Q.  How tough were the pitchers, really?

A.  On a visceral level, you've got to think of Franklin as being a high school player taking on major leaguers.

The biggest jump in baseball, by a long ways, is the one between A+ and AA baseball.  Class A+ baseball is the low minors, but AA baseball can and does feature pitchers who would do fine in the American League.

We remember Mark Langston coming straight up from AA and being one of the best pitchers in the major leagues from his very first start -- in other words, when AA baseball had Langston in it, it had an MLB All-Star in the league.   You remember Mark Lowe jumping from AA.  A bunch of others.  Happens all the time.

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Against the Smokies, you're talking about the best AA pitchers, and at the tops of their games.  A tough weekend against them does not at all imply that the kid couldn't hit April AA pitching against a more mixed group.

In contrast to the semi-fringe-ML pitching the Smokies had going, Nick Franklin is literally teenaged and was playing high school baseball just very recently.  Only the Griffey types are usually even asked to try.

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Q.  By the way, how does a 19-year-old (like Junior) hit ML-type pitching, with located curve balls and precision fastballs and deception and all that stuff?

A.  Because he's super quick to the ball, much quicker than other pro hitters.

Those youngsters have snake-tongue bats, and they just see ball, hit ball, and kind of overcome the confusion that way.

The third game, it looks like maybe Franklin got away from see ball - hit ball and started trying to think with Muschko?  If so, nada.  The pitch recognition can't possibly be there.

Junior didn't know what pitchers were throwing in 1989.  For three years, he just saw ball and hit ball.  If Franklin were to play AA baseball, we'd assume that's what he'd have to do too.  Of course, you don't get 40 homers when you're fighting a rearguard action.

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This is part of the reason that Jose Lopez was so awesome at age 20 in the PCL:  he was hitting like a 19-year-old Junior, just reacting to the ball and taking advantage of his incredible reflexes. ... unfortunately, Jose has so far chosen not to adapt his game to take advantage of his experience.  He should be using his pitch recognition now to load up on more balls.

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Q.  So, at 19, Franklin had a historic Midwest League season.  Then you saw what he did in three elite AA games.  Would SSI's guess be that he could start in AA next year?

A.  The three AA games were a push to me.  If anything, I'd say he held his own fine in those three games.

There's nothing weird about a very talented 20-year-old taking on AA baseball.  Jose Lopez slugged .505 even in AAA at age 20.  But, of course, that was in part because of his minimalized plate approach.

But we've got to acknowledge that A+ baseball, at 20, is plenty fast-track enough.  Shin-Soo Choo, for example, played A+ at 20, AA at 21, and was a 120 OPS+ hitter in the American League at age 23.  That's way fast track.

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Objectively speaking, Franklin's ambitious hitting style would indicate that he's the type of hitter who could use a second year of pitch recognition in A+ before taking on the high-minors and fringe ML pitchers.

Franklin isn't a see-ball, hit-ball player.  ... of course, Junior chose to become one temporarily, when the situation demanded it.  Perhaps Franklin is that savvy.  If so, I'd say no problemo.

But, hey.  Maybe Franklin's really that talented anyway.  If he hit AA pitchers next year, with that swing, you'd really be talking about a monster.

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Cheers,

Dr D