Phillies

Domonic Brown Could Start Season in Minors and Charlie Likes Francoeur

By Kyle Scott

Published: Dec 7th, 2010 · 5:14 PM EST

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Truth.

A year ago, we were talking about the signing of Roy Halladay.  This Decemeber?  Pondering the drop in talent between Jayson Werth, now a National, and Jeff Francoeur.  -Punches baby-

Annnnd our stud rookie, who was supposed to take over for Werth, might not even start the season in the Majors.  Matt Gelb reports that Ruben Amaro in considering placing Brown in the Minors, if he doesn't shape up to be an everyday player by April 1 (thanks to his 2-for-29 Winter Ball showing). Unfortunately, that's not a joke.

To make matters worse, it's looking more likely that Jeff Francouer could take Werth's spot in the interim.  Charlie belives he can "fix" him.  Craig Calcaterra from Hardball Talk breaks it down:

“I’ve always liked Francoeur.”  He [Manuel] then made a comparison between Frenchie and Jayson Werth when he first joined the Phillies, referring to how each of them hadn’t yet lived up to their potential. he talked about how Francoeur “hadn’t had success for a couple of years,” and that he was sure he was due to come back. It was unclear where Francoeur was supposed to come back to, because objectively speaking he’s always been gone, but everyone loves Charlie Manuel and no one pressed the issue. 

In all honesty, Francoeur has a lot of tools (including a massive hose) that he has never built anything with (yay puns).  Perhaps Charlie is on to something and can "fix" him.

Manuel also said on Daily News Live that he's not ready to send Brown to the minors yet, despite his awful Winter League showing.

I'm not ready to send him down yet.  We need to go to Spring Training, put him in right field and let our coaches work with him.  Before we get big on sending him out, we got to give him a chance and try our best to teach him about baseball in six weeks as best we can.

 

If you ever wanted to see the inside of a baseball writer's hotel room, Matt Gelb and his new pubic do talk Brown and more at Philly.com.