Maikel Franco and Inflated Expectations

Remember when Maikel Franco led all hitters in home runs during this past spring training? His nine were two more than the next highest total hit by Robinson Cano and J.D. Martinez. Not surprisingly, this resulted in the Franco hype train filling up quickly, and his draft cost surging higher. While I don’t know what his ADP began draft season at or where it ended just before the season started, I do remember he went for an absurd price in my local auction league. Of course, he went to our resident Phillies fan, but his cost was no doubt inflated by his spring performance. Naturally, he disappointed, as he finished just 18th among third basemen in value, earning a mere $6.90.

Though perhaps he was only a disappointment to fantasy owners who simply had to acquire shares after witnessing Franco’s spring heroics. Because at the risk of tooting my own horn, my own Pod Projection was pretty darn close to where he ended up. So he certainly didn’t disappoint me. While a sample size of one is meaningless, this is just one of a multitude of examples of why spring stats need to be taken with a grain of salt. At most, maybe you bump a guy up a buck just for that small possibility the spring is the first evidence of real change, but that’s it.

So what happened here, aside from Franco simply suffering from expectations that reached greater heights than they should have?

His HR/FB rate was just below his 2015 mark and his FB% was a smidge above. So from a home run power perspective, he was essentially the same player. Let’s check the Statcast data:

His exit velocity jumped nearly four miles per hour, which is significant, but it just moved him from the bottom half of the league to the top half. He still wasn’t all that great, ranking 151st among 413 hitters in my data set. His Brls/BBE rate was relatively unchanged and he ranked similarly in each year. For a hitter considered to possess plus power, these are rather pedestrian numbers. It’s rather surprising that he has still managed to post mid-teen HR/FB rates given the mediocre Statcast metrics. While anything is possible for a young player, nothing suggests a major power breakout next year, but rather more of the same.

The intriguing thing about Franco is that for a power hitter, he doesn’t strike out a whole lot. It’s not because he makes such great contact — his SwStk% is actually above the league average — it’s that he swings so darn much! He ranked 21st in Swing% among 146 qualified hitters, which helps when you don’t own strong contact skills. Keep swinging and eventually you’ll put the ball in play. So that explains the good strikeout rate, despite the high SwStk%. He has always posted good strikeout rates in the minors and since it has been paired with poor walk rates, this has seemingly always been his approach.

Perhaps the biggest issue Franco is struggling with is pop-ups. His 17.1% IFFB% was fifth worst in baseball, which combined with his inability to go the opposite way, makes it difficult for him to post an acceptable BABIP. A .271 mark hampered his batting average and fantasy value this year and until he gets those pop-ups under control, we can’t expect much of a dead cat bounce. He also wasn’t a big BABIP guy in the minors, so again, this seems to just be who he has been and still currently is.

This is a player with clear, identifiable flaws in his offensive game. But he also possesses some positive skills that establish a solid foundation to build from. A mid-teens strikeout rate, regardless of how he got there, is rare for a power hitter and gives him more upside solely due to the additional balls he puts into play. Clearly, he’ll be far cheaper in 2017 than he was in 2016, so could make for a profitable investment this time around. Let’s just remember not to freak out and bid him up if he hits another nine spring training home runs!