Wow, Spec!
Terrific stuff.
For much of last year I advocated that the M's just make Franklin give up on his RH AB's. His lefty swing is so nice, he should just stick with that. Worked for Williams, Jackson and Carew, didn't it? :)
Would you agree with such?
And, as it appears that we are on the verge of trading Franklin, I'm now thinking that we go "all-in" with that trade and swap BOTH Franklin and Ackley (or attempt to) for the RH basher (named Stanton) we would like to have.
I really like Franklin. If he's going to get traded, let's think big.
moe

But Spec makes a compelling case against his status as an elite prospect. Nicky has lots of pop for a middle infielder but his high K rate saps him of a lot of value, possibly enough to stunt his growth making him much less valuable than I hope.
Re: Moe
He's never faced batters LHP as a LH batters. I wouldn't think he's about to improve his hitting by learning how to do something completely different at the big league level.

I post infrequently, but I've been a regular for almost a decade and I think my reputation is positive in these parts. It's hard to spark a conversation when it can take up to 12 hours for your comments to appear and by then the soccer ball has been kicked to a completely different part of the field.