So, I have been (possibly hyper) critical of Kapler, but I have also seen his good side at times. That said, batting Franco 8th just drives me nuts when I see it.
First, you want to use the batting order to group people to score runs. Despite current logic, batting order does matter, just not as much as the old "book". The higher you put a guy in the order, the more plate appearances they will get, every spot gets you about 18 more PAs in a season. So in general you want to put your better hitters higher in the order, so batting Franco after Alfaro/Knapp, KIngery, etc. is just foolish. Just because a guy has fallen out of favor and is probably not in the long term plan is a really dumb reason to hit him below lesser hitters.You are throwing away runs by doing that.
Franco is the definition of a guy who should never bat 8th in the NL. The 8th place hitter will get lots of pitches out of the strike zone, the intent of the pitcher will always be to make this guy chase pitches because you have the pitcher next (at least in the first 2 at bats normally). Franco is the perfect guy to fall for this, he will chase bad pitches and he does not have good recognition. You never want to put him in this spot, honestly Kingery and/or Crawford should be the guy here, they both have above average pitch recognition (or at least did in the minors). Even as he gets older Franco should hit 7th, hitting him 8th is just playing into the best plan for the other team.