=== Big Three Dept. ===
Again Zduriencik is asked about talent in the organization, and again he pushes three low-minors hitters out there, those being Carlos Triunfel, Alex Liddi and Nick Franklin.*
Slow news day, we know, and it isn't like Capt Jack named them 1-2-3. And today he left Franklin off the list. Still ...
...........
A top-100 came out this week, was it Baseball America's? and they got it right: Ackley, then Triunfel, then Saunders in their top 100. Dropping Triunfel out of baseball's top 100, much less the M's own top three or four prospects, is little more than "out of sight, out of mind."
M's fans can hype back up about Triunfel ... oh, wait, they will, as soon as Triunfel plays a month in 2010. We remember a scout talking about Triunfel at age 17: "It's like watching a 10-year-old gearshift onto the highway and blow by other cars. He just shouldn't be able to do the things he's doing," or somesuch.
..........
Tom McNamara, who is director of M's amateur talent or some title like that ... well, Zduriencik tossed the ball to McNamara to run the drafts. McNamara discussed Nick Franklin on a recent KIRO hot stove radio show.
McNamara revealed that after the M's took Dustin Ackley, their intention was to grab a pitcher with the #27 overall in the first round.
Except that "between our first and second picks (in the first round) there were something like 17 or 18 pitchers taken. So we said, do you want the 18th best pitcher here, or do you want one of the best few hitters here," or somesuch. The clear message was that the M's thought that Franklin tumbled a long ways to get to #27 overall.
McNamara said that one of the first things he looks for, if he is going to spend a very high pick on a 17-year-old, is that he wants to see the kind of confidence that will carry him into competition with much older players. Franklin, says he, has that in spades...
Big Man On Campus type, tall wiry-strong switch hitting SS. Read that as, Franklin has the kind of swagger that sets him apart.
Listening to the crusty McNamara show excitement about Franklin, you can see where the national pundits are putting Franklin in the Triunfel class.
Carlos Triunfel the Sequel, I guess.
...........
Franklin got a taste of low-A Everett, at 18, and in six games had 8 hits, three of them for extra bases, against only two strikeouts. As you can see from this roster, at Everett the players are 21-24 years old.
I was curious as to why the John Sickels types have Franklin so high, at only 18. But listening to McNamara on him, it's clear that the M's regard him a solid 1st-round-caliber talent as a teenager in high school.
Okay by me,
Dr D
Very exciting. Thanks for the write-up.
He appears nearly as skinny as Vlad at age 18. Looks like his forearm would snap in half on a check swing. Adam's apple poking way out there. Jeter was real lanky like that too. Hopefully he'll put on that man weight for added power while maintaining his quickness for SS.
Will be fun to follow over the next 4-5 years.
And yeah, the kid's a teenager. Reminds of Jeff's observation on Ted Williams at 18-19.
Hopefully he doesn't start slugging .550 too soon, so we don't have to start discussing how good a LF he is. ;- )
On draft day, he was Bloomquist. Now he's Jeter, except a switch-hitter. I don't know how that happened, but I'll take it.
IIRC, drafting Franklin was a 'reach' predicated on 'signability'. The Mariners FO didn't blink once on this; their response to the criticism was, paraphrasing, 'we like him a lot'.
My kneck's sore from whiplash on this one too.
But on the radio, anyway, McNamara sounded as sincere as could be.
The knock on Franklin was power. He didn't have as much as his peers heading into his senior year. He's competitive as all getout and a dirt-dog sort of player, and every showcase he played - against fellow draftees and with wood - he was one of the best players on the field. And when he got on a pro field with a bunch of college-graduate pitchers (instead of high-school-attending ones) he STILL was one of the players to watch, which is what is changing minds.
Franklin isn't someone you have to worry about mentally. He's got the head to be a great ballplayer and a team leader at a young age (think Tulowitzki, who I still wish we had). He was scrawny as all getout until he decided not to play baseball 12 months a year and take a couple of months to lift weights in the summer before his senior year. Now he's only sorta scrawny. *laughs* When some power showed up, though. it caught a lot of talent evaluators off guard and changed his projections in some minds.
I wasn't sold on Nick until people in Everett started telling me how much of a BALLPLAYER he was. He eats, sleeps and breathes baseball. He grew up in Florida and played it non-stop. He's got a foreign player's zeal for the game. It's not his hobby, it's his dream. Maybe he tops out as Bloomie - baseball projections are such dicey things. But his coach puts him between Felipe Lopez and Rickie Weeks - two OTHER first rounders he coached - and potentially as a better blend of attributes.
Both of those guys have been a stage or two above the Bloomquist level. Franklin isn't a fast-twitch mega-athlete, but I don't see anything out of bounds in viewing him as a Rich Aurilia level "smart" ballplayer who has a Varitek / Biggio demeanor out there.
I'd take that. It's better than what we traded prospects and paid several million for at that spot on the big club right now.
Lookin forward to watching him progress and seeing if he can turn his "no one quality that stands out, just has a solid all-around game" scouting profile into "has several above average tools and the heart of a champion" skillset.
~G
Nick has been killing the ball in his first few games of A ball..
He went 4-4 tonight, with 2 homers (one from each side of the plate), and a triple.
He has five extra base hits in his first 12 ABs of the season.
What's the guy weigh, 165?
I liked this pick and man thats an exciting start.
As I said, Nick Franklin never lifted a weight in his life before his senior year in HS, and THAT put him all the way up to 165 lbs.
So you have a guy who is a total baseball nut - he plays it 12 months a year every year since he could walk, baskucally - but is not an athlete. His scouting profile says it: "Not one tool that really stands out, but no real weaknesses." Some people view that as "nothing special." I view it as "potential 5-tool BASEBALL PLAYER instead of athlete who may never learn to hit."
He's EXACTLY the sort of person who should be on Dr. Elliott's regimen to increase his athletic ability, since he's a stellar baseball talent already.
Hey, whaddaya know, he IS on that regimen. He's a Bobby Crosby/ Troy Tulowitzki scrapper at short, and if we can make him into an athletic baseball player I expect to see great things from him.
Bring on Craig Biggio 2.0.
~G
You've got quite a scary situation there...
You mentioned the power in the farm update post ("Franklin in 1/3 of an ML season now has 8 homers, 9 doubles, and get this, 6 triples...") but what really interests me is what the Mariners apparently said to him.
"Son, you've done great. .930-whatever OPS? 5th in the league, boy - great stuff. But we notice you don't like takin' walks. There's a kid, Raben, who does. So we're gonna bump him up to High Desert because we really like his approach and we look forward to sending you there just as soon as you stop swinging at every pitch. You're gonna see better breaking balls up there, and we don't want you fishing. So why don't you work on that and we'll get back to you when it improves?"
Nick's response to this theoretical bit of advice? 6 walks in 10 games against 7 Ks (35 ABs), compared to 9 walks in his previous 40 games.
Nick Franklin is destroying the MWL in ways I haven't seen a teenager do in our system in a long time.
Triunfel had an empty .300 average as a teenager. Wlad posted a good OPS with lacking supporting numbers. Adam Jones was pedestrian. Liddi was bad. AsCab put up some nice all around figures...but that's all they were - nice. Franklin is blowing them all away. Huge work ethic, great passion for the game, Ks under control, walks improving, hits for average and power and the glove/arm combo ain't bad either...what's not to like?
Good half-seasons happen all the time as flukes. Bloomie had one that carried him all the way from the low minors to a big league career, but he was years older than Franklin at the time.
But Nick is KILLING it in a league that few of our hitters - and few teenage hitters in general - can ever conquer. It doesn't mean assured future success, but it is highly interesting.
And I think he'll be joining Raben soon in a search for some breaking balls to hone his skills on. I'd hate to bore the kid...
~G
Am sure that it won't occur a day too soon for the current regime. You're supposed to get a few of 'em now and then.
He hit 2 more HRs last night, FWIW. If there's a hitter trying to stake a claim to monster-prospect status right now, it's not Ackley (still very weak against LHP and his LD% is like 10%), Triunfel (no walks, intermittent-at-best power), Liddi, Peguero...
Franklin is having the 2 months of his life. The scary/fun part is if this ISN'T the 2 months of his life, and he's really this good...
~G
I think I understand a lot of the basics of prospect evaluation, but I have to wonder how so many people seemed to 'miss' on Franklin. If you were to re do the 2009 Draft, I am sure Franklin would be in the top 10. Did the sudden emergence of power just come as that big of a surprise to everyone? I don't think it is a short time fluke. I tend to believe we are just beginning to see what talents Nick has and the player he can become.
I have always tended to believe that hitters grow linearly (based upon the more pitchers they see) and pitchers tend to grow in plateaus (based upon mastering a skill). But it sure appears to me that Franklin has 'lept a plateau or two'.
It seemed to me at the time that all the Draft day 'analysis' really under estimated what Nick's skills and potential were and that very few people were happy with his selection (outside of the Mariner's FO, who seemed estatic to get him). Did other's simply miss on him or did we see something other teams didn't?
It looks to me as we may have very well gotten two 'Top 10' draftees from one draft with a chance for other contributions from other draftees still to come. Five years from now, we may be looking at the 2009 Draft as a Monster Draft for the Mariners.
Based on what I've seen so far. There is a strong chance this draft will produce our future middle infield (an above average one) which in itself would make for a successful draft.
I also think Poythress and Seager will factor into the future Mariners 25 man in some capacity. Not saying either will be a long time starter, but I think each will be good players in the role they are given. Seager likely as a patient lefty utility bat, and Poythress at the minimum as a guy who could be a good platoon at 1B or DH.
If the M's get that out of their first draft under Z, then they did an excellent job. And of course the potential is also there for a guy like James Jones or even a Steve Baron to progress into a useful guy on the 25 man roster.
Not only that NY mariner, I also have high hopes for Jones in the OF and Blandford. Jones seems to have taken a step back this year after an excellent start in Everett and Blandford needs to learn how to control his stuff. His last outing with no walks was encouraging.
I think you are right, they will end up proving that they did an excellent job in the 2009 draft. Still a surprise to me why it was so universally felt to be so poor?
Nick was viewed as a signability pick. Jack said right off the bat that he drafted the guy he thought was best at the slot. Jack doesn't seem like he's blowing smoke now, not in any way.
Franklin wasn't as flashy as some of the other guys. He's a baseball player first, not an athlete. When scouts are picking guys with the most upside, it's always - ALWAYS - the guy who could be the next Ken Griffey or A-Rod...if only he can hit a slider and not strike out every other AB (which is normally what he's doing at the time).
Franklin came the other way, as a guy who had never worked out and just played baseball literally 12 months a year. And rather than trying to make an athlete into a baseball player, Jack hired a doctor who promised to turn his baseball players into athletes (legally).
So the guys you would want to watch are your baseball players - the Seagers and Franklins (and even the less-than-shapely Poythresses) of the world. Get them to harness their dormant physical tools to the best of their ability and incorporate them into what they already do well - hit a baseball.
Nick Franklin, IMO, was THE perfect pick for the way Jack is shaping up his minor leagues. Jiovanni Mier (drafted ahead of Nick and considered the clearly superior player) is a terrific talent, but Franklin is not lagging behind him in baseball talent, and has been catching him in athletic prowess.
Spotting these sorts of players - guys that his exclusive workout and performance training regimen can boost up - is something that Jack is gonna be making his bones with over the next several years. If they don't pan out, or the program is a bust, it's not gonna look good.
But right now Nick Franklin is making this plan look like a winner.
BTW, interview with Franklin here:
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/prospect-q-and-a/2010/261...
~G
Do you think it likely that scouts just looked at Franklin as a high-schooler and projected his future power at 40?
Which can make a difference between high first round and late first round, of course.
That is exactly what I was trying to say but may not have asked the question as clearly. A big part of scouting is 'projection' and it seems to me that everybody (but the Mariners) missed on the growing power. Did they just not see the potential, or are 'gritty dirt dog' players more numerous with a history of not panning out.
If I understand G-Money's comments correctly, it seems like the average scout or draft czar will always error on the side of the prospect with a 'A' level of potential (even with less than 50% chance of reaching it) over a perceived 'all around 'B' level talent (with maybe 90% chance of reaching it).
Maybe our new program will help our draftees attain higher levels of success, as G-Money points out, but I am not even sure Franklin needs it. It just strikes me from the start that he has more going from him then was originally expected. Even last year in limited time, he hit the ground in Everett streaking like a heat-seaking missle.
It might not have been their fault :- )
There are some kids, there is no way you would guess them to develop 420-foot power later on. It just happens and you pick up the wallet and drop it off at the bank.
What did the Mariners know and when did they know it :- )
I think figuring out how an 18 year old will fill out and develop power with a wood bat in his hands is tricky business.
At least with the college guys they've already hit 21-23 years of age and you can guess better.
It's even harder with the 16 year old crops of international FAs, which is one reason why the bonus babies flop all over the place.
It's also not good to draft a prep SS and hope to keep him there - not if you plan for him to be an All-Star.
From http://www.camdenchat.com/2010/5/12/1457553/and-with-the-third-pick-part...
Obviously, the sample size of shortstops selected in the first round in recent years is small, and few of these players are really similar to Machado or Colon. But while the sample size of recent history is small, some trends are clear. College shortstops are a lot more likely to contribute in the majors then high school shortstops are. The majority of high school shortstops change positions, and a large number of them fail to capitalize on their tools. Meanwhile, not only do the college shortstops taken in the first round have several who have shown impact talent at the major league level, but most have enjoyed elevated prospect status. As trading assets, they are probably the equal even from the low minors of the rawer, more toolsy prospects who will pay off bigger if they turn out.
Most alarming is not merely the bust rate of prep shortstops, but how rarely they manage to reach the fullness of their potential. The last prep shortstop selected in the first round who went on to make an All-Star game appearance at short was Alex Rodriguez, part of the draft of 1993. Before A-Rod came Jeter in the class of 92. Before Jeter was Royce Clayton, a prep shortstop taken 15th overall in 1988, and while Clayton made an All-Star team, he is no one's idea of an impact player.
This is related to my drafting rule of "Don't take Non-Mauer catchers in the first round" mantra. Just because SS is the premier athletic position, don't draft a first-round HS shortstop and expect him to stay at SS and be awesome for you - he very likely won't be.
If your scouts can make a call on high-school Tulowitzki and talk the brass into signing him as a teen, they're doing very well indeed. Did we do that with Franklin? Were we that lucky/good? We get several more years to debate it and find out.
His power right now is LH power. He's crushed RH pitching, and is improving against LHPs from the right side. He talks in that article about how he's taking a look at what he does from the left side and is working on mirroring it from the right side, and that it's leading to improving RH hitting numbers.
He's taking plays at 2B as well, because we want him to be flexible. He calls it way easier. *laughs* He's a SS at heart through and through, and should be on the field as well.
I want him to see more breakers, to face better pitching. He should face it soon as the college draftees flood the MWL even if he doesn't get that promotion to High-A.
But there's no need to rush him. I think he'll force his way up if he's ready. This is about the most auspicious entry into the pros we could have hoped for, though. Whoever the scout is who told Jack to bet on Franklin looks like he could use a raise.
Now just keep it up, kid...
~G
Everett is a power-friendly stadium. Clinton isn't as unfriendly as some in the MWL either. This seems to be one dirt-dog who's not getting by on grit and determination alone, though - he's definitely finding some plus tools.
There was an article that I saw a while back on doing simple types of workouts and what sorts of things increased batspeed in what types of players.
IIRC standard weight training wasn't good for that for either HS or college age players, but rotational work with medicine balls and the line was barely helpful for the college guys but MAJORLY helpful for the HS guys - probably because their bodies were still growing and those sorts of exercises helped underdeveloped muscles that the older college players had already gotten around to.
Rotational work is what Dr. Elliott lives and breathes w/r/t our athletes, and he does far more than medicine balls.
I'm really curious to see how Nick does as he moves up levels. One guy's performance does not a regimen validate, but I'd like to ask him the question about how he feels it's done for his fitness and strength. His power increased in his senior year of HS dramatically as well, so he was already on this track, but it makes me curious.
At some point it doesn't matter if we were lucky or good, as long as he really IS this good. Just be this good. :)
~G
Elliott found that though Saunders is a physically powerful athlete, he's weak in the core rotation. Has spent time building that up. We'll see if it shows in the batspeed.
Several teams missed the boat on Franklin. I'm not sure if they couldn't find their contacts or they were on back order his last two years of HS. Nonetheless, Fanklin showed well in front of alot "high level scouts" many times.
I had the pleasure of coaching Franklin during his lst two years of high school. I laughed when I saw the MLB scouting report on Franklin. "No plus anything?" You didn't see the ball fly over the batter's eye at 410 for the sixth time? Guess that is why their is such a big turnover every year in the scouting business. It seems everyone is surprised about Franklin's sucess but not here, Just another day at the park for Nick.
Keep Pushin kid, even Ray Charles could have heard you coming.
He hit a rough spot in June but is pounding the ball again in July (.900+ OPS). He's just a killer - and that's before he smooths out his difficulties against lefties.
Our assumption here has always been that Nick slipped because people judged him as a baseball player with "limited athletic skills" instead of underdeveloped athleticism. Never lifting weights until his senior year might make a baseball rat seem like a low-upside pick. I'm really glad we didn't make that mistake.
Nick thus far doesn't like to walk much (though he's gotten far better early in the 2nd half) and hasn't perfected both sides of his swing. He's got years to learn to do both. When Ackley gets promoted I'd probably consider him the best hitting prospect in our system. Hopefully he can keep growing by leaps and bounds - but he's already got the makings of a terrific ballplayer.
We're thankful the other scouts missed it. We needed Franklin.
Assuming you're his HS coach, thanks for delivering him. ;)
~G