Phillies: Adjustments, patience at the plate paying off for Maikel Franco

Heading into 2019, the Phillies entertained the idea of moving on from Maikel Franco at third base. How a shift in the lineup and a sharp eye has allowed Franco to set the Phillies’ lineup on fire.

The offseason leading into the 2019 season must have been frustrating for Maikel Franco, especially with the way 2018 ended. Franco played in only nine of the Phillies‘ 28 games in the final month of the season, with Carlos Santana and Asdrubal Cabrera starting in his place.

This move was really done because Franco had been playing so poorly defensively, but even his offensive numbers were pedestrian to the point where Gabe Kapler shuffled the lineup around to work in some other pieces (Roman Quinn, Dylan Cozens, Jose Bautista).

At the end of the season, fans had salivating dreams of a Manny Machado/Bryce Harper double signing, which meant Franco would be out. However, when Machado signed with San Diego, all of Philadelphia wondered what was going to happen at third now. Kapler had basically announced an open competition for the third base job, and declared Franco the “winner.” 17 games into this season, Kapler’s faith in Franco has paid off.

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Franco is the best No. 8-hitter in baseball, according to Tom McCarthy and John Kruk. The evidence is there for it, too. Franco has the most home runs and RBI and is third in OPS in the league when comparing batters hitting eighth.

Even further, Franco leads all third basemen in home runs and RBI, and is ninth and fifth in the league in those categories, respectively. He is especially doing damage when it matters, with runners in scoring position.

Franco is hitting .417, with three home runs and 13 RBIs in 12 at-bats with runners on second or third. He’s off to the best start of his career, and his most impressive numbers have nothing to do with his power.

Franco has more walks already than he has ever had in any month of his career (except July 2015), and has lowered his strikeout rate by 4.5%. He currently hits home runs at the same rate that he strikes out (every 9.33 at-bats). He has simultaneously increased his power numbers, decreased his strikeouts, and improved his on-base percentage. A good portion of this comes with the slide down in the lineup, but Franco deserves a lot of credit for the obvious work he’s put in.

Franco’s approach at the plate, in my opinion, has been a three-fold transformation: increase launch angle, increase selectivity, dominate the plate. According to Baseball Savant, Franco has increased his launch angle by 12.3 degrees, only 3.4 degrees less than Rhys Hoskins. His new launch angle allows him to get underneath the ball and put it in the bleachers while cutting down on topping the ball into an easy ground-out (Franco’s decreased by 16.5%).

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As for selectivity, Franco his decreased is first-pitch swinging by nearly 14% and is chasing pitches 6.7% less often. He has even increased the number of pitches per plate appearance by 12%. [For anyone questioning my math, ESPN and FanGraphs count intentional walks towards plate appearances, which doesn’t make sense for this stat. So I removed the IBBs from the PAs.]

Franco’s plate coverage had been respectable for his career, but so far he has punished balls left over the plate. He has a wOBA of .833 and an isolated power (ISO) of 1.100 on balls up and away, where four of his six home runs have been.

I know Franco’s batting average isn’t great. He has a tendency to be very streaky throughout his career. But this is a different Franco. He’s taking pitches, he’s not swinging out of his helmet, and he’s not lazily rolling over an offspeed pitch to third base. After the offseason he went through, and the adjustments he’s made to his approach at the plate, he’s proving the Phillies’ management made the right decision.