Nick Franklin's 2010 season was praised all around -- hey, nice job there kid, we'll keep an eye on yer -- but it was SSI fans who rang the town bell. 

Franklin's season wasn't merely a pleasant surprise; it was the kind of season that nailed him as one of the best prospects in baseball.  "One of the top 20 hitting prospects in the minors, EASILY," quoth one of them, Taro or G-Money I think it was. 

Dr. D flung himself onto the pig pile, demonstrating that Franklin has an Ichiro-, Griffey-, Hamilton-class swing from the left side.

G-Money also recognized that the intersection of [Midwest League] and [Teenager] and [20 Home Runs] raised the possibility of an All-Star ML career for Franklin.  Gordon now links us up to Fangraphs' Bryan Smith, who (no doubt having a better database) kicks the ball further down the field as to G-Money's MWL comps.

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=== Welcome To the League, Boy ===

Notes Smith,

I have written before about how difficult a hitting environment the Midwest League is, particularly for teenagers who are facing a great number of college players. And Franklin’s season stands out historically in that regard.

Smith's remark touches on the fact that you can't always completely "capture" a context by simply averaging out numbers.  Big kudos to Smith for intuiting the fact that the MWL simply isn't a confidence-inspiring league for a teenager fresh out of high school.  You've got a baby, with a baby's body, just learning to handle a wood bat in a "hardened" men's league.

No wonder that only Prince Fielder and Wily Mo Pena hit more HR's than Franklin, as teenagers, in this decade's MWL.

It takes a particular kind of athlete to sneer at players three levels above him.  Ken Griffey Jr. wasn't intimidated even by major leaguers at age 18-19.  Judging by Franklin's money debut in the high-minors AA playoffs, neither is he. 

If I remember right, that's what Griffey did in his debut in the AL:  doubled and walked off Dave Stewart.  Griffey wasn't a great AL hitter yet, but he was taking the fight to the big boys from day one.

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The most that you can say about any low-minors prospect, even if he hits 60 home runs, is that he has about a 30% chance of being an impact player in the bigs.  But Smith's backdrop points out that Franklin's season was even more thunderous than SSI readers thought it was.

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Another side benefit of the Fangraphs.com article is that the entire M's blog-o-sphere will now feel free to celebrate Franklin.  He's been FDA-approved, so the potential accusations of homerism are lifted and M's fans can settle in to enjoy the M's three franchise prospects.

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=== Switch-Hitting LEFT Out, Dept. ===

Smith wth the most pleasant bit of 'reporting' I've heard in a month:

Franklin just hit the ground running and never looked back. Also, consider that the switch-hitter hit just .174/.221/.273 with two home runs from the right side, and the team is contemplating whether to give up his switch-hitting experiment.

It's a no-brainer.  In this series of articles, we specified the reasons that Franklin has a Josh Hamilton swing from the left side -- and has absolutely none of the magic from the right side.

I'm sure that Hamilton, or Ichiro, or Griffey, could have hit okay from the right side too.  Does that mean you were going to do anything whatsoever to get n the way of that magical stroke they had lefty?

I don't care if Hamilton, or Griffey, or Teddy Ballgame could have hit 260/330/420 swinging righty -- and don't care if they did poorly LH-on-LH.  If Franklin hit 200/300/350 lefty, I'd still want him to just swing lefty.  (He won't hit that.)

It would be one thing if Franklin had the same swing that mortals have.  But from the left side, he's got genius, and they need to go with that.

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Good stuff,

Jeff