Royals Sign Jeff Francis

[love_that_reefer]

The Royals and Jeff Francis have reached agreement on a one-year deal, according to ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick.
Financial terms have not yet been disclosed and the deal is pending a physical. The left-hander owns a career 55-50 record with a 4.77 ERA over six major league seasons. Francis' best year came in 2007 when he went 17-9 and pushed Colorado to the World Series, going a combined 2-0 in the NLDS and NLCS. It's been downhill since, unfortunately, and Francis finished with an ugly 5.00 ERA over 104-plus innings last season. On the plus side, he had a 36/6 K/BB ratio over 41 1/3 innings after the All-Star break. In Kansas City's rotation, certainly one of the worst in the league, Francis joins Luke Hochevar, Kyle Davies, Vin Mazzaro and Sean O'Sullivan.

I'm sure this is a low cost deal with incentives which is great for the Royals. Francis had a strong second half last year so hopefully he can bring that over to this season. Royals might have the weakest rotation in baseball but there is some hope within. Hochevar might finally turn things around and Mazzaro wasn't terrible last year. If I'm the Royals, I try and bring Bruce Chen back as well to compete for a rotation spot.

Edit: The deal is worth $2 million guaranteed with $2 million in incentives.

[henks]

Francis has been hurt the last couple seasons, so if he's healthy, he's capable of pitching very well.

[DirtyKash]

In Kansas City's rotation, certainly one of the worst in the league, Francis joins Luke Hochevar, Kyle Davies, Vin Mazzaro and Sean O'Sullivan.

That's fucking brutal. 110 losses possible?

[Slyder]

I actually like Francis, he's another guy I wish the Reds had taken a flyer on (Webb). If he's "right" he can be downright nasty. Can he get back to that? Probably not but its a better risk than signing Willie Bloomquist, Gil Meche, or trading for Betancourt. Perfect world Francis is probably a 3 at this point but at the very least he should get some decent trade offers at the deadline if he proves he's "right".

[realmofotalk]

That's fucking brutal. 110 losses possible?

That's bad, but the worst rotation to begin the year that I can recall was the 2000 Angels with Ken Hill, Kent Bottenfield, Scott Schoeneweis, Jason Dickson, and Ramon Ortiz. Hill was way past his prime, Bottenfield was a fluke 18-game winner the year prior, Scott Schoeneweis was and is still a #5, and Dickson was coming off arm surgery and even then he was marginal. That Ramon Ortiz was the young guy they were counting on says it all.