Grant should just go ahead and rename this site “Frandsen Chronicles.” Never has more (computerized) ink been spilled on a guy who might be a decent utility guy in the bigs.

He’s actually played first a few times in the past already.

I’d say with Garko and Sanchez on the team, it’s time to groom him for the utility role in 2010.

Bochy: "Join me Kevin and we can rule the bench as father and son. It…is…your…destiny!

The Giants are slowly letting him fade into a AAA journeyman.

From what I can tell, he’s been playing first with Bowker and Guzman unavailable (being in SF, then Guzman coming back down).

playing first base in AAA for one day is him getting jerked around?

I think they just expect him to be a utilityman. Perhaps he’ll be replacing Aurilia next season?

Well, if Frandsen can play 2B and SS and 3B and 1B, then there’s no need for Aurilia. So I guess we can always speculate about that!

Kevin Frandsen is running a parallel path to Bobby Crosby :o

I’m convinced that with Frandsen, Downs, Bowker and to a lesser extent Guzman, the team brought them up hoping that they would stay hot at the major league level. after a few at bats/games it became apparent that it wasn’t gonna happen that way and each guy was demoted. I don’t like this way of handling young players. it doesn’t seem smart and basically wastes them. It also makes the press too much when they’re here b/c they know that each at bat is more or less make or break.

Velez was the same thing, but luckily for him, he stayed hot and has provided a spark and will continue to get at bats (until he cools off.)

Please, no more bitching about Kevin Frandsen. Please. Nothing was ever going to be handed to him (management made that clear) and he hasn’t taken advantage of his opportunities, however few, this year. Plus, he basically handled his Spring Training demotion like a bitch and then bitches to the media like he’s entitled to something. I don’t get it. Just shut your mouth and go play. And next time you come up, you better go 7 for your first 20 so people can see that you are something more than a AAAA player.

Maybe i am just biased because we were both born in the same city, but I don’t get why everyone thinks Manny Burriss sucked. He isn’t great by any means but i think he is a better 2B/SS than Downs or Frandsen will ever be.

Who cares what he did in the minors! He has done NOTHING up in the big leagues except have one good September back in 07. He sucks!

Frandsen has hit well at every level in the minors; Burriss has struggled at every level from Advanced A and above. He hasn’t even hit above league average in the majors for any extended stretch of games (over a month)

Burriss has hit for almost no power. Unless he can hit .325 and get on base .400, there is almost no way he can be league average offensively at 2B. Frandsen probably can average at least 10-15 HR per season.

After his hot start in spring, Burriss cooled off wildly once the regular pitchers got most of the IP. Frandsen was relatively more consistent during spring, but couldn’t overcome all the great hitting Burriss did off the weaker pitchers ( and most probably benefited from a BABIP that was too high for his talent level).

Even with his poor play in sporadic starts this season and when he got sporadic play in early 2007, Frandsen still has a higher career OPS in the majors than Burriss, and his 2007 season, as a TOTAL, was still better than Burriss’s 2008 season, when both got significant ABs. That Frandsen, once he was given regular play, hit well too is a plus on top of that.

Here are the stats for a number of players since 2007 to get regular starts at year-end:

Frandsen: .295/.347/.439/.786, 4 HR in 132 AB, 8 BB, 4 HBP, 9 SO
Sandoval: .345/.357/.490/.847, 3 HR in 145 AB, 4 BB, 1 HBP, 14 SO
Ishikawa: .274/.337/.432/.768, 3 HR in 95 AB, 9 BB, 27 SO
Burriss: .289/.377/.333/.710, 1 HR in 114 AB, 15 BB, 1 HBP, 12 SO

Frandsen was second best in OPS and in avoiding strikeouts, plus was basically at the 1.0 ratio for BB/SO that you want hitters to be at to be good in the majors. Burriss, despite hitting nearly .300 and having a great OBP of .377, still barely peeped over .710 OPS, which is much below average for 2B (that is probably adequate for a SS with a good glove).

A .786 OPS at 2B is a good contribution to the offense. .710 is not even tolerable if he had Vizquel’s defensive abilities.

True, small samples. But so does Burriss and there is the huge performance gap. Frandsen has outdone Burriss at every level of the game, big samples of minor league games, small samples of major league games, smaller samples when they got regular starts. Frandsen also plays good defense as well.

I believe totally that Frandsen has nobody but himself to blame for his current predicament, though it would be nice if the Giants management had been more understanding or thick skinned. But we all know Sabean is famously thin-skinned, so Frandsen put himself deep into the doghouse by showing up Sabean publicly. That was totally stupid on Frandsen’s part. Plus, who knows what crap Frandsen might have said to Sabaen in private.

Frandsen should have never opened his big mouth this spring and just went to Fresno and started hitting like he could. Instead, he sulked and did poorly in April. His OPS in May and June was over .900 , or roughly .740 OPS MLE, while not good, was around the league average and, more importantly, was worlds better than the crap that Burriss and Downs did at 2B in the ABs that Frandsen should have had. If he were hitting .900 OPS that whole time, Sabean couldn’t ignore that.

In addition, those numbers probably should have been better because he hit worse against LHP than RHP this season. For his career, his OPS is pretty much the same, whether LHP or RHP.

I said this at the start of the season, I’ll say it now: it was a huge mistake to start Burriss over Frandsen. Burriss was young, had minimal exposure to upper minors play, no success really in the higher leagues, other than he had the ability to make good contact, avoiding strikeouts and getting walks, stealing a lot of bases, and playing good defense. He could have benefited from a full season in AAA.

Frandsen was getting old and he would not learn anything from repeating AAA. He had hit at every level of the minors – and well too – and did well in his small audition in late 2007. The scenarios all pointed to starting him. If he fails, at least he got his chance and we learned that he wasn’t the guy, and if you really think Burriss is the answer, you bring him up and give him that chance.

Let’s put it this way, he couldn’t have been much worse than what Burriss and Downs did this season. We’ll be about where we are today if he failed, except that Burriss would have gotten good experience in AAA, and had a better chance of succeeding.

If Frandsen succeeds, then Burriss can get extended time in the minors to prove that he’s as good a hitter as his small trial success in late 2008 wasn’t a fluke, plus play at both SS and 2B. If Burriss is so good that he should be starting, Frandsen would now be considered an adequate starting 2B that we could use as a trading chip, instead of a disgruntled utility player who is at best a throw-in.

The thing is, all prior experience suggests that Frandsen should do better than Burriss would THIS year. In addition, even if he were ready (and clearly, he wasn’t), making Burriss wait another year would not hurt his development, he would still be only 25 next season. But this was Frandsen’s make or break year, he’s getting too old. The Giants should have given him that chance since we were not expected to contend, the chance to see if he could be a starter in the majors or not, because if he did, we either have a good starting 2B, one we could trade away if Burriss turns out to be better in AAA.

If Burriss was actually ready to start (and he wasn’t), waiting one year would not have killed him, he’s not that good a prospect. To maximize their inventory of assets, they would have been better off trying to see if Frandsen could be more than a utility player, especially given how well he hit in the minors plus in his only regular chance for starts in the majors. If he is, you now either have a good starting 2B or could trade him if Burriss had turned out to be the real deal. Either way, Burriss was probably going to get a chance to start in the majors. But this was Frandsen’s one last chance, really.

Now, if anything, the Giants have moved on and are making Frandsen their utility infielder, capable of playing all four positions, plus chip in at LF. He looks like he’s the new Greg Linton or Steve Scarsone.