Royal General Manager Dayton Moore is hoping to see the Jeff Francoeur he remembers from his days with Atlanta when the outfielder averaged 24 home runs and drove in 104 runs in his first two seasons. Francoeur is hoping to look in the mirror and see the same guy he saw back in 2002.
Francoeur got his first opportunity in the big leagues with the Atlanta Braves, who he grew up cheering for. He credits a lot of the veterans on that team such as John Smoltz and Chipper Jones for showing him how to play the game the right way.
Jeff Francoeur comments on coming to Kansas City
After his first three years, he numbers dropped considerably where he was hitting just .249 in split time between the Mets and Rangers. Francoeur says his body went through a change.
“I got up to 242 going into Spring Training and had about three chins, kind of got a little too big,” he said. In 2008 the big Jeff hit just 11 homer and batted .239 and was traded to the Mets. Now, Francoeur is back to 217 lbs with hopes of getting down to 210.