Is Nick Franklin really better than Brendan Ryan? Well, we don't know for sure yet, since Franklin's not in the big leagues, but we can hypothesize. The most common comp I see for Franklin is Adam Kennedy. Now you guys may think that's selling him short, but Franklin's young and won't peak immediately, and Kennedy had defensive value whereas Franklin at SS... won't. Here. Let's say Franklin can come up and immediately produce what Kennedy did at his peak, which is basically Seager's 2012 season, almost 4 wins. I think that's pretty darn optimistic.
Ryan's bounced between 2 and 3 WAR the last four years. Call it 2.5, as a projection. So you're calling up Franklin to get that one extra win over a full season, IF you're lucky. And then in 2014 Miller's knocking on the door in AAA, and he's a lesser prospect but it's not by all that much. So what is Franklin actually worth, to the Mariners? A one win upgrade over Ryan/Miller every year for the next six years, IF everything breaks right? Now consider his trade value. Can you get back more than that for a top 25 prospect at a demanding defensive position? I'd say almost certainly yes.
Nick Franklin is a great prospect, but I think he's worth a lot more to other teams than he is to us.

OK, you all know the Twaiin-ism about ".....lies, damn lies and statistics." I like numbers and metrics and matrixes et al, but the runs saved deal worries me.
There's an extrapolation involved in "runs saved" that must involve some degeree of smoke and mirrors and chicken bones.
Doc's right in that B-R assumes that Ryan is an average MLB'er even with just an average SS glove. Uh-uh! With an average glove, Ryan is a hefty version of Munenori Kawasaki.
I don't know if Franklin's bat is a .300-.370-.450 vR MLB stick, which may be a big if, but if he is and if he is Jeter-ish with the glove (which probably isn't league average) he's got to play. Now, if Ackley goes or remains the '12 version of Ackley, then it may well make sense to look at Franklin on the other side of 2B.
But assuming two "Ifs," his vR bat and his passable SS glove, then Franklin's a starting MLB SS.
"If" Ryan finds himself a .260 hitter next year then his glove puts him in the lineup, but not as a .200 hitter.
Mark Belanger made sense because the Orioles had some of those Frank Robinsons and Boog Powells and and Eddie Murrays and Ken Singletons to rattle fences. (Belanger, BTW, had two 100 OPS seasons, didn't realize that).
Go team.
moe
If a base hit is worth nearly .5 runs, then the B-R calculations indicates that Ryan took away some 72 base hits that the normal MLB SS would have allowed. Ain't possible guys. Ryan had 396 assists last year. So unless I'm calculating things completely wrong (which is very possible), almost one of every 5 balls he gets to (about 18%) is one that your average MLB SS doesn't get to. Really?

There's a notion that players can just be slotted in and perform at their WAR potential, and that nothing that goes wrong with a teammate or in a situation will ever affect them. I find that odd.
Nick Franklin is a far better hitter than Brendan Ryan. That's not even a debate. You WILL get a better offensive player next year (and the year after, and the one after that) by playing Nick Franklin. He also gets the handedness-bonus of being a lefty in a league that's 70% RHP.
But Ryan has been able to hit a lil bit in the past. He's a .290/.340/.390 minor league hitter, and a .245/.305/.325 major league one. That's the problem for me with his career-high in walks this year - I expect regression, so that even if his average comes up from Mendoza to Mendoza+30 that his OBP will drop and it basically nets out to nothing gained.
Yes, Ryan nets you some large figure of runs saved, but does he help destroy the offense? Did other guys try to do too much knowing that Brendan Ryan and Miguel Olivo were up after them and it was gonna be the end of the inning? Do opposing pitchers get a break knowing they were facing a coupla pitchers at the back end of our lineup, and therefore were able to better apply themselves to the decent hitters we did have?
Bad offense cascades, and defensive metrics are... inconsistent. As Jeff said, how do you save 25 more runs year to year? That would be like OPS+ numbers of "80, 150, 80." In a hitter, I would think roids or extreme luck. As a defender, I just see poorly measured impact.
The Tigers moved a 1B to third base, let him take a grounder off the face and laughed it off. "We'll be fine, and we need the bat." They've done pretty well this year by punting defense. We tried to put together an all-defensive team a few years ago and set a record for offensive futility as well as piling up 100 losses. Felix has lost enough games 1-0. You can stay in a game with defense, but you can't win with it.
It's not 100% Ryan or 100% Franklin. If you don't like Franklin's defense, then let Ryan show him a few things while he's still here and be the defensive glove in the 9th. If you don't like Ryan's offense, then let Franklin get 300 ABs in which he can't POSSIBLY do worse than Brendan has. You'll have Ryan's glove this year, and you can pair it with Franklin's bat to get some semblance of a useful Frankenstein player on BOTH sides of the ball.
Maybe Brendan Ryan is about to go .270/.350/.380 at the plate, and with his defense that's enough to make him an impactful player. Vizquel-like. Or maybe he'll go the way of Pokey Reese - it's not like Ryan is the picture of health like Vizquel always was and he could crater (further) at the plate at any time.
A cratering Pokey Reese can sink your season. Putting all our eggs in the "I'm sure Brendan will be healthy, better at the plate, AND just as good in the field" basket doesn't seem wise to me.
I don't know that Franklin IS our SS of the future, or even a SS period. He plays a wonderful second base. I don't know that he'll ever hit LHP the way we'd like, especially if we keep letting him switch-hit with that lifeless RH swing. But there are things Franklin can definitely do, for this 2013 team, that would help us.
Maybe we trade him and put our faith in Ryan, and later in Miller. I'm not against that option. But I'm also not against a platoon that would give us a snowball's chance when the SS is batting in late innings.
~G

Jeter (~2050 PAs) vs Franklin (~1600 PAs) in the minors:
Jeter: .309/.386/.418/.804
Franklin: .283/.351/.458/.809
Franklin has thump. He's also a .900 OPS bat against righties.
Jeter: .934 fielding %, 15.2 chances/error
Franklin: .943 fielding % (as SS), 17.4 chances/error
Just for conversation's sake. Who wants to cough up Jeter because Rey Sanchez is playing SS so we can't find a place for him?
~G

It's Franklin vs. Miller. Again, I agree that Franklin is an immediate upgrade over Ryan with the stick and that he's probably the better overall player, at least when he hits his peak. But just as it would be silly to pencil in Ryan for 2.5 WAR next year, it would be silly to pencil in Franklin as a success in the bigs in his first year. The fact of the matter is that Ryan and Franklin are apples and oranges, and we can't really project either of them. What projections we do have suggest that unless Franklin immediately produces like Seager he likely won't be a large upgrade next year. I think that it's fairly optimistic to project Franklin as a top 10 shortstop for 2013, but that's what he would need to be in order to be a significant upgrade over Ryan and whatever utility infielder we add (e.g. S. Rodriguez, M. Izturis, M. Aviles).
But next year is only one year. For the vast majority of Franklin's time with the Mariners, he'd be compared with Brad Miller, our other SS prospect who most scouts seem to like almost as much. It's much easier to compare Franklin to Miller, since they're both prospects and you're guessing the chance of a bust for both as opposed to the chance of a bust (Franklin) vs. the chance of a slump (Ryan). Miller will be ready in 2014 barring freak accident or injury. Considering what you might get back for Franklin in a trade, is it worth him to keep him knowing that optimistically he's worth 1 win over Ryan, and later whatever upgrade he is over Miller, every year for the next six years? I don't like the platoon idea very much either. Why stop giving Franklin regular playing time before he's even really dominated AAA?
By the way, the idea that Fangraph and B-Ref are using flawed metrics because a light-hitting shortstop with an average glove would get credit for 0 wins as opposed to negative wins seems goofy to me. True, Fangraphs says that light-hitting shortstops with average gloves are worth zero wins. The best example of this is Stephen Drew, who last year put up a full-season wRC+ of 79 (barely above Ryan's career number of 75) with a below average glove and landed exactly 0.0 WAR. But you have to remember the baseline for the WAR stat, that is to say a generic AAA callup. Ryan's 2-3 wins aren't wins above league average, they're wins above an AAA lifer, and an AAA lifer if called up likely wouldn't hit any better than Ryan has. Right? I wouldn't make the argument that Ryan's glove is vastly overvalued. Playing major league shortstop even league average is really hard, and Ryan is just an insane defender. It's not like his defensive numbers have really fluctuated wildly from bad to good, either; he goes from "great" to "stellar". A better OPS+ comp would be 150, 200, 150.
I'm not saying we put all of our faith in Ryan for next year. In fact, I really want the Mariners to get a legitimate utility infielder as a backup to Ackley or Ryan continuing to fail to hit. Meaning Sean Rodriguez, Maicer Izturis, or Mike Aviles, essentially. But I don't think you need to rush and take playing time away from a hot prospect just for a marginal upgrade over an external utility infielder, and I don't think Franklin is a big enough upgrade over our other SS to make it worth not trading him.

Not me! I'm not playing Sanchez!
And you cemented the Jeter/Franklin comparison. I appreciate it.
moe

Franklin holding his own in AAA at 21 demonstrates he's a top-flight prospect, but it doesn't indicate he'd produce in the majors at 22.
Two huge red flags:
The club chose not to groom him to be an everyday SS at AAA.  (Recall they did groom Seager to be a 3b at Tacoma; they are grooming Miller to be an everyday SS.  These choices matter.)
He just has no pop as a RH hitter.  He's not an automatic out (that's progress), but the .284 SLG as a RH hitter just drains all the life out of his numbers.
I don't trust the splits at every level, but I assume they're pretty accurate for the upper levels (plus, they confirm what the eyewitnesses say):
LH: 20% LD, 31% GB, 2.8% HR rate
RH: 10% LD, 52% GB, 0% HR rate
And, as 13 points out, if you give him another year in AAA to address these issues, then Miller will catch him. Miller is actually older.  Miller slugged .434 against LH pitching, or .415 if you only count Jackson (he slugged .548 vs. RHP, .520 at Jackson).
So if you conclude Franklin's value is mostly as a guy who can play 2b with an awesome LH bat ... well, you got Dustin Ackley who's already supposed to be that guy.

Spec,
So the problem is that Franklin swing RH'ed 30% of the time, not that he isn't a MLB SS.
Which is why he should start in ST (or today in the AFL) swinging lefty against everybody. I think the M's really blew it this year by not making that switch. The guy rakes from the left side. He rakes as if he was a corner OF, too, not a SS.
What we have in Ryan is probably one year, that's it. Let's take 70% of that year to find out just how much mash Franklin's bat has. The research doesn't cost anything and if we find ourselves in a WC race and Franklin can't cut it, then we just turn it back over to Ryan.
Runs are indisputable. We need runs. Franklin may very well add a bunch.
Let's find out.
moe

I think this was well covered last off season, but if Franklin has a lame right-handed swing, and a world beating left handed swing, and the lefty swing is the one that beat Prince Fielder's high A home run record, and the one that has immediately dominated every level of baseball, then it follows that we might as well throw away Franklin's righthanded swing stats as a failed coaching experiment rather than take it as any legitimate sign of weakness.
Criticizing Franklin's righthanded swing is similar to criticizing Felix's left handed pitching. Only one of Felix's arms are worth at least $17 million dollars.
Could we just concede that Franklin isn't really a switch hitter?
Edited to Add: What Moe said.

but one might be suited for a speedway and one for a twisty road course.
I'm not saying Franklin's not an everyday MLB shortstop, I'm saying the team's usage patterns indicate that they don't view him as an everyday SS.
And he's going to have a platoon split whether he hits LHP righty or lefty.  Apparently, he's more comfortable hitting RH, but he's not very good at it. Will they have him learn to hit LH-on-LH while in the majors? I don't think so, but I guess it's possible.
In other words, both Franklin and Miller are great.  But it seems to me that Miller is looking like a better fit, given all the options we have at 2b and Franklin's need for more seasoning to address his vs.-LHP issue.
Not anti-Franklin at all, but I conclude he may be the most sensible trade piece, given the totality of the situation.  That's all.

Now, I was a doubter of Miller at SS from day one, and his time in the Cal League didn't really get me off of that position, but the Ms are DEFINITELY trying to keep him there. And if he can stay, that's great. He's definitely been impressing at the plate, especially with his eye, but I thought he'd have to move off of short and so did most people evaluating him for the draft, or else he'd have gone higher. He also had very average power in his swing (he had Craig Counsell's swing in college) and he's been changing some of the tenets of that swing in the minors to find some. Franklin's lefty swing still looks better, but looks aren't everything.
And for defense, I was talking about Guti being an all-world defender and then falling off to nothing with the OPS+ comp. I used Rey Sanchez as a Ryan comp earlier because Rey had 3 years in a row at 3.3, 2 and 3.2 WAR per B-Ref, and then fell to RLP level. Rey was still worth 18 WAR over his career though, even as he hit .270/.310/.335 career. But Ryan is only under club control for one more year.
If Franklin is not The Man to follow him, then we'd better figure that out soon. If Miller - who, btw, has been just as bad in the field as Franklin and might not have his power when not in the Cal League - is the future then we can absolutely trade Franklin. Of course, if Franklin turns into Stephen Drew and Miller turns into Vinnie Catricala we're gonna look pretty stupid, since the next SS in the system is Gabe Franca down in ROOKIE ball, or Chris Taylor at Low-A. Miller's BABIP was .390 last year, and .420 against righties. He played in one of the most friendly offensive parks in all of baseball. Just things to keep in mind.
And the only point in trading Franklin is if he has full value to someone else. If somebody else doesn't like his RH swing or his SS defense, and they're only trading for a platoon 2B, then is that something we really NEED to trade right now?
Like I've said before, I expect Franklin to be traded if he helps get us whatever MOTO bat we need to acquire in trade. Miller is some part of Franklin (whether it's 90% or 110%) and so losing what Franklin would or could provide isn't a death blow to the system.
But if Franklin stays, I don't want to see him relegated to AAA until the end of July (thanks to the new Super Two rules). Franklin and Zunino are two players who could absolutely break in at the MLB level from day one, or the beginning of May if we decide we want to keep another year of club control.
The best hitter in the MWL in 2010 was Mike Trout. Nick Franklin was top-5 based on age and performance. I posted a list of all the guys over the last several years who had posted a .800+ OPS in a full MWL season as teenagers and it was a who's who of prospects. It's a hard thing to do in a pitcher's league.
Maybe Nick won't live up to that, but he certainly believes he will. If we trade Franklin, I hope we get full value and the missing piece to our offense. Especially since Zunino pulling a Posey or Franklin pulling a Tulo could be all the fix we need.
~G

Miller is not the prospect that Franklin is, and there are indeed several questions about his performance going forward. He's a decent fallback option in the event that Franklin is indeed traded, but I don't think he's 100% of Franklin, especially when you look at age-arc results. Obviously you don't trade Franklin for a pithy return or "just to trade him", and you don't trade him if you're not getting back the bat you want to get back. But of the top 5, I think Franklin and one of Cerberus are tradeable (whereas the other three are fairly untouchable). My understanding of your post is that this is your viewpoint, too.

... you know I have huge respect for your views.
1. Why do we need to figure out soon if Franklin is The Man?  He's 21 and has all of 64 games at AAA.  His production is awesome, but it's all against RHP. How can we expect any kind of meaningful production vs.LHP in the majors when he didn't produce any at AA?  Does putting him the majors and only hitting him vs. RHP help any? (I mean, OK, it helps the team produce offense, but does it help Franklin get better?)
2. Miller's numbers are comparable to Seager's -- Cal League and Jackson.  I love the idea of a Seager, except at SS, even if his glove is less-than-ideal.
3.  I love the idea of Franklin's bat at SS, too, it's just a different breed of cat, and the team keeps acting like he's a 2b.
4. Taylor could move up really fast.
5. I may be the only one, but I haven't given up on Vinnie.  He's my new Saunders. :-)
 

You don't sharpen your views on a subject by only talking with people who agree with everything you say. :)
1) Because the subject is trading Franklin, and because Miller is half-a-season or so behind where Franklin is. Ryan is also only under club control for a year. If we keep Franklin then we have to determine where he'll play. If he's not a SS, then we have to move Ackley (or Seager, I guess) to get him any significant playing time. We also damage his value by allowing him to be a 2B or 3B instead of a SS in trade valuation. Leaving Franklin in AAA for the first 3 months of the year, minimum,, damages our offense (since Ryan is up there hacking away) and if he's playing 2B it hurts his trade value too. Not a ton, but it does hurt.
Franklin is an asset about to time out if we're not careful, in a Triunfel kind of way. Nick can hit LH and play second base very well. He doesn't defend as well at short and he can't hit from the RH side much at all. The longer he stays in the minors while we let a no-hit SS get 500 PAs with a .550 OPS, the more other teams will believe Franklin is over-valued, and cannot be a full-time player or SS. After all, if he could, and with our dire need, we'd surely promote him. It's a dicey game. Prospect value falls quickly.
I think Franklin can play SS, and I think he can be a good full-time player. Would I keep a righty utility/glove guy? Absolutely. Which is why he dovetails very well with Ryan. But since we need more offense from the position, if we're not gonna let Franklin take a few hacks at getting us that offense now and we're gonna let Brad Miller catch up like Franklin himself caught and passed Triunfel, then it will kill Franklin's value (or lock him in behind Ackley and next to Romero and Marder, which has a similar effect) and waste the point of not trading him this year. We also lose several months of his contributions on the big club.
2) I've become a fan of Miller's, both for his modified swing and his improving D. He's a really hard worker, and as his college conference's POY he's got leadership and production capabilities. This coming year is a big one for him.
3) Franklin might BE a 2B, but we could use him as a SS in 300 or whatever ABs without killing ourselves. And for several years Jeter was a 2B too, just playing out of position. Miguel Cabrera is a 1B too, but he survived 3B and 0won a pennant for the Tigers. Ryan's OPS+ was 61 this year. If Ryan/Franklin could pull that up to 81, it would be a HUGE help. More than that would be manna from heaven, and it's entirely possible that Nick could give us much more, while Ryan prevents us from giving much of it back with his glove.
4) Taylor faceplanted in A-ball in his cup-o-coffee, and might repeat. I don't plan on defense-first shortstops blazing their way up the ladder, even if his offense was impressive in a few short-season at-bats. In his case, blazing his way = 3 years.
5) I love Vinnie, but he has trouble at 3B, where he'd have to displace Seager anyway - something that's looking more and more unlikely. As a tweener, RH 1B/3B who might be pressed into OF duty, Vinnie's gonna need a BIG season to get back on the map in a crowded Ms minors. He's ours for several more years. We'll get a chance to see if he can do it.
~G

Of our high-value position players, Franklin is the one whose upside is most easily replaced by a player already inside our org at the same position.
And I expect one of the Big Three to go, probably Paxton, which will hurt because he's my favorite.
We'd just better not trade them for a 105 OPS+ corner OF, that's all I'm sayin', because a Franklin/Paxton trade could make Varitek/Lowe comparisons in a couple years.
~G

Oops.
Choo still doesn't hit them well, btw: career he's got a .915 OPS against righties and a .695 OPS against lefties. Doesn't stop him from being an impact player. The Ms figured his corner production wouldn't be that impressive, and we still had Jones/ Snelling/ Bohn in the OF all in AAA, with Balentien in AA. That's plenty of depth.
Try to make sure you're not giving up the best player in the deal, that's all I ask. :)
Like you said (and illustrated) not hitting RHP is not a death knell for a lefty hitter by ANY means, and Miller's no lock to stay at SS which means our positional depth there might not be what we'd desire, especially since it's a position of need for us.
I think Franklin will be pretty special, and have since draft day. Franklin himself can't wait to start his HOF journey - and yes, he's said that's his goal. Not to make the bigs, or an All-Star team. He wants to have a Jeter-esque career.
I'm not betting against his specialness, whether he stays or goes.
~G

Such a trade is possible, M.
Seager is an established 50+ xbase hit guy. He may be a 25 homer bat next year. He certainly can play well at 2B.
But if you trade he and Paxton, you better be getting 140+ of OPS+. You're giving up an established tru MLB-quality bat, one who plays two positions AND a pitching prostpect on a rocket. In fact, he would have to be a relative bargain of a 140+ bat, I think. Would you trade Gordon for those two guys if you were KC? I would, in a heartbeat.
Seager might be a 120 bat. Add a maybe ace, and you've got a lot. I would trade Gordon for that.
I'm not sure I would trade that for Gordon....but it would be close. Liddi killed A+ as a 20 yea old, Seager at 22. If Liddi is a 100+ bat, in a low BA, mashing way, then adding Gordon in such a swap comes close to making sense.
Much to think about in that kind of swap.
moe

If I recall, he played 3rd in college, so the o my way he's out of post ion is by bias. At 3rd Base last season, effectively his rookie season, he was the 8th best in the game by fangraph's WAR. More is right that with the fences in next season, he may just be a 120 OPS+ bat. If you move Seager, you had best be absolutely sure whoever you get back will pay off.

The infields at A+ are, as I recall, of awful quality and would indeed lead shortstops to make more errors. It doesn't matter what we think of Franklin's defense, it matters what Z thinks of Franklin's defense, and judging by the amount of time he's been seeing at 2B in the high minors it appears Z doesn't think very highly of it.