Nick Franklin's Timeline (6)
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Q. Is he an Ackley-level talent? Griffey level?
A. Gorgeous as the LH swing is, Franklin at 19 was a quality cleanup hitter in a tough class-A league. That is definitely blue-chip performance, top-50 or top-75 performance.
But Ken Griffey Jr. was a very good major league player at age 19. You're not talking about epic performance at 19. You're talking about very exciting performance.
Minorleaguesplits.com normalizes for luck and park and gives Franklin these stats at 19:
- 310/375/525 - Overall season, both sides
- 330/400/565 - Season vs LHP's (that's Manny production)
- 290/350/490 - Road numbers, both sides
Still, as G-Money has pointed out, the M's haven't had anybody since ARod who was able to overmatch the MWL as a teenager.
Jones, Lopez, Choo, whoever you want to name, all those guys, they needed to get to 20 to jell. Triunfel hasn't jelled yet. Franklin, essentially, beat them all by a good year or more. Don't undersell the kid.
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Q. Does the late fade bother you? Be honest.
A. This is his first year playing a long season. If it were his second, you could talk about it.
He's a teenager riding the busses all year, playing against men, he's not a big kid to start with, he hit the wall. Which doesn't bother the Mariners 0.01%.
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Q. Would it be feasible for him to join the Mariners next summer?
A. There's this talk, as you know, of Franklin probably skipping high-A ball, and maybe getting a cup of coffee this September.
If true, that would mean they're offering Franklin a fast track in 2011: hey, kid, demolish AA and you're at AAA. Demolish that and we'd let you come up and learn in the big leagues.
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Yuniesky Betancourt had like 6 weeks in AA and then 6 weeks in the PCL, and didn't even have to hit: he was right up with the Mariners. The idea is that you don't need your SS to hit anyway.
The fact that the Mariners are considering this timeline, though, tells you that they see Franklin as a monster.
Hey, you've got a kid who is:
- Longer to the ball than all the other guys, and
- Quicker to the ball (IF/F%) than all the other guys (??), and
- At age 19, reacts incredibly well to 23-year-old pitch sequences (so is a hyper-fast learner), and
- Has hit for huge AVG and huge PWR, way ahead of his age,
- In a league of real tough parks.
Nick Franklin is a sabermetric (performance) outlier and he is a tools scout (mechanics) outlier. You've got a top prospect here.
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Even I wouldn't be thinking about Franklin in August 2011, and you know I bet on special talent. Thing is, the Mariners like Franklin even more than we 'net rats do. They think they've got a '70's Dodgers infield brewin' here.
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