Light day yesterday, with WIL on their all-star break (the game is tonight), and Reading and Lakewood on scheduled off-days. Gillies, Susdorf and Galvis with two hits a piece. Clearwater hitters managed just four knocks while Hoby Milner had a decent outing – 7IP, 3R, 7H, 2BB, 2K. A good chunk of the GCL lineup continues to hit – spots 1-6 had either XBH or multi-hit games, and Robinson Torres and Herlis Rodriguez had both.
Here’s the affiliate Scoreboard from MiLB.
http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.jsp?sid=milb&org=143&ymd=20130812
Phuture Phillies 
I’m excited to see some of the Threshers in Reading next year. I think Dugan will be there, at least to start, then add Perkins and Altherr? Should be a hell of an outfield. Perhaps the guy I’m most interested in is HMart who seems to have found something the past month or two
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What do we do about Aaron Altherr? His numbers on the year still mark a major improvement over Lakewood–his OPS of .783 is 60 points better–but the trend over the second half has been pretty dramatically downward. I had him at the back end of the Top 30 in the offseason, but I think I was higher on him than others. Had he maintained his first-half pace, I think he would have been knocking on the door of my Top 10, but I’m not sure what to think now. I’ve always loved the power and the athleticism, but clearly the recent trend line is not encouraging.
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Altherr’s second half slide is pretty much solely due to an unsustainable first half BABIP normalizing.
Interesting player though, His BB% and ISO are career bests and supposedly the defense has improved. As a 21 year old CF with speed who is finding his power (probably as he growns into hisframe) he is one to follow and will go to Reading next year. But he still strikes out far too much (career worst k%) and won’t be a real prospect until/if he can improve on that . Quite simply, he needs to make more contact
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On the bright side, his K-rate this month has come down to a decent level. In April it was only about 20%, and then it spiked to ridiculous levels in May, but it has been dropping monthly since then. I’m just hoping he can finish the year strong. Without thinking too hard about it, I’d probably have him around #20 in the system.
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best case a drew stubbs?
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I’m not sure if Altherr has the same speed/defensive ability that Stubbs does. But hopefully if Altherr makes it to the majors he won’t strike out 30% of the time like Stubbs. That’s why he’s really got to work on making more contact.
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Philly.com has a piece on a the Phillie Pharm nearly every day. They’ve written off the big club and looks like they are trying to create a little interest in the up-and-comers. We, on this site, have been paying a lot of attention to the minor leagues for years. It’s good to see more publicity for the guys trudging along in the minors. Some of it is rose-colored glasses type reporting but it gives a little hope to an otherwise miserable season. I’m not sure what I’ll do when the minor league season is over. The winter leagues don’t start until October (I think). The Reading Phillies will be in my neck of the woods to finish their season. I hope to get over to see them.
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Gillies with an .842 OPS in his last 10. Still a prospect in my eyes. Strikeouts are concerning though.
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Agreed on both points.
Maybe (hopefully) he’s still adjusting to the new swing.
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With Gillies, it used to be: “if only he could stay healthy.” This year, he’s stayed healthy and now it’s “he’s working on a new swing.” He keeps having streaks here and there, which inspire hope, but his OBP at two levels this season is below .300. The tools are still intriguing, but at some point he’s going to need to perform consistently. Had he had even an adequate season at Lehigh Valley this year, I think there’s every reason to believe he would be playing regularly in the outfield in Philly now. (I mean, Casper Wells is getting at-bats …) Seems like yet another missed opportunity for a guy who has proven himself spectacularly adept at missing opportunities.
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Obviously this year has been disappointing, but he didn’t make Matt’s top 30 last week, and nobody even commented on his absence.
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It wasn’t even close. It is nice that the new swing has added some power, but there are so many red flags that there really wasn’t any justification to add him.
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It depends on your definition of ‘prospect’. For you, and probably some others, he is still a prospect, because he still has a chance to one day make it to the major leagues. I tend to rank prospect status based on my perceived trade value and potential impact of the player. I don’t envision Gillies having any trade value, and I can’t envision him as a player of any impact if he gets to the majors.
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Not very good players can do quite well over a 10 game stretch. I’ve watched Gillies look not all that good in several games and I see that his season stats are not good and a step down from last season, even for the time when he repeated AA. I don’t understand why fans insist upon slicing and dicing a season into tiny segments and then drawing conclusion from an extreme SSS, which totally contradicts the body of work for a season and a minor league career. When you think about it, if an OF can’t do better than an .842 OPS in a cherry-picked 10-game period, then when he ‘get’s hot’, he doesn’t exactly sizzle.
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A key question to ask yourself: are the Phillies even going to have Gillies on the over-winter 40-man. I think other teams will have their choice of Gillies/Collier/Castro/Mitchell/Hewitt for $50K and will pass. Gillies will sign elsewhere as a minor league FA. His production is too poor and he and the Phillies have just had too many clashes over his off-the-field behavior to anticipate he’ll be with the organization next season. I’m sure he’ll welcome a fresh start elsewhere and the Phillies will not greatly miss him. Dugan is the only OF in the upper minors who has a future with the Phillies and he is far from being a slam-dunk prospect to win an MLB starting job.
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He put up a nice line in AA last year.
If they really did change his swing, and if he hits well the next few weeks, I think they hang onto him.
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If he hits well the rest of the season, perhaps they consider it. I don’t know, I first saw him in Reading in 2010. Yes, a lot of injuries and some games lost to disciplinary issues, but seeing him again in Reading 3 years after I first saw him and not doing as well there as he did last season… it has to be a concern. Even with his current hot streak, his AAA numbers this season are really bad. Yes, the HRs are up this year. The OBP has been bad. He’s started to steal some bases again for the first time in years. He’s still just 24, but this is his 7th year in the minors. The best you can say for him is that he’s doing ok. He just doesn’t stand out, like you expect from a 24-year old who is eventually going to make it as a major league starter. Almost 7 years is a long time to wait to have your swing re-tooled.
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Not sure where to post this, but here is a great video explaining the Arm Bar Swing: http://youtu.be/4BBXyV1UJp8
Watch it and then watch this swing by Edwin Encarnacion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW-BDFijsDw
And then watch the swings of Sano (first hitter, 5 second mark) and Franco (last hitter, 2 min mark): http://www.milb.com/multimedia/vpp.jsp?content_id=29639445&sid=t522
Honestly, I think the whole ABS meme on Franco is complete crap. His swing looks exactly like those two guys. It does NOT completely bar as had been said by some. It remains slightly flexed and gets drawn back the same amount as both Sano and Encarnacion. To me, this is so typical of a rumor that gets started about a player and gets promoted regardless of the reality.
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Nice work Steven! Very informative links.
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Wasn’t it the work of one, Keith Law, in May/June, that started all the nonsense on his swing?
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No. There have been,concerns about the swing from probably literally dozens of scouts and educated journalists long predating the Law article. Not sure I’ve seen ANYONE other than Steve who says differently. I’m not expert myself, but the idea that Steve alone as some level of expertise that dozens of trained observers lack strikes me as unconvincing. it would be one thing to say, as a few people have, that it’s an unconventional swing that could still be successful, but the notion that this is some “rumor that gets started about a player and gets promoted regardless of the reality” is absurd. Dozens of people have looked at the swing and come away with concerns. They may be wrong in their ultimate conclusions, but clearly there IS something going on with the swing, even if it turns out to be less problematic than some people think.
It’s a free country, but these repeated posts by Steve aren’t convincing anyone at this point. That is, the people who WANT to be convinced by them already have been, whereas the rest of us aren’t being swayed because of Steve’s daily claim that that there is nothing wrong with the swing.
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LarryM….I ask one question…have you ever heard one Phillie personnel/employee mention a weakness in Franco’s swing? Anyone.
Now I have heard that Asche’s approach/swing/load had to be altered during instructs in the fall of 2011 by Phillie coaching..
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They aren’t going to come out and publicly question their own prospect.? Maybe after an adjustment but certainly they aren’t going to decrease their asset’s value or ruin the player’s confidence.
With Asche it was the load they worked on.
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We agree to disagree.
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Oh, come on. See Matt’s comment above.
Look, I don’t accept the swing criticisms uncritically. But the responses to the critics on this site are lame to say the least.
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LarryM calling me “unconvincing”. That’s rich. Exadurating the number of scouts who support his view is also productive. There have been a number of scouting notes posted on here stating they don’t see the issue either.
Approach is a different issue. I do think he swings a lot but to say he swings at everything is wrong. He is clearly waiting on pitches that he can hit. That he has elite hand-eye coordination is not a flaw. Nor is it a reason to become more passive. The guy is friggin hitting .342 with an above .900 ops after 46 games. He is making consistently solid contact.
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Larry is not the only one who thinks you are unconvincing, for what it’s worth.
“Exadurating the number of scouts who support his view is also productive.”
I’m not sure, but I think you mean “exaggerating.” If I’m mistaken, let me know. But assuming I’m correct for the time being, Larry is not exaggerating anything.
“That he has elite hand-eye coordination is not a flaw. Nor is it a reason to become more passive.”
You’re right, he has fantastic hand-eye coordination. He also has extremely good bat speed. But don’t you think those things might be masking another issue against lesser competition? And don’t fool yourself, facing, say, Jesse Biddle is not the same thing as facing, say, Cole Hamels. Just because AA pitchers have trouble exploiting his swing doesn’t mean major league pitchers will. Nor does it mean that Franco is doomed to fail. But it does mean his swing is unorthodox, and thus something to keep an eye on.
“The guy is friggin hitting .342 with an above .900 ops after 46 games. He is making consistently solid contact.”
Do you forget he was above .400 not so long ago? A 60 point drop in average is significant. Now you’ll say, “But .342 is still great.” That’s true, but if you want to look at small samples, then why not make them smaller? To drop so quickly Franco is likely hitting below .250 lately. As for “consistently solid contact,” where are the extra base hits? If he’s squaring up the ball, he should have more than ground outs, fly outs, and singles to show for it.
The fact of the matter is Franco was benefiting greatly from luck when he first got called up to AA. Now his luck is stabilizing. If he isn’t walking, and isn’t hitting for extra bases, what makes him a great hitter? A high average? Well, even if we assume he’ll be a .300 hitter in the majors (which would be foolish), what good does that do, exactly? He’ll have, what, a .320 OBP? And he isn’t Revere. He can’t get away with hitting singles by playing an up-the-middle position and stealing bases and a high clip. Without power, Franco is a non-prospect. His swing could prevent him from hitting for power against advanced arms, such as has been the case in AA. Is it guaranteed? No. Is it something to worry about? Maybe. Is it something to keep an eye on? Definitely.
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I don’t think it’s exactly fair to say Franco isn’t hitting with some power. He’s got a .200 ISO in AA. That’s not too bad… The points about a low BB rate and a questionable swing at anything close approach are negatives to bring up but I don’t think you can say “lack of power” in AA. Less than at Clearwater sure. But it’s not like he’s lost all power
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That’s fair. His overall total for power in AA is still pretty good, just like his average. But lately it has disappeared, just like his average. Maybe pitchers have made an adjustment. Maybe Franco will do the same and start mashing again. But even so, it is not as if he is without flaws. To pretend he is would be foolish and is just setting yourself up for a let-down.
I would challenge someone to see who his HRs are hit off of to see how many of them were top prospects, how many were org filler, and how many were fringe prospects.
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Matt Hauser, Will Clinard, Pat Dean, Matt Hauser, Nik Turley, Matt Hauser, Matt Wright, Ryan Bradley, Craig Westcott.
I think that covers all of his AA homers. Things I take away. He own Matt Hauser, not many marquee names. However, hitting homers isn’t the be all end all of performance against better pitchers.
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That’s true. But neither is batting average. Nor are any stats in the minors. Scouting will ALWAYS be important for minor leaguers, which is why it is so frustrating to see people continually ignore scouts just because they aren’t saying what the posters want to hear.
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I think we’re on the same page honestly. I think it is very apparent what some of the scouts are saying about his approach. I think his approach is actually more worrying than the swing, tbh. He’s not striking out, he’s not walking, but not all contact he makes is going to be good contact, so he’ll have to be more selective otherwise he’ll just have weak groundballs of flyouts a lot of the time.
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This has argument has deteriorated into Superman vs. Batman who would win in a fight…ie pointless. So I will stop and let Franco’s performance speak for itself.
However, it is wrong to suggest that I am only focusing on this BA or OPS. To me, the most telling statistic is his strikeouts…or lack thereof. At the end of the day, this is a simple game. See ball..hit ball. And elite hand-eye coordination along with elite swing speed cover a lot of mechanical flaws. We have seen this time and again with many elite players. As was mentioned above, Franco certainly has flaws, as does almost every MLB player (Trout seems to be the exception). He will most certainly have to adjust his swing several times in his career. But what he has, you can’t teach. And that is what is most impressive IMO.
Additionally, I think that you guys put way too much credibility into scouting reports. Understand that scouts are paid to look for flaws. There is no upside for a scout to be overly positive. They always want to hedge themselves, “this guy can be great, but he has this flaw that might hold him back.” Need some evidence, read this historical scouting report by John Sikels on Chase Utley (a sure fired Hall of Famer). http://www.minorleagueball.com/2013/3/14/4104678/prospect-retrospective-chase-utley-2b-philadelphia-phillies
You can find these type of scouting reports on almost all top MLB players. Scouts are wrong all the time.
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“There have been a number of scouting notes posted on here stating they don’t see the issue either.”
Zero. None. Nada. Yes, there have been reports that some scouts don’t specifically see the “arm bar.” But every one of those reports – every one, without exception (at least in 2013) have identified other problems with the swing. Actually, it seems to me to be mainly a matter of semantics – different people describing the swing differently, but agreeing that it is problematic.
Now, it’s CERTAINLY possible that his unorthodox swing will not be as serious a problem as some people think it will be (or that it is fixable). There are certainly examples of successful players with unorthodox swings. But to simply claim – with no real evidence, apart from YOUR opinion about video clips (and precious few of those) that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE SCOUTS AND EXPERTS IS WRONG – well sorry, that takes a level of arrogance that even I don’t have.
“He is clearly waiting on pitches that he can hit.”
Clearly? Says who? By all reports that I have read, he isn’t “waiting” on anything. Now, in fact he’s hitting most of what he’s swinging at – for now, against AA pitchers, and even that is less true than it was. The one thing the approach issue has in common with the swing issue is that MANY times an approach of swing that works against AA pitchers does not work against major league pitchers. For the approach, I’d go further: I doubt it will work long term even against AA pitchers (and his performance after his hot start supports that.) You talk about becoming more “passive,” but that misstates the point. He’ll always be an aggressive hitter, but even aggressive hitters need to look for their pitch. And, at the major league level, that means at least a modicum of patience. For no hitter is every pitch – or even most pitches – “his” pitch. Right now in AA, by all reports, Franco is acting as if every pitch (or almost all pitches) are “his” pitch. Players with plus plus contact skills can get away with this (though it is still sub-optimal). Franco has good contact skills but not good enough to get away with swinging at everything.
3.1% BB rate. And that’s against AA pitching. I will state confidently that he will not succeed as a major league player with that rate. It’s more likely that Galvis will become the major league career HR leader.
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At the end of the day, your argument comes down to “but his numbers are just too good!” And that’s an argument that has been had for many many players on this site – the idea that the numbers are all you need to look at. And it’s ironic, because the guys making that argument are, in every case, the NON modern stat oriented people.
But it is in fact true – true beyond ANY doubt – that the numbers, especially minor league numbers, especially SSS numbers and yes, 196 PA is a small sample – are OFTEN deceptive. Now, that isn’t ALWAYS true. it’s certainly possible that Franco could go onto stardom – though IMO it will require AT LEAST some work on the approach, and possibly the swing – but you can’t defeat arguments about the swing and approach by merely repeating, again and again, his BA (yawn) and OPS (better but still potentially deceptive) in less than 50 AA games. We know he’s hitting well in AA (though less well than he had been).
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Can we assume the Phillies org may have begun working on Franco’s mechanices/swing/hands/load or whatever you want to call his batting technique, sometime in 2011 and maybe through spring 2012 and from aprrox. EOM June 2012 through now…or approx 800PAs… he has become comfortable with it to produce results?
Isn’t it also safe to assume that the majority of all minor leaguers make adjustments through-out their careers under careful instructions from coaches?
And didn’t Joe Jordan also come out and say Tyson Gillies’ was being instructed differently this year?
So my guess is, Phillies, along with all MLB clubs, instruct their prospects continuosly.
Alas, Franco must have taken to the instructions as a good student.
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John Sickels:
“There’s also the whole ‘arm bar’ controversy. I wouldn’t say his swing is conventional, but it works and if there is some sort of actual problem it hasn’t been exposed yet.”
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The original comment was made in April or May by Jim Callis. Law is a late comer to the Franco swing analysis party
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A few other scouts have come out and said it’s not an armbar swing in that it doesn’t completely lock out. However, I think all of the scouts agree that there’s too much movement in the setup – that seems fairly easy to correct. What will be harder to correct is his over aggressiveness at the plate – especially when one factors in the organizational mandate to swing at anything within a foot of the plate.
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Looks to me like Franco pulls his hands too far back/high. At least more than you usually see.
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Too far back/high for what? Clearly not too far to make consistently solid contact. So for whom? Anticipating you saying it will be an issue in the majors.
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he is “locking” (arm barring) his left arm thru the swing. I don’t really see hand position as an issue.
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Moving the hands too far back during the load leads to the front arm straightening.
Bottom line is, the swing is unusual (i.e. not what you teach hitters), and scouts aren’t making things up.
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When you load up your hands shouldn’t go further back then your back foot, any further will be seen as a flawed load. Listen, 95% of hitters in the minor leagues and prob 70% of hitters in the major leagues don’t have “perfect” swings (or even good for that matter) approaches, etc. If they did then baseball would be a hell of a lot easier but baseball isn’t, it’s a game where you can fail 70% of the time and be a HOFer.
I’d be interested in knowing how many pitches he sees per at bat over the course of a full season. I’ve seen 8 Reading games this year and in those games I kept track of how many pitches Franco saw per at bat: 8 Games 29 ABs
AB1- 6 AB2- 5 AB3- 3 AB4- 2 AB5- 2 AB6- 7 AB7- 4 AB8- 5 AB9- 1 AB10- 3 AB11- 4 AB12- 5 AB13- 4 AB14- 4 AB15- 1 AB16- 7 AB17- 3 AB18- 2 AB19- 4 AB20- 6 AB21- 7 AB22- 1 AB23- 3 AB24- 4 AB25- 7 AB26- 5 AB27- 5 AB28- 1 AB29- 4
In this small 8 game sample size Franco saw 3.96 pitches per AB. He worked the count full (or the pitcher came back to run the count full) 5x without walking any of the 5 (2 hits in those 5 full counts). What I’m getting at is that even tho his BB% is low, at least in this sample he’s seeing a lot of pitches and is only one pitch away from walking on several occasions. Hope it makes sense what I’m saying here, it’s easy for me to know what I’m trying to get at but not so easy to write it out. I apologize if none of that made sense.
During the week of the futures game Philly.com had an article about Franco where they were talking to Seth Rosin who also played with Mike Trout and Bryce Harper in the AFL, this is Rosin’s quote “That guy is incredible. I played with some guys before in the fall league like Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, and I don’t know if I’ve seen a hitter like Maikel Franco yet.” That’s pretty high praise.
On a side note tell me what you guys think about this idea (I kinda mentioned it in another post). Either in ST, right after ST or even right when the MILB season is over, the Phillies should have their own futures game or series. They would come up with 2 teams of prospects picking from their 8 affiliates (LHV, Reading, Clearwater, Lakewood, Williamsport, GCL Phillies, DSL Phillies and VSL Phillies) and have them play a game, series or even play a game at each affiliate park (minus DSL and VSL) against each other. It would give us fans a chance to see all of our top prospects, would give the FO a chance to see the lower level prospects against top higher level pitching (JPC vs Biddle or Tocci vs Adam Morgan or Watson vs Franco) without having to worry about promoting. I think this would be a great idea and haven’t found any other organizations that does this. I promise you that if they were to do this it would catch on with other teams and become a main stay. Hope the FO reads these things haha.
Btw I just recently found this site and gotta say I love being able to talk Phillies baseball and inpetuticular phillies minor league baseball with other knowledgable fans.
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The pitches per AB is a GREAT stat to keep for Franco. Thanks for sending that. 3.96 for Franco puts him in very good company compared to mlb. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/league/al/sort/pitchesPerPlateAppearance/type/expanded
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When Williamsport returns from break, will they have a new shortstop? Seems like a natural point for a Crawford promotion.
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Seems pretty unlikely, but there’s not much history to go by. The club did that with BIddle in his draft year, and they haven’t had a first rounder higher than Biddle since, so maybe, but for three weeks, it seems like a long shot.
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In a Philly.com article over the weekend, Joe Jordan hinted that it was a possibility that Crawford could be moved.
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Steve…I so agree with you. Can you imagine what the scouts would have been saying about hitters like Manny Sanguillen, Roberto Clemente and Vlad Guerrero? None of those guys would have warranted anything but disdain, especially Clemente, who routinely swung at pitches in the dirt, out of the strike zone and everywhere but in the supposed “hitting zone.”
I always remember hearing that it was in Double A that the pretenders became separated from the real deals and Franco is now in Double A and succeeding quite nicely. In fact, one thing worth noting is that he has improved at every level in his ascent up the ladder, and you could make a case that this is because a good hitter will see better [hittable] pitches the higher up the ladder he goes. The Steve Dalkowski Wild Things just don’t make it out of A ball.
Look, Franco may eventually fail, but right now he is doing very well and offers hope for the future, which in my mind, is the very reason we come to this site.
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I agree. At this point, given his performance relative to age/level, I think you have to conclude he’s an elite hitting talent, and just trust that he can make the adjustments to hit ML pitching.
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Remember once seeing Clemente hit a ball that bounced. What a player he was, and a very wild swinger, him and Sanguillen would swing at anything close. greatest throwing arm from right field i have ever seen.
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Now we know how young Roccom isn’t. : ) Although in the video/internet age, you might have tracked down some clips, yeah let’s go with that.
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I agree with your conclusion – but not because his current approach is remotely acceptable; rather because it’s fixable (and apparently was better before AA).
The guys you cite, while all aggressive hitters, did not have an approach remotely comparable to Franco’s current (AA) approach. Sanguillen being the arguable exception, but he made up for it with plus plus contact skills (and Franco, somewhere between decent and good in that regard, is nowhere near Sangullen’s level). And on top of that, Sanguillen still managed a 4.1% BB rate as a major league player, versus Franco currently at 3.1% in AA.
Now, the swing is a different issue. I’m not swing expert. I certainly wouldn’t say anything as definitive about the swing as I’m saying about the approach. But I will say this …I sure as heck am NOT going to accept Steve’s lonely and unconvincing crusade versus the fairly massive consensus that there us a problem of some sort. That consensus may be wrong, or right but the swing fixable or partly right but he succeeds anyway. I don’t know, though I put zero weight on the “his AA performance proves the swing doubters wrong” fallacy.
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I could have sworn that manny hardly ever walked, Now I am not saying he or clemente had bar arm swing, which I dont ever understand, just that they were wild swingers, and really good players, I have watch video of franco, to me with the naked eye he has a long swing, but thats watching video, would love to see him in person.
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Manny had a 13.5 BB rate and a 18.5 K rate. That’s pretty good.
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I think some people tend to mix up the two different issues – even setting the swing aside, the approach is bad. In AA he is swinging pretty much at anything. That has nothing to do with the swing, totally different issue (and one that wasn’t really perceived to be an issue before AA).
Sanguillen was certainly a wild swinger. Maybe as wild as Franco now despite the low-but-still-higher-than-Franco BB rate. But his contact skills were so good they made up for that.
But we talk about “wild” swingers as if it is a binary thing, either a player is or isn’t a wild swinger. I don’t think that’s a fair way to look at it. There are degrees, and Franco – at least his AA performance – is a pretty extreme example of it.
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Larry where are you getting your swing statistics from?
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Except for Guerrero, I don’t have swing (plate discipline) stats. (For Guerrero, Fangraphs has the stats. He actually was NOT particularly a free swinger in his younger days (he was average). He was more of a free swinger in his decline years. Quite a coincidence there, I guess. Though even then, not an EXTREMELY undisciplined hitter.)
Guerrero aside, the primary basis for the above comments:
(1) Inferences from BB data (Franco and the other guys);
(2) Several reports of Franco’s approach in AA, all of which say the same thing;
Beyond that … look, Sanguillen was a pretty wild swinger (but see below). Clemente certainly was an aggressive hitter, and certainly there are anecdotes of him swinging at some pretty sketchy pitches. But memory and reputation is not of a player who swung at everything.
Finally, this isn’t about plate discipline directly, but of ancillary relevance: the fact that a player with unusually good contact skills (Sanguillen) can get away with a less disciplined approach. Of course his plus plus contact skills are not in serious dispute, supported by reputation, K rates, and memory.
The irony here is that I’m less worried about this particular problem than some people seem to be, because it seems quite fixable. So some of this comes down to simple semantics. It’s perfectly legitimate to argue that his approach is likely to improve. One can’t, I think, argue that he can be successful with his current (AA) approach.
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ok i that is how i thought you were coming to that conclusion, but i just wanted to make sure. And you and i may disagree on what importance the lack of BBs in this situation mean, but we have come to the same conclusion. The approach is the biggest red flag right now but a 20 year old in AA has plenty of time to refine his approach which occures for all players throughout their career. His swing is only going to be fixed when the holes get exploited and then we will see how amenable he is to change which after his last season in lakewood it appears he is receptive to instruction.
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@CalDreamin,
You are mixing two different issues. You are agreeing with the guys’ obsession with disproving that every scout is wrong about Franco’s (Bad) unorthodox swing. Then you are using examples of players that had the reputation of being ‘Free’ swingers. A Free swinger, does not necessarily have a ‘bad’ swing.
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I will say this. There is something pretty remarkable about Franco bat speed and hand-eye coordination because his swing and approach are not ideal. If anyone gets to this kid and improves his swing or approach I think we are talking about pretty darn special player.
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Yeah, agreed. I just wish people would stick to this obvious truth instead of lame spin about the swing.
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I can’t wait until a team like the Rays or A’s picks up Susdorf off the scrap heap and he becomes either a valuable platoon guy or just a good bat off the bench. Its ridiculous…Casper Wells? Laynce Nix? All these guys get chances in Philly but Susdorf cant? What a joke. I don’t think the guy is a stud, but hes a major league bat, and just like Brandon Moss and Jason Grilli, a team will pick him up and he will contribute
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It’d be great if he did find the right role with another organization, but he just cleared waivers outright when he was sent down, anyone could of had him if they wanted him.
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It seems that Susdorf has been labeled as little more than a punch & judy hitter who has no speed to talk about , no power to speak of, and has a stone glove in the outfield. I feel for the guy who, it seems, has played forever in the lower reaches of the system…but he did get his cup of coffee in the bigs that he can show his grandchildren in a few newspaper sports boxscore sections.
His lack of intriguing baseball skills seems to have been indicated by other teams’ failure to pick him up cheap since he has been available in the Rule 5 draft, right?
He has stuck in there which is indicative of strong determination. The skills….? I think of his family: how soon do you end chasing a dream that continues to consistently exceed your grasp…?…and at what price?
I wish him well. Good enough to get a baseball coaches job…….
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I see Mark Leiter was called up to Clearwater to start one of the games of a doubleheader. (6 IP, 2 ER, 4/1 K/BB and the win). Any idea if he finishes the year there, or does he go back to GCL?
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I would think he’s there to stay Mike. He’s a college kid, turns 23 in March, and has been quite dominant in the GCL. Not sure there’s any reason to have him pitching any lower than Clearwater or Lakewood though it’s likely that the decision to go with Leiter was influenced by the fact that the GCPhils play their games next door. Hopefully he gets a few more starts at Clearwater to finish the year
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