Drawing Player Comparisons for Brennan Boesch

Role Player Comparison: Jeff Francoeur

Much like Brennan Boesch, Jeff Francoeur burst onto the scene as a young player. Francoeur played in 70 games as a rookie in 2005 and finished thrid in rookie of the year voting in the National League. He was able to follow a successful rookie campaign with a nice season in 2006. Although his batting average dropped from .300 to .260 he was a solid run producer with 29 home runs and 103 runs driven while playing every day. A year later the home run totals were down a bit but his batting average was back up to .293 and he drove in more than 100 runs once again. It’s been all downhill from there.

After three years in the majors, Francoeur had amassed a 8.0 WAR player, since then he has been right at replacement level. The more we learned about Jeff Francoeur the more it seemed he was a flash in the pan for just a few seasons. His high strikeout rate and low walk rate became too much to overcome. The Jeff Francouer from 2005-2007 was too good to be true.

Will we look back at Brennan Boesch’s first two months as a Tiger and say the same thing? Only time will tell.