where Francoeur came from

This was the season the window of opportunity finally seemed to be opening for the rest of the National League East: The Braves, winners of 13 consecutive division titles, clearly showed some cracks.

Dan Kolb was signed to take over John Smoltz's role as closer but couldn't handle the job. The club signed a pair of veteran outfielders, Brian Jordan and Raul Mondesi, but neither performed well. Then came the injuries. Chipper Jones, out six weeks. Mike Hampton, four trips to the disabled list. John Thomson, out three months. By mid-June, the Braves were in fourth place, one game over .500.

Then the team's farm system started churning. In a span of six weeks, it spit out starting pitcher Kyle Davies, catcher Brian McCann, reliever Blaine Boyer and outfielders Kelly Johnson and Jeff Francoeur. Amazingly, all but Johnson are from the Atlanta area. Two other rookies, outfielder Ryan Langerhans and shortstop Wilson Betemit, started the season in the majors and assumed key roles early.

With a slam, the window of opportunity came down on the fingertips of the rest of the division. The Braves took over first place with a 3-2 victory over the Nationals on July 26. By August 1, Atlanta's lead was 4 1/2 games.

The only hole the Braves didn't repair by promoting a minor leaguer was closer. They fixed that by trading two prospects to the Tigers for Kyle Farnsworth and his 98-mph fastball.

"I'll tell you why they were able to get a guy like Farnsworth," says a major league scout. "I have a list of 15 of their prospects I would trade for, and that's not even counting the four or five who have been up like McCann, Francoeur or Johnson."

The Braves got their rich talent collection systematically.

"They develop them; says Howie McCann, who runs Winward Baseball Academy in the Atlanta area and is the father of the Braves' rookie catcher. "When they go to the instructional league in the fall, it is to play baseball. They are there six weeks playing games, and the whole front office will go down there, including (G.M. John) Schuerholz, to evaluate players. You've got to learn to play every day, and they learn a lot about a kid's makeup and whether he can survive the rigors of the game."

Though many preseason predictions pegged the Marlins for the top of the N.L. East in 2005, expect the Braves to be favored at the start of 2006.

"They could be favored for a lot of years;' says another scout.--R.G.

Late-developing race

Because Jeff Francoeur was not called up until July, he's not a lock for N.L. Rookie of the Year. Of course, only one of the ether leading candidates started the season in the majors.

Jeff Francoeur, RF, Braves

Hit a 3-run homer in his first game and hasn't looked back.

Willy Taveras, CF, Astrus

Leads N.L rookies in hits, runs and stolen bases and has been with the team since the start of the season.

Zach Duke, LHP, Pirates

Called up on July 1, Duke won his first six decisions and posted a 1.81 ERA. But a sprained ankle ended his chances.

Ryan Howard, 1B, Phillies

Leads N.L. rookies with 16 homers and has a .354 OBP.--Start McNeal

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