Fixing Maikel Franco

Way back in January and February, across the exhibition season in March, and upon the beginning of the 2016 year in April, there were some pretty standard predictions that accompanied the Philadelphia Phillies across that period of time. Everyone knew the Phillies were going to be interesting, but likely among Major League Baseball’s worst teams. And there was also a pretty steady movement behind Maikel Franco as a prime breakout candidate at the hot corner. As the calendar turns to June, though, neither of those predictions have been entirely correct. Not only have the Phillies been quite watchable through these first two months of the year, Franco hasn’t been the surefire breakout player that he was expected to be.

Heading into June, Franco ranks all the way down at no. 24 among third basemen in WAR, with a figure of just 0.1, the second lowest among qualifying players at the position. His Off rating comes in at -3.8, and there aren’t a whole lot of numbers that appear favorable for him at this point. He’s reaching base at a clip of under .300, with a slash line that looks like .253/.299/.430/.729. Coming off of a season in which he saw 335 plate appearances, each of those numbers is down quite a bit.

And that trend of numbers declining has been part of the Maikel Franco experience, really across the board. While he hasn’t experienced a particularly dramatic decline in any regard, there’s been a steady decrease in his production in a number of respects. His wRC+, at 89, currently paints him as a slightly below average player and is down from a very solid 128 mark from last year. His consistency in hitting for extra bases has dropped significantly, from a strong .217 ISO in 2015 to a mark of just .177 this year. Additionally, he’s walking slightly less (7.8% last year to 6.4% in 2016) and striking out slightly more (15.5% to 16.7%).

In relation to Franco’s contact trends, there may also be some cause for concern. He’s making about three percent less hard contact from last year’s mark, going from 28.5% to 25.6%. As such, his soft contact is up a touch, with a 24.4% mark that’s up about two percent from last year. The good news is this:

Screenshot (11)

In terms of Franco’s actual contact trends, there hasn’t been a significant change. His linedrive rate is within 0.3% of his mark from last year, while his groundball and flyball rates are within a percentage point of each other. Based off of that alone, it’s hard to paint his slow start to the season as a mechanical issue.

With that in mind, then, exactly to what do we attribute Maikel Franco’s slow start to the 2016 season? More importantly, is there a way to fix exactly what is plaguing him at this point in the season?

To an extent, Franco certainly has been a victim of bad luck. Franco has registered a BABIP of just .264 to this point, a figure which ranks 145th among qualifying position players. A slight decline in his hard contact could be attributed to that, as well as a relatively high pull percentage (45.5% mark ranks eighth among qualifying 3B). While that high pull rate hasn’t resulted in him being shifted too often, he does have over 40 plate appearances that have featured a shift.

Another source of his frustration could certainly be related to his approach. In terms of what types of pitches Franco is seeing this year, it’s been a pretty constant distribution. Based off of the linked graph on Brooks, he’s still seeing hard stuff, breaking, and offspeed at nearly an identical rate to that of last year. However, while that trend hasn’t changed, Franco’s penchant for swinging certainly has. His overall Swing% is up a full five percent, going from 48.0% in 2015 to 53.0% in 2016. And his swing rates for individual pitch types looks like this:

Brooksbaseball-Chart (3)

With the steep increase in hacks at breaking and offspeed, one would imagine that he’d experience a subsequent increase in his Swing% on pitches outside of the strike zone. This hasn’t necessarily been the case, as the increase to 33.7% on pitches outside the strike zone is less than one percentage point. At the same time, though, his actual contact on such pitches has decreased by about five percent, and his swinging strike rate is up to 13.3%, up from 11.1% last season. That same swing trend could certainly lend itself to the fact that he’s making less hard contact. If we were truly looking for one thing that Franco might need to rectify in order to break out of this season-long slump and trend more toward that breakout that was expected of him, it could certainly start with his approach.

When looking at Maikel Franco, though, it’s also important to do so with an appropriate lens. Should we be looking at him as a guy with good on-base skills, in addition to his ability to hit for extra bases in order to determine his value? Not necessarily. His minor league numbers and short time in the bigs suggest that he’s not big on walking, so it’s hard to be too critical of him that regard. In minor league seasons in which he eclipsed his total number of plate appearances from last year, he failed to get anywhere near that .343 OBP from last year, so perhaps that was something of an outlier. Which begs the question, then, does Maikel Franco even need to be fixed? If we’re looking at him as an aggressive hitter who provides steady power out of the hot corner, then should we be expecting those on-base skills to shine on through, whether in a fantasy medium or otherwise? Not necessarily. At the same time, where we can label him a disappointment is in relation to that power, where his ISO remains lower than expected.

And at the same time, even if he isn’t walking a ton, Maikel Franco should be able to find his way on base significantly more than what he’s managing to achieve right now. Some of that is related to “luck”, as his BABIP finds itself in an absolutely miserable place. Some of that is swinging at better pitches in order to make harder contact, which should help to develop some sort of correction in that regard. But as for Maikel Franco being in need of “fixing”, it’s difficult to word that in that fashion and rationalize it effectively. He doesn’t necessarily need to be fixed, but he could stand to take a step back and re-evaluate his approach. Regardless of the perspective in which we’re looking at Maikel Franco, the solution that should bring about an uptick in his ability to reach base and his ability to hit for power could certainly be one and the same: approach, approach, approach.

Then, maybe the rest will take care of itself.





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Emcee Peepantsmember
7 years ago

As a Phillies fan this is hard to say, but he reminds me a lot of Pedro Feliz at the plate, who while solid with the Giants and decent with the Phillies, was not a franchise cornerstone that many hoped Franco would be. Feliz’s career line of .250/.288/.410 .160 ISO is pretty darn close to Franco’s .247/.293/.421 .174 ISO so far this year.