Nick Franklin and the Bermuda Triangle
Can Franklin get lost at sea like so many other Ms prospects?
We’ve been here before.  In the summer of 2011, Dustin Ackley came up and was clubbing balls everywhere.  He and Kyle Seager were the new additions that were gonna take us places.  Well, mostly Ackley would take us places and Seager would ride his coat-tails.
 
Since then, it’s been a different story.  One player has grown into a central piece in the future contending years of the Mariners, and the other is Ackley.
 
But to see an interesting beginning…
Ackley, year 1: .273/ .348/ .417/ .766, .5 batting eye, 21% K rate
Seager, year 2: .259/ .316/ .423/ .738, .4 batting eye, 19% K rate
Franklin, year 1: .277/ .340/ .492/ .832, .4 batting eye, 23% K rate
 
You can easily see the extra power Nick carries so far, even over Seager's year 2 when he was a 35/20 man.  Franklin is pro-rating as a 30-30 rookie year over 162 games (which is an unfair extrapolation after 50, but let's have fun). He's had an incredible ability square balls up and drive them.  Seager now is amazing, to a point in his third year that he's able to off Franklin for the Best Hitter title, but only just. If Franklin's game grows like Seager's, he'll be unstoppable.
 
But will Franklin improve, as Seager has, or get exposed as Ackley was?  The future kind of depends on Franklin (and Miller) being more Seager like and staying off the Ackley-Smoak meandering path toward ML success. So first things first: how does Franklin's control of the zone look? Seager has mastered his more every year, while Ackley has gotten lost in his defenses and nearly drowned in his own moat.  Hopefully those bubbles we're seeing now is him breathing through a reed as he fights back to the surface. Here are all three hotzones, all from this year (and all lefty, so the batter's standing on the right side of the picture).
 
Dustin Ackley:
 
Yeah. See that gaping hole RIGHT in the center? The one that says, "Feel free to throw it down the heart of the plate, he's not looking there"? It hurts my soul.  
 
Every time Ackley takes a first-pitch strike down the pipe, and angel loses their wings. Not an LAAAA Angel... or maybe they do, and he's our secret weapon keeping the Angels near the cellar. If so it's one of the few services he's providing with the bat, other than a lot of angst. Doesn't hit down and in, or down and away. Ackley is fighting himself as much as he's fighting the pitchers, and needs to get his ducks in a row - unlike Seager.
 
Kyle Seager:
 
Last year, Seager had the ability to golf low pitches and dead-center ones, but like most lefties he struggled a bit with the high ones.  Not so this year, as you can see above.  He’s closed off everything but getting completely jammed or the low-and-away death that all hitters hate.  But if you miss… he’ll hurt you. Seager's ducks aren't just lined up, they're already stuffed and mounted. Miss a little over the plate and he'll destroy you.  Which is just the thing we need as Mariners fans. His simple-hinge mechanics are letting him take aim at pitches that Ackley fouls off with his longer one. I still think Ackley will come around - but it looks like Kyle will be the superior all-around hitter, because for Ackley, coming around is hitting singles the other way and getting enough high-ball counts to walk to first. Seager is significantly more than a potential on-base glover. And then there's Franklin.
 
Nick Franklin (lefty):
 
Nick is demolishing anything middle in, whether it's high or low, unless it's falling out of the zone by his ankles.  Right now he is benefitting from the idiom that you throw “little guys” hard stuff inside because they can’t turn it, and you don’t want “pesky” guys to slap hits the other way.  Nick is not a pesky guy, he’s a hundred and seventy pounds of monster.  Yes, I know his player sheet says he weighs 195.  You know who else is “195?” Jeff Bagwell.  Stand them next to each other, tell me who’s bigger.  I’m 205.  I’ve seen Nick play in person.  He is not 10 pounds lighter than me.  He’s also not 6’1 (I’m 6’ even and I was looking him in the eyes with his spikes on).  Maybe he was slouched, and not having a camera on him took 10 pounds off or something, but Nick is 5’11 to 6 feet tall, and maaaaaybe a buck seventy five. Maybe. 
 
If you want to really know, ask why his coaches keep referring to him as “a little guy.” At 195 pounds he would not a little guy at 2B.  But his teammates and coaches know he’s a lightweight punching WELL above his weight class and keep speaking to their startlement at it.  
 
How does he do it?  Well, that's a question, isn't it...
 
Blog: 

Comments

1

Love everything you said, moe.  When Doctor Elliott came around here, he talked about how many great rotational athletes he was gonna make for us with his program.  I dunno how much credit to give him for our guys, but we do suddenly have more good hitters than at any time I can remember in Mariners farm history.
Picking the right guys to teach, the ones who ARE naturals and who have great baseball skills but maybe aren't harnessing every bit of their potential is a pretty important piece. We keep drafting baseball rats for just that reason. So far Franklin has broken at 36 year home-run record as a teen, linked up with some all time greats when it comes to early middle-infield power, and has got to be the lead horse in the ROY chase.
Not bad.  This is why when I talk about 5-tool players it tends to be in a negative sense, because the ability to square up a ball, the hand-eye to do the hardest thing in sports isn't counted as one of those tools.  They SAY it is, but it's the most discounted. If you have power in BP, speed out running the bases, a cannon for an arm and a good glove then actually HITTING the little white thing coming in at 95 miles an hour is assumed to be a teachable skill somehow.
I think that's hubris, and that's why the greatest thing a hitting coach can do for a player is get them to hit the ball their own way. I like golf vs. baseball analogies, and to some extent I agree that your natural swing is your swing, but nobody's moving the golf ball around while you're trying to hit it.  A golf swing requires a repeatable motion more than anything, to always make contact with the ball the same way. Straight when you need it straight, hook when you want it to hook, but not changing from a straight to a hook shot halfway through.
A baseball swing has to be both repeatable and dynamic rather than static. IMO it's the most important of the tools (not the ability to hit for average as the tool is normally referred to, but rather the ability to square up the ball at multiple locations and speeds) and luckily for us several of our young players seem to have it.
~G

2

He does it the old fashioned way: He's a terrific athlete.
The modern fan has lost some concept on what, back in the day, was "the great athlete."
From the 1920's through the 1960's, the great athlete was the best player on the baseball field. We've grown accustomed to the idea that NBA #2/3-types and fast-twitch WR's or CB's are the definition of athletic greatness, but in may ways they are the definition of athletic freakishness.
Back in the day, your Franklin-esque players (Seager-esque, too) were the halfback (or QB who threw 15 times a game) and safety on the HS football team, scored on the give and go in basketball and had learned all about Bill James in baseball, long before there was a Bill James. They understood intuitively that baseball gravy was the flyball to your pull field. They got thrown lots of lousy stuff in Pony League, Legion and HS ball (or were walked intentionally quite often), so they learned to recognize and cream the mistake. And they had the hands and eyes to get it done.
They were Roger Maris-types. Legends in the county and known over 1/2 the state. Didn't I read someplace that almost all of his 61 were to the pull field?
In Maris' day, baseball was the All-American game. Almost all great athletes were drawn to it.
Those guys weren't, BTW, video-taped and bungee-corded and baseball-camped and computer generated. They were naturals: Athletes who were the definition of all-around. Somebody around here has written about Stanford University players, their inability to succeed in the Majors and the "hit-it-the-other-way" scripture and doctrine they get taught. They would ruin Roger Maris. Mickey Mantle, too.
We've lost that "all-around" definition of "great athlete" or lost the ability to believe in it's ability to succeed at the MLB level. In many ways we seek the freak, even in baseball, and miss on the Franklin/Seager guys. There's much to be said in a guy like Z who not only drafts them but moves them up quickly, not discounting their naturalness and trusting it's ability to play at this level and trusting in their ability to recognize the pitch they can hammer to the pull field and the hands to get the barrel on it.
Hitting a baseball is the most innate athletic skill out there, and I'm just talking about getting solid wood on the ball. Recognizing your pitch and getting it in the air to the pull field is even more demanding. Trust the guys who can do it, pulling in the hands or staying back, as needed and still not flat-out hack at everything else.
We've got a couple.
BTW, this is worth pondering. How much is the Pony League/Babe Ruth/Legion/HS/College return to wood bats and limited flight metal/composite ones going to change the way we evaluate hitters? More and more, I'm willing to bet that the critical scouting factor will be squared-up fly balls to the pull field.
The modern golf swing has changed because of the big-headed, super-charged drivers (and the low-spin ball that goes with it).
I have no doubt that springy aluminum bats did the same thing to baseball. The opposite field power alley was a HR path with that bat.
I wonder how many taters Hank Aaron hit to the right of the CF? Some, but not tons.
Franklin is a terrific athlete. All-County and All-State on the baseball field, able to give and go (when such things existed) on the basketball court. Seager, too.
Miller's in that mold, to some degree.
Franklin's going to soon see (well, I'll bet he has already) a bunch of heat away. He'll get enough good wood on it to survive. But he'll make his mark on his ability to hurt the mistake. That's what Seager does. And you know what? That's exactly how Maris and Mantle and Aaron did, too. Man, they didn't make much money on the Tony Cloninger heater at the knees, on the outside black: Nobody does. But they drove the centered-inside error.
Franklin does/will, too. OK, he's not going to hit 61 or 54 or be The Hammer. I'm not saying that. But he's a very good MLB'er because he's a very good athlete.
And as they get more and more experience those great athletes who can launch the ball 390 feet to their pull field become pitch stalkers, waiting for the one big rip. I wonder if Raul is in some ways the perfect Yoda for Seager and Franklin?
Downside for Franklin? He's a good leather, 40+ x-bay 2B.
Upside? MVP-type. Not much above where he is today, 50 games into his career.
And lots of people wanted to package him with our Gooden for an Upton. Oh, the horror.
moe

3

G, remember Miller Barber? He had the weirdest golf swing ever, but it was his-he owned it-and he could square the ball. Doug Saunders, Gay Brewer, Lee Trevino, too. Tons on old-time PGA Tour types excelled with swings that were ugly except for the only thing that counted...they squared the ball. Because the ball spun so much that was the most critical factor in keeping it in play.
Maybe Jim Furyk is the only guy that quickly comes to mind today. They're aren't many guys like that anymore. Equipment has changed that.
I'm thinking the metal bat changed baseball swings. Squaring the ball in a variety of spots was less critical because the super-bat covered for your misses.
I love your 5-tool riff. Very, very true. Justin Upton is just the guy that fits in there. But would you trade Seager or Franklin straight up for him?
Not me.
In many ways, our guys are "from way-back" players: They have dirty uniforms and wear out the barrel of bats. Would be interesting to see how many bats they break. I wonder if it is fewer than average.
Seager isn't lucking into this level of play. His career BABIP is just .300. He's up to all of .318 this year.
Franklin's is at .324: Nice....but not totally lunar and unrepeatable.
These guys hurt mistakes. They stalk misses. They have the hands to do it.
And along the line they didn't get Stanforded.
Whoever coached Franklin in Clinton deserves a ton of credit for letting the kid be (from the left side).
I think such is the root of the Ackley collapse: He's too willing to let the punishable early count strike sail on by. He wants to hit ahead in the count all the time.
That's easier to do in Chapel Hill than in Fenway Park. When he learns to pick on the centered 1st pitch, he'll be a hitter again. I think that is going to be very tough for him.
I long advocated getting Franklin to swing lefty fulltime. But right now, I'm letting the kid be. If it happens, let it be his move. He has the right split. I ain't askin' Jennifer Aniston to wear more makeup and I ain't messing with Franklin's natural beauty.
See the ball kid: Hit the mistake into the short porch..
It's the Roger Maris way!
moe

4
okdan's picture

I love the insights and thinking around the approach and skills of Franklin, Seager, Miller, etc. Perhaps that is one of the reasons they are so fun to watch – that they have an almost "throwback" type of approach. Something more pure than the game has been in the past decade or two. Of course Miller gets even more literal with it, with his lack of batting gloves and traditional stirrups, lol.
Brent, your comment about Franklin's hands reminds me of something. A concept that's more prevalent in weightlifting, with regard to isolation and tension. When doing a bicep curl for instance, it's incredibly useful to think of your hands as hooks. And rather than gripping the bar tightly, simply relax your grip. What this does is place more tension on the muscles you're trying to work (bicep, etc), instead of amassing tension in the hands and forearms. Not sure if that makes much sense, but your comment reminded me of it.

5

And for me, that's the most impressive thing.  Like you said, Brent, the one hand is often coming off AT IMPACT rather than releasing well after the bat has cleared the zone. In the Gnolls thread, I posted this: 

Nick is all hands and wrists, which is another way to increase the ball's speed off the bat head without having the longest levers around. It creates that torsion on the bat that makes the ball jump as the head is whipped through the zone. He's got a wonderful swing from the LH side that gives him the arc and batspeed to hit balls out of the park even one-handed.  Johnny Damon used to do the one-handed swing like that.  Can't think of a lot of others in recent times who one-handed balls out of the park (well, there was always Junior who could also do it with a blindfold on, but he was a bigger man). You can only do that when you KNOW you're squaring the ball up and are using your hands as a guide to whip the ball into the bat and not power the bat itself through the zone. Junior used to talk about batspeed and his big butt doing all the work - never lifted a weight in his life. Franklin has no big butt to speak of, so it's all coordination and timing with him.
Smoak throws every ounce of muscle he has into the ball and it dies on the warning track.  Nick throws the bat at the ball in a reactive swing and Jedi-powers it over the wall.  It's funny to me - you can SEE his release hand "encourage" the ball to go where he aimed it.  "Fly over there, little white ball, keep carrying... good ball." *cue the 4-base jog*
Nick's power isn't going away. His hand-eye coordination when it comes to making a 180 pound body provide the power of a 220 pound one is extreme. It's why I was in favor of Nick dropping the switch-hitting thing: how likely is it that one man can have that much coordination from both sides of the plate?  Just let him see more pitches as a lefty against lefties and let his freakish wrist-guiding technique do the rest.
But Nick's stuck with it, and his swing from the right side is coming around.  It'll never be what his lefty swing is, but it doesn't have to be for him to be amazingly successful.  IMO, it's the extra crouch that's getting it done for him.  He didn't crouch that much in the past, but it's allowed him to get in the same frame of reference from both sides of the plate and sting the ball from the right side in a way he didn't always do before.  Prior to gaining Crouch Power his righty swing was three-hop-grounder-back-to-the-pitcher lifeless.  It ain't that now.    Give it some reps over the next few years and he could get surprisingly good with it...
Nick has the incredible ability to square up the ball milliseconds before impact, and then relaaaaaax, get his hands out of the way, and let the bat and his aiming do all the work. When they say "throw the bat-head at the ball" I don't think I've seen a better example recently than Franklin. Like you said, on high pitches and inside ones he gets his hands around as well as anyone, but while others might foul the pitch off he guides the bat for true contact.  It's really impressive.
Anybody else you can think of who let go of the bat at impact like that? Holding the lumber so lightly and yet driving the ball so far?
~G

6
Brent's picture

You guys all put together a sentence better than I do, so here is a somewhat stream of consciousness post. Or, things I think I think.
So Franklin isn't a big guy. Big whoop. You know who wasn't a big guy? Mays. Aaron. Am I comparing Nicky to these all-time greats? No way. But you don't have to be the size of Michael Morse to hit the ball out. Bat speed and squaring it up will do it.
The graph of Nick's hotzone confirms what my eyeballs are telling me. Franklin handles the high inside pitch better than any lefty I can recall. Most lefties traditionally are either low and inside "loop swing" maulers or gap-power hitters that send the pitch back wherever it was pitched for a single or double. But high and tight fence-clearing power? That's rare. Franklin recognizes a hanging curve up in his eyeballs, pulls in the hands, gets on top of it and whacks it 15 rows deep to right center.
Did you see the slo-mo of his second home run? His top hand looked like it was barely touching the bat at impact. You could see air between the palm and the bat. Relaxed hands, not squeezing so hard you get sawdust. Makes your wrists looser and easier to snap them through.
I am of course curious to see how the league adjusts, and how Franklin adjusts to those. My take is that Nick comes out on top of that test.

7

Roger was a line-drive hitter, and not a true fly-ball hitter. His hits almost seemed to have tennis-like top-spin rather than backspin. Mantle hit majestic home-runs into the façade. Maris hit line shots into the (then) 296 foot, 3 1/2 foot high wall right field porch. Watch the videos from the era. With the Yankees he hit home runs because of the porch. With St. Louis he hit doubles off the higher and farther wall. Maris was a GREAT athlete and fine ball player. But as Billy Crystal's movie 61* shows, there were a lot of things that came together for both a magical and terrible year for Maris. But the screaming liner at 10 degrees from the right field line going into the seats in about 4 seconds was his trademark. It was usually out before he turned past first.

8

He seemed to toss the bat into the stands quite a bit.

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