2017: Mariners (Miranda) vs. Phillies (Eickhoff)

tom81 2017-05-10 15:27:03 UTC #21

I will

Why is the regular with the lowest OPS, and the youngest player to boot, hitting cleanup? They need to move him lower in the order to take some stress off of him to give him a chance to turn it around. I'm really annoyed with the way the lineup stands when your guy with the third highest OPS is hitting 8th and the guy with the worst is hitting 4th.

gmwannabe 2017-05-10 16:07:02 UTC #22

Good Point Tom. i'd put Saunders in there against righties and Maybe Joseph (not much better ) against lefties.
gm

allentown 2017-05-10 17:15:28 UTC #23

I think it is time to worry that Franco might be a one-year flash ala Asche, Brown, Mayberry, Ruf. At over 130 PA the sample size is becoming not all that small and the trend is clear, after a very good 2015, he lost 100 OPS points in 2016 and has lost another 100 this year. BA, OBP, SLG are all down year-over-year-over-year and at present he is failing the eyeball test. Still possible Stairs can get him turned around and 130 PA isn't a large sample size, but he is starting to look like a classic case of pitchers adjusted and he can't and won't and now has reached the frustration point where the O woes are affecting the D. There isn't a substitute on the horizon, so he clearly gets the whole year to turn things around, but he is a legitimate cause for concern. His peak year was the 2013 minor league season. He walked less then than he does now, struck out a little less, and had a significantly higher extra base hit rate and BA. He had faced his hurdle of having to deal with good, off-speed bendy pitches in 2014 and it knocked his stats way down, by he seemed to adjust and come back strong in 2015. A further adjustment by pitchers or forgetting the changes he made in 2015.

Philsmania 2017-05-10 17:49:01 UTC #24

allentown:

I think it is time to worry that Franco might be a one-year flash ala Asche, Brown, Mayberry, Ruf. At over 130 PA the sample size is becoming not all that small and the trend is clear, after a very good 2015, he lost 100 OPS points in 2016 and has lost another 100 this year. BA, OBP, SLG are all down year-over-year-over-year and at present he is failing the eyeball test. Still possible Stairs can get him turned around and 130 PA isn't a large sample size, but he is starting to look like a classic case of pitchers adjusted and he can't and won't and now has reached the frustration point where the O woes are affecting the D. There isn't a substitute on the horizon, so he clearly gets the whole year to turn things around, but he is a legitimate cause for concern. His peak year was the 2013 minor league season. He walked less then than he does now, struck out a little less, and had a significantly higher extra base hit rate and BA. He had faced his hurdle of having to deal with good, off-speed bendy pitches in 2014 and it knocked his stats way down, by he seemed to adjust and come back strong in 2015. A further adjustment by pitchers or forgetting the changes he made in 2015.

Of course, it's too early to jump to conclusions but it's entirely possible that it's "what you see is what you get" with Franco. If Machado is going to be the man ultimately, we'll need to stick it out with Franco for another season until we can sign Machado and then either trade or unceremoniously non-tender Franco, a la Marlon Anderson after we signed Bell and moved Polanco to second.

bkeich 2017-05-10 19:47:42 UTC #25

Franco is going to be a streaky guy. His swing mechanics have so much motion and he just seems to forget that he is never going to hit a 1500 foot HR no matter how hard he tries that I suspect he is always going to be in and out of slumps. He really is better setup to be a #6 or #7 hitter, a guy who can clean up the guys on the base sometimes and not leave them for the weak hitters to have to drive in. On a better hitting team that is where he will be, I hope he is there in a couple years on this team.

As far as value, he is still a good value player. If he can get to a .780 OPS he is a solid, if unspectacular player especially for his pay.

EastFallowfield 2017-05-10 21:01:27 UTC #26

Kinda think Saunders is our worst regular in the lineup now that Joseph's picked it up lately. If we had somebody other than Blanco to play 3rd I might agree that Franco needs to go.

zambonir 2017-05-10 23:17:25 UTC #27

It's all relative. The Phillies carried weak, if usually defensively stronger, 3B for a long time. But they had such big bats in the rest of the IF during those periods. Franco is supposed to be one of the 2-4 guys they can count on while others develop and prove themselves. If he's not, that doesn't necessarily mean giving up on him, but it means they'll need more, and more quickly, from a spot like 1B or LF.

Kendrick can play third, if it's just about giving Franco a break. If Crawford was ready you could move Galvis there, at the moment he'd be an upgrade. But nobody needs to go, expectations for this team ranged from 62 to 81 wins, trending towards the latter isn't going to cost anyone their job in the short-term.

LoneStarPhan 2017-05-11 00:05:08 UTC #28

I don't have the answer to Franco but I agree that it is too early to give up on him. I would, however, mover him down to bat sixth for awhile.

zambonir 2017-05-11 01:42:16 UTC #29

I said "in the short-term," but it sounds like things are getting a little hot. Not seriously so, and I think Mackanin would win a power struggle for now - Benoit could just as easily get himself traded - but this team is on a 2-10 run. If they don't catch a few breaks on the road against Texas or Pittsburgh, they're probably looking at .333 baseball (six or seven wins) for the rest of May

Philsmania 2017-05-11 03:00:53 UTC #30

Players publicly ripping a manager is never a good sign. Some national publications put Mackanin on the list of manages likely to be on the hot seat. This isn't likely to quiet that.

Lawman 2017-05-11 03:05:16 UTC #31

If I'm the Phillies, I think about releasing Benoit.

LoneStarPhan 2017-05-11 04:34:02 UTC #32

I hope Benoit isn't too inconvenienced by being asked to help the team. Clearly it's all about him. Frankly, I was shocked to read his whining about being mismanaged. I expected professionalism from him.

Lawman 2017-05-11 12:54:45 UTC #33

I expect professionalism from no player, thus am always pleasantly surprised when it shows, and spare myself shock and disappointment when a lack of it is on display.

zambonir 2017-05-11 18:09:39 UTC #34

Well, I got that one right