It has been a long, rough couple of years in Philadelphia. The Phillies have been one of the worst teams in baseball, and the team has gotten rid of most of the stars from its golden years of the last decade. No one is really expecting this year to be any different, but one player who could provide a glimpse of promise and excitement is Maikel Franco.
With a surplus of young stars and prospects primed for superstardom, including Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, Corey Seager, and Byron Buxton, it’s easy to see how Franco could be overlooked. Make no mistake: you overlook Franco at your own peril.
Franco came up and played in eighty games during his rookie season with the Phillies before missing the second half due to injuries. Franco proved to be a force when he was in the lineup, as he hit to the tune of a .280 batting average, to go along with fifty RBI and fourteen home runs. He also posted a very impressive 128 wRC+ in just half of a season.
So far in spring training, Franco is posting ridiculous numbers; he owns a .367 batting average to compliment his six home runs, fourteen RBI, and 1.391 OPS in just eleven games. Now, this is obviously a very small sample size, and an even bigger caveat is that Franco is posting these numbers in the laid back setting of spring training. However, they should not be completely dismissed.
Fangraphs provided a breakdown of Franco’s 2015 campaign against another young, talented third baseman in Manny Machado and, as you can see, he compares pretty favorably.
Franco’s hot start in spring training seems to re-affirm that his rookie season was not an aberration, and that he can be an offensive staple at the hot corner for years to come.
That fact alone should make long suffering Phillies fans drool with excitement. After wandering around in a wasteland of aging veterans for years, it finally seems that Philadelphia is developing young players that it can build around.
It would be crazy to expect the team to complete an Astros-esque turnaround this year, but for the first time in half a decade there is promise in the city of brotherly love. Don’t sleep on Franco, as he is poised to lead the revival in Philadelphia.
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