Late last night, the Mets made headlines by not only trading Angel Pagan to the Giants for Andres Torres and RHP Ramon Ramirez, the team also signed pitchers Jon Rauch, and Frank Francisco.
I had no problem with the Rauch signing at all. I did have a slight problem with the trade, but the other signing of the night, Frank Francisco, was the one acquisition that really didn’t make sense contract-wise to me.
Spending that kind of money on a guy who has had a troubled past deserves that MNF styled “c’mon man”. I have several reasons why I would not give Francisco the kind of money the Mets enriched him with last night.
For a player who has had an up-down type career and checkered past, it really makes no sense to me. Who knows what we’ll get from this guy?
It sort of feels like the whole Oliver Perez cycle. Perez was up and down, up and down, and you never knew if you were going to get good Ollie or bad Ollie.
Francisco’s troubled past also gives me a small level of concern. When pitching for Texas, he got hot-headed with a Chicago White Sox fan and he threw a chair at him.
He is not the kind of guy I would be paying $12 Million dollars for. If I wanted someone like that, I’d go back and get K-Rod for god sakes.
Over the course of his career, its been said that Francisco has been erratic and wild with the strikezone. Just what we need, another Perez/K-Rod combination.
The only real upside to this deal for me is the fact that he is a power-pitcher and has the potential to strikeout a lot of guys. That’s really the only aspect of this deal that I’m happy with.
I’ve been one of the biggest opponents to signing Frank Francisco, and the fact we went out and signed him and actually gave him a two year deal for $12 Million is disconcerting. That is way too much money for a guy who has a troubled past, has issues with being wild and inconsistent, and doesn’t seem to have the stuff to be a closer for this team day-in, and day-out.
I just think he is worth far less than what he got.
What do you think?
