Francis to sign one-year deal with Royals
Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com reports that former Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Jeff Francis will sign a one-year contract with the Kansas City Royals.
Francis, the Rockies’ first-round pick and ninth player selected overall in the 2002 draft, was 4-6 with a 5.00 ERA in 20 appearances in 2010, his first season back after missing all of 2009 following shoulder surgery. He started the 2010 season on the disabled list and returned there in August with tendinitis in his shoulder. He returned to the team in September and made three brief starts before ending the season with his first career relief appearance in the Rockies’ final game of the season.
The Rockies had interest in re-signing Francis, who became a free agent for the first time in his career this offseason, but didn’t have a clear role for him in a starting rotation that already includes Ubaldo Jimenez, Jorge De La Rosa, Aaron Cook, Jason Hammel and Jhoulys Chacin. Three others pitchers on the 40-man roster — Esmil Rogers, Felipe Paulino and Greg Reynolds — will try to crack the rotation in spring training.
Francis made his major-league debut with the Rockies in 2004 and was the ace of an injury-plagued rotation during the team’s 2007 World Series run. He went 17-9 with a 4.22 ERA in 34 starts that season and made three postseason appearances. The following season, however, was a disaster for Francis who fell off to 4-10 with a 5.01 ERA before a torn labrum was discovered in his pitching shoulder.
Francis, who was 55-50 with a 4.77 ERA in six seasons with the Rockies, is third all-time in franchise history in wins, starts and innings pitched and fourth in strikeouts.
UPDATE, 9:46 a.m.: Crasnick further reports that Francis’ deal is for $2 million and he could earn another $2 million in innings and starts incentives.
This is a good fit for Francis. Really don’t want to see him go, but the guy needs to just pitch. While the Royals should be better this season, they’re a year or two way from seriously competing and should give Francis a chance to pitch regularly without having to worry about winning in a pennant race. Hope it all works out for him and that maybe he’s back with the Rockies some day.
Agreed, Steve. Francis is a good man, a good teammate, a good Rockie. His contributions go beyond his on field performance, he has been a contributor to the team culture that has developed.
There is another good fit. There is a reason why the Royals home run record is 36. Back in the day (70′s-80′s) the only park more difficult to hit home runs in was the Astrodome. I don’t know how it ranks now but I would think it is a better pitcher’s park than it was then simply because of grass instead of turf there should be less extra base hits.
The Royals have also tried to improve their defensive speed and range this off season. Right now the Royals are about where the Rockies were in 2002-03. If Francis is close to where he was a couple of years ago he will be the ace of the staff.
I was really hoping they would bring him back. Oh well, glad it’s the Royals and not the Yankees.
So glad we can finally put the Francis topic to rest. Now we can concentrate on the pitchers that we actually have who, quite frankly, are much better options than Francis IMO. Good luck to him though, he pitched through some tough injuries recently and I hope he bounces back in KC.
Good comment Steve. I agree.
Good move by Dr. Francis. He only had a small chance, maybe a tiny chance, of cracking the Rox rotation and since he’s not a reliever it would have been a humiliation for him to be sent to the Springs. He was far better than that and hopefully for him he will regain his ’07 form. Many pitchers take more than a year after Tommy John to return to some normalcy. For the Rox, Francis in a way is a ‘sign and follow’ although another team did the signing.
Can’t wait to see him in spring training. I hope to see a Francis-Helton match-up, with one of the most cerebral pitchers going against one of the most cerebral hitters. My prediction: a 13-pitch walk.
jeff s-we’ll see when kc comes to coors july 1-3, an excellent call either way. i remember his first start with his mom hollering in the stands. best to jeff, now on to the future and beyond.
Nice $2m with incentives that could add up to $4m. Not a bad deal at all.
I can’t help but wonder what fan reaction will be come Aug. if one particular pitcher is struggling and on the DL and Francis is having a good year.
No sign of Ed the Ump lately.
Steve- Do you mind tipping us off as to what the big secret was?
I wonder if other teams offered similar money, if not I can understand taking the deal. Money being equal, I would go to a contender and trust my stuff well enough to crack a top 5 on the Yankees or Rockies or similar. Going to the Royals because you know they’re in desperate need of a warm body seems like the easy route.
I might be in the minority here, but I would have rather had Francis than Cook. Throw Francis between Jiminez and Chacin and that off-speed stuff will just mess with hitters minds.
Glad to see he signed somewhere. I would think that near the trade deadline if he’s pitching well he could bring a prospect or two for the Royals. Heck, by that time Cook will probably be hurt again, Hammel will fade in the 7th again and we might want him. Especially if he’s pitching well.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up back here sometime down the road. Maybe even later this year.
Good point Bill. Maybe we can just trade for Francis in the middle of the year. I really would like to see him back, if the right opportunity arises. He will always be a Rockie. Good move by the Royals, though. Francis, if he pitches the way he’s capable and is healthy, could easly be the ace of their rotation. He’s a class act with who always brought along his own cheering section—his mom–to each game. It would be nice to have him back. You’ll be missed Jeff.
Dang it, I thought the big news was going to be Francis to the Rox!!!
I think that financially Francis cut a good deal for himself.
I don’t see the Rockies offering Francis that type of money at this point. It’s possible that we may yet regret not resigning him, but at this point, based on what we know now and who we have, it makes sense to move on.
I wish Francis well.
I think a few of you forget how incredibly hittable and injury prone Francis has been in the recent past. I for one will have much more mobile fingers this year not having to keep them crossed everytime Francis takes the hill.
Robb, you are definitely not the minority.
Eric, I believe he opted for Kansas City because of Bob McClure and the money certainly didn’t hurt.
Good luck, Jeff.
You guys act like $2million guaranteed is a lot for a baseball player. I mean I get it w/his shoulder injury, but Brad Penny got $3 million guaranteed, with an additional $3million in incentives.
It’s a good opportunity, though. If he can throw, he’ll be in that rotation.
Steve or Ed, perhaps you can’t say because of the deal still being in the works? Any chance that this deal is still happening or is it going nowhere now? Maybe the Rox are focused on the arb players now? Or is one of the arb eligible players a part of the deal? Still fun to continue to check back daily for updates.
Good for Francis to get a starting job. With the one year deal, might be a good candidate for a trade too in July if his first half of the year goes well. Maybe he will thrive in KC and with his old coach, here’s hoping for the best for him.
Best wishes to a solid Rockie,and good guy.
Not sure that a deal is in the works. Rockies seem to be focused on arbitration players at the moment and adding depth. While it wouldn’t surprise me to see the team add someone like Andruw Jones if the price is right, I don’t think anything big is happening. For what it’s worth, I think there was truth to Ed’s rumor but that circumstances changed. I’m not saying that to open up speculation about Ed’s bombshell, but hopefully to put it to rest. I think of it a little like the Todd Helton speculation a few years ago. His trade to the Red Sox was a done deal until suddenly it wasn’t.
Good point Steve. I agree it needs to be put to rest now, but I would hope Ed lets everyone know what the speculation was at some point just so we finally get some closure on it (and he does owe us a brewski). I still want to know. Anyway it sure did enliven the site for a few days. So just come out and tell us what it was so we can be done with it.
Happy for Jeff Francis; I would have been ok with either Cook or Francis. It’s hard to say who would be more healthy this year. If it was up to me, I would have tried to trade away Cook’s salary and bring back Francis going on the theory that Francis was injured once while Cook seems to find an ailment annually.
Hate to see Jeff Francis go, he was always one of my favorite Rockies. Another case of where his contract got to be larger than his production primarily because he was recovering from that injury.
My prediction is that Francis will perform better than Cook in 2011 with a much lesser team. So for me this is DanO misstep in failing to move that huge Cook contract to make room to bring Francis back for 2011.
For all you haters, I hope Cook wins 15 this year. Francis is gone, deal with it.
The thing about Cook VS Francis is that Cook is already owed 10 million, while Francis was a free agent. Even if Francis performs better, that doesn’t mean bringing him back would be the best move. Those big contracts can be a ball and chain at times…
Jon
Ed’s secret wont be “put to rest” until we know what it is – until then there will be many that will be calling for it! And, if it isn’t going to happen, then no harm in telling us what it was…there is a ton of speculation on this and other sites every day…i don’t see telling us what it was would be any different…