Churchill (http://www.prospectinsider.com/view/nick-franklin,-ss/) undersells the offensive potential compared to the consensus here, but I don't think he's overplaying the rest of the package:
-- quote --
Scouts have opined this season that Franklin's work at shortstop isn't concerning, despite the somewhat high error totals, and that he's "smooth, sure-handed and makes the routine play look more routine than a blinking with the wind blowing."
I witnessed him making throws during spring training that most shortstops in the bigs can't make -- the quick, nearly-underhanded flip on a slow roller, the play deep behind second base with a decent runner in route to first, among others -- and he's a quick learner, too.
He's the kind of athlete, like Dustin Ackley and Kyle Seager, that will learn how to do things taught to them quicker than the average young player.
-- end quote --
Ackley-Franklin as the MI with Seager (he of the 37 doubles and 69 walks) as a LH super-utility guy?
G-Money did the legwork for us, going back and checking on the youngest players to overmatch the hitter-unfriendly MWL in recent years. A sample of G's findings: I thought so too about Bruce (that Franklin's topping of Bruce's exploits was provocative - Dr D). I'd like to say the MWL guys I picked weren't entirely random, but there weren't a lot of guys to choose from. It's a rare feat in the last half-dozen years. :) Over .800 OPS in the MWL as a teen: 2005: Carlos Gonzalez (killing it for Colorado now as a 23 & 24 year old CF/OF) 2006: Bruce, Maybin 2007: Snider, Gerardo Parra (in the bigs at 22 in '09, not yet successful splitting time at CF/LF) 2008: Mike Moustakas (ravaging AA and AAA at 21), Andy Lambo (average in AA, same age) 2009: Jaff Decker (top 100 prospect) 2010: Nick Franklin, Mike Trout, Matt Davidson - all 1st round picks who will be top 100 if not top 50 players on next year's Baseball America rundown. Some are calling Trout the undeniable #1 hitter in baseball, after all. There were a few 20 year olds that cleared .800 this year, which is up from past years, so maybe this year the MWL is easier and drawing the line at "teenagers" is too arbitrary. Still, the comps looked accurate to me as far as skillset goes: Franklin's EYE: .42 Bruce: .42 Snider: .38 Maybin: .43 Franklin's AB:K : 4.2 Bruce: 4.2 Snider: 3.6 Maybin: 3.3 Franklin's ISO: .208 Bruce: .225 Snider: .212 Maybin: .153 3 guys is not a scientific sample, but when a guy has power, a decent average, and a survivable K-rate in that league at 19, I have to like his chances. BTW, neutralized for park and luck: Franklin: .309/.375/.527/.902 Bruce: .299/.370/.533/.903 Before Jay stomped on the Midwest League at 19, he was the #76 prospect in the country. After? #14. I think Franklin's a top-20 hitting prospect in the minors, EASY. And for all that Mike Trout impressed the universe in his MWL stint, Franklin outhit him using neutralized stats. There's a danger of overselling this year for sure, but it's impressive any way you slice it, and even when you look at its weaknesses. The fact that he can improve and STILL did what he did is a good thing, not a bad one. When Smoak and Ackley leave the system, it's hard to see a better hitting prospect in it than Franklin. Maybe Choi. ;) ~G 1. Agreed: when you go back and search the league-leaders tables in any minor league, you're going to find just a couple of the leaders who are far younger than the league. G's not cherrypicking here; it's uncommon for a prospect to be playing guys 4 years older than him, and uncommoner for him to overmatch them. .............. 2. I would argue that G's being a little modest, in lessening the force of his own logic .... by conceding that perhaps the difference between age 19 and age 20 is "arbitrary." The difference between a toddler aged 2.5 years, and one aged 4.0 years, is massive -- the 4-year-old is about twice as old. Consider where a 19-year-old pro, vs a 20-year-old pro, are at on their career arcs. The difference is large. . Franklin, at 19, is essentially a pro newborn. The guys who are 20 years old probably have twice his at-bats. If you were talking about the difference between 23 and 24, sure, the difference can be subtle -- and even lost in the variables of injury time and so forth. But Nick Franklin, in the year 2010, is ewwwwwwww covered in birth water. The 20-year-olds were experienced pro's by comparison. Absolutely. You show me any kid RIGHT out of high school, doing the things that Franklin is doing, and I'll put him on a yellow sticky list by my monitor. Dr. D is a saberdweeb and template-historian at heart. Show him a HS kid who picked up a bat and instantly slugged .567 (LH, adjusted) in a serious full-season A league, and he'll show you a guy whose ceiling is the Hall of Fame. ............... 3. As G goes a little further into the Jay Bruce / Nick Franklin comp, you can see for yourself that they are pitch-perfect mirror images at age 19. If anything, Franklin is better, in the sense that Franklin's numbers are suppressed by his RH failures. ................ 4. If Nick Franklin were 6'2", 200, he'd be just about as revered as anybody in the low minors. The only question remaining is: how much does his size affect his projection. This is a legit Q. But it can't be assumed either way. The Gazoo arguments, and a re-review of Tulo vs. Franklin at the same age, have me very dubious indeed that Franklin won't actually be a pretty big guy at age 22. If Franklin were short and slim, that would be one thing. But he's a good six-footer, moves like a big man, has good sized feet, swings (kind of) like a young Ted Williams, in the sense of "lanky power." I don't know whether he'll hit 12 homers or 30 in his prime. But I'm pretty sure you can't cap it right now. ............... 5. The right attitude for all M's fans right now is this: Boy, I'm excited to see how Nick Franklin develops. . Good stuff, Dr D
Comments
I'm talking myself into the 117 wins a little more each day :- )
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In the 1970's, I was a Big Red Machine guy and detested the luck the rodent Dodgers fell into with Garvey-Lopez-Russell-Cey coming up at the same time and staying together for what, 10+ years?
With 1B-2B-SS-3B manned by "Dodger Hall of Famers" for a decade, the rodent Dodgers never had the slightest problem putting together makeshift lineups that scored blizzards of runs. They could always find corner OF's to hit for them.
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There's never been another time I saw this kind of perfect storm brewing on a Mariners infield, not by a long shot.
I don't think it's homerism. Ackley and Smoak are legit #1-overall types. Franklin is keeping pace with them for sheer dazzle factor.
Going to have to check out this Seager guy you amigos sell so hard :- )
For the fact that Dustin Ackley IS at second base.
i think seager is going to be good. with poythress not playing the last few games, he's been batting 3rd for the high dessert. and doing pretty good too. hit a homer and had 3rbis today. i think he should be useful for the m's. kinda like ackley-lite.
lawson hasnt stopped hitting also, although he doesnt have the eye that seager have. so he may be the utility guy out of the two.
doc, how would you evaluate the doubles power in HD? i know everybody is saying that the HR alleys of HD is a joke, so the power there should be taken with a grain of salt. but how about the doubles? i think a double in HD is a double in any other baseball fields. seager has more doubles than poythress right now (37-33), although poythress also have that 30 to seager's 12.
It's going to be interesting to watch these young guys like Ackley, Seagar and Franklin after an off-season with Dr Elliot's program.
Don't think Franklin can quite be grouped in the same talent class as Pineda/Ackley/Smoak, but do see him with the potential for an All-Star career similar to Mike Young or Stephen Drew. Not many SS's with 20+ HR power, double digit SB's, and the ability to hit for average despite high K's and moderately low BB's.
Pineda (rated top 5 SP), Ackley (#11 on 2010 list), and Smoak (#13 on 2010 list) are all undeniable Top 25 talents. Franklin is a Top 50, maybe a Top 25. Saunders (#30 on 2010 list) and Moore (#83 on 2010 list) are definite Top 100 talents.
Poythress (.950 OPS at A+ in first full season) and Halman (#57 on 2009 list, 32 HR in 399 AB at AAA) are strong candidates for next year's Top 100.
In addition to those EIGHT, you've also got possibles in Triunfel (#89 on 2009 list), Liddi (.812 OPS in age 21 season at AA, 1.000+ OPS at A+ last year), and Seagar (.344/.419/.492 at A+ in first full season).
Then even on top of that, you've got the #3 pick in next year's draft - which is already hyped as having the franchise MLB ready college bat and three #1 overall caliber college arms. And there's a guy in the majors named Felix Hernandez who is signed through 2014 and still the age of most rookies.
I do believe the M's need to sign a frontline SP (and have the money to do it), but they've got to be near the front of the pack in both top-end rookie/prospect talent and depth. Could really see Ichiro being the weak link in the offense in 2012.
i don't know how we should value relief pitchers, but seattle has about a barge of your flamethrowers that we might be able to see soon. lueke, cortes, pryor and wilhemsen all have a chance to be dominating relief pitchers in the majors.
Now, the word of caution on Franklin.
There was this SS that played for a rival of ours. He was hyped through the roof as a 20 year old. He'd posted a .726 in the MWL at 19 (similar to Adam Jones, though Jones was 18) and blown up the Cal League the following year (far more so than Jones did). He was gonna be moved to 3rd, but his bat sure looked like it would hold up there.
For his minor league career he hits Lefties and Righties pretty equally and both over .900 OPS. His home and away splits are pretty neutral, and also .900ish. His BB:K is .38, which is bad but not atrocious. His AB:K is 3.7 which is very bad, especially for the minors, but his ISO is .277, so he should be able to power the ball out even if his OBP is a bit lackluster and he strikes out too much.
The last few years his away numbers have been pretty pedestrian while his home numbers are inflated by being in a major hitters park in AAA, but even his away numbers show a fairly consistently high ISO. A low-walk hitter can get away with it if he has high power and can hold a decent average.
Unfortunately for them, his major league OPS is in the .400s. He's atrocious. It doesn't look like he'll ever hit. They reworked his swing and it got worse. He's drowning in the bigs even though he's apparently a hard worker and not a bad guy, and no one knows how to help him.
That prospect is Brandon Wood.
It's only worse for Angels fans because he was the successor to Dallas McPherson at the position. Dallas in the minors: .293/.379/.580/.959. Dallas in the bigs: .245/.298/.458/.756 (at a corner position). He also demolished the minors along the way with a .42 Eye, a 3.2 AB:K, and a .287 ISO.
There are monsters in the minors who just can't make it work in the bigs. Franklin's running some borderlines in his stats that bear watching, what with his .41 Eye and his 4.4 AB:K. He's better with the strikeouts than Wood or McPherson by a decent chunk, but it needs to stay that way against better pitchers with breaking balls.
Justin and I had an argument many years ago about AB:K in the minors and what it means in the majors. It was over Leone, I think. He pointed out that while there were exceptions to the rule, it was a HUGE longshot for a guy like Ryan Howard to make it. 4:1 was the minimum acceptable limit in the minors in his mind, and 5:1 gave you some flexibility to drop a little in the bigs without falling off a cliff. Adam Dunn in the bigs: 3.1. In the minors? 4.5...AND he walks a ton.
I've come around to Justin's POV on this one: 4:1 at-bats per strikeout is a pretty useful Mendoza line for that stat, and you'd like your prospects to move away from it, not closer to it.
I'll just want to see Nick walk a little more next year, and at LEAST hold steady on Ks. Not being as abysmal against lefties would also help both of those issues.
Franklin isn't out of the woods (sorry for the pun) as a prospect just yet - he's chopping through those woods with a machete pretty easily so far though...and the recent guys who have done what he's done at the age and level he did it at have mostly gone on to great acclaim and pretty decent success.
Just can't help but be excited, I guess.
~G
Solid points all around.
The only thing scaring me off about Nick Franklin is the low eye and relatively high K%. Thats true for any hitting prospect, but Franklin's age eases me off a bit.
Still, you can't forget that most prospects don't pan out, so Z needs to be looking for a long-term option at the MLB level in the meanwhile. Sean Rodriguez maybe? I'd trade Brandon League for him.
And a reminder why EYE is so important.
Agreed that Franklin's EYE remains an important part of his evaluation. ... if the kid were 200 lbs. with an 0.80 eye he'd probably be a top 10 in baseball.
Which is why I put Ackley and Smoak firmly ahead of Franklin, whether he shows a Josh Hamilton swing or not. Franklin's in the low minors and he does strike out.
Nobody in class A ball has a better than 30% chance of becoming a star. But like you guys have pointed out, Franklin doesn't have to hit cleanup to be valuable at SS.
Franklin does have pretty good eye totals as a LH. I think he just needs to give up switch hitting and that would solve one of the major problems.
Right - Franklin doesn't need to be Hamilton to be a great player at SS.
BTW, Josh Hamilton in A-Ball (SAL not MWL) at 19: .302/.348/.476/.823, 5.5 AB:K, .38 EYE.
Afterward, he was the #1 prospect in baseball (for reasons beyond his A-ball performance, but still).
The company Nick is keeping is pretty rarified. Maybe he's the "Brady Anderson of the 50-HR club" equivalent, but odds are he's the rule (ie, destined for future success) rather than the exception. At SS, Nick is gonna have to work awfully hard in order NOT to be a decent option for us soon.
~G
Just to clarify my observations from several years ago on why the strikeout prospects fail....
-When talented low minors hitters strike out a lot, it's usually indicative of holes in their hitting-When those high strikeouts are sustained over an extended period of time, it demonstrates a failure to make adjustments-There is no advanced scouting of the low minors for competitive purposes. When a team is able to exploit a low minors hitter's weaknesses, it's usually mere coincidence or off of memory from prior showdowns.-There is serious advanced scouting in the high minors and majors. The occasional, coincidental exploits from the low minors are now a strategic attack used every at-bat. The hitter is now forced to make adjustments, or those 1.000 OPS's get cut in half.
This is why I think you see minor league sluggers suddenly turn into Cesar Izturis in the majors, and/or take several years before they come anywhere close to resembling their minor league production.
This is essentially what I've been thinking for the last decade or so while I've been watching prospects...I think this is also why the Mariners hated prospects who struck out and tried to assemble a whole team of low-K hitters...I think they THOUGHT it ws the low-risk way to get some MLB production quickly from middling prospects (which tend to be undervalued in the market). Of course...it means you never develop stars and most of those slap hitters who never K are untrainable (they don't have any way to get better) so WYSIWYG. Hence the lack of impact MLB production from the farm (thanks to a bunch of free-swinging hitters with no projectable upside due to no baseball intelligence).
You can see that Z is not at all the same kind of talent evaluator...his prospects are going to be interesting to watch from a philosophical standpoint.
And G just keeps throwing out 19-year-old performances by Jay Bruce, Josh Hamilton, or Steve Nebraska that pale by comparison.
Slow stuff on his hands being an Achilles' heel that got into his head, and left him discombobulated even when he got pitches he liked.
People do get focused on K/BB in the abstract, without considering the difference between simple AGGRESSIVENESS (as with many of the Latin hitters) and real problems with the zone coverage.
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My primary question on Franklin, as to the "holes," would be simply whether he can swing that long against better pitching.
He's got practically an Ichiro leg kick and, if at his size he needs to do that, then there's your question.
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That's just conversation, though. The fact is that Franklin has a beautiful, natural, Griffey-esque swing from the left side, and he does get to the pitch very quickly (5% IF/F).
Too lazy to do it right now, but does somebody want to take a microscope to Wood's 19-year-old K:BB vs Franklin's, age-and-level?
Not just ratio, but K's as a percentage of AB's.
At 19, Brandon Wood K'ed 117 times and walked 46 times in 535 PA (478 AB)
That's a K/AB of 0.245, a K/BB of 2.54 and a BABIP of .293 (that's in A ball, where the league average BABIP is .335!)...he wasn't making real solid contact even when he did make contact.
Nick Franklin at age 19 fanned 120 times and walked 49 times in 556 PA (496 AB)
That's a K/AB of 0.242, a K/BB of 2.45 and a BABIP of .321 (in a league with an average BABIp of .328)...There's no problem with Franklin making good contact...and his K/BB peripherals are a notch better than Wood's at the same time. Franklin is pretty clearly ahead of Wood.
ever since he got placed batting 3rd in the line-up, seager is now hitting for some power. either has doubles or homers the past 4 games. has 5 doubles and 4 homers the past 10 games with an OPS of 1.182, along with 14rbis. pretty cool for a future utility guy.
Kyle Seager:
Age 21, A ball: .275/.360/.346/.706, 22/BB/21K in 153 ABs.
Age 22, A+: .345/.419/.503/.921, 71BB/94K in 557 ABs.
Eye:
1.05 in A
.76 in A+
AB:K
7.29 in A
5.93 in A+
Iso:
.070 in A
.158 in A+
I was gonna use Seager's road numbers, but they're virtually identical to his home #s so the juice in his ISO is from the league, not the park.
Now, let me give you a guy:
Age 21, A+ ball: .267/.383/.427/.810, 47BB/57K in 255 ABs.
Age 22, AA: .255/.357/.417/.774, 72BB/123K in 556 ABs.
Bret Boone had a .160 Iso in A+ and a .162 in AA. He had 116 and 102 patience points respectively (Seager has had 85 and 74).
I'm really, really curious to see Seager in AA next year. He doesn't have power, but he is Boone's size and has a similar game, and even pre-roid Boone posted some serious minor league numbers (for a MIF) at age 23 and 24 and then went on to some decent years before his late-career juice explosion. And he was a starter the whole time. Since Seager is a lefty he'll get the platoon split that worked against Boone, as well - though Boone was always good against same-handed pitching, as Seager seems to be. And at his position, a ton of power isn't a prerequisite.
The only reason Seager's not a threat for the 2B job here is his teammate from UNC has the inside track, which makes Seager a backup. But if he can ace AA next year, his trade value will be as a potential starting 2B, not as a utility guy. You want to see him keep the hit skill and the 80 points of patience, and post a .120 to .140 Iso instead of the .070 he sported in Clinton while figuring out wood bats.
But it's not unpossible that he can scratch out a David Bell/ tiny Bret Boone career, and that's got value.
~G
Per Dave at USSM, recapping some things from the USSM/LL event:
McNamara had some really interesting comments about Seager, especially on defense. He was a fringe 2B/3B when they drafted him, but Mac talked him up as a guy who has gotten a lot better with the glove and could actually handle SS now without embarrassing himself, and said he could absolutely play second in the big leagues.
Nice to have a minor league system in which guys actually get developed, eh?
And oh yeah - what a draft.
sorry, Franklin's my guy over trout. franklin set the records this year.
remember the 49 year franchise record for hr's he broke and being the fist pro player to be in the 20/20 club? don't forget, franklin switch hits too. he batted .314 as a lefty this year in A ball. not a very good right side .174, but i read he only just started hitting from the right side.
when he got to AA ball i read he was 4 for 6 on the right side.
keep it coming kid.
oh..i forgot and franklin was one of the first pro players to be in the 20/20/20 club too.
i can't see how you can say that franklin is better than wood at the same age using those stats. they are essentially the same
Franklin actually hit the ball hard when he hit the ball...Wood did not. BABIP isn't 100% luck...ESPECIALLY not in the low minors. It is actually a MAJOR red flag for me when a big time power prospect can't BABIP .300 in the low minors. That's a bad...bad....BAD sign for his ability to square up the ball in the big leagues later on. K/BB is about the same...Franklin has a slight edge. But Franklin squares up the ball...Wood did not.