Has anyone heard an update on this? Either when it will be announced or any more information on the player pool from KC?Just a reminder that the PTBNL decision will be happening in the next 3-4 weeks. It would be really fun to know who they are.
Has anyone heard an update on this? Either when it will be announced or any more information on the player pool from KC?Just a reminder that the PTBNL decision will be happening in the next 3-4 weeks. It would be really fun to know who they are.
Well thought out and nicely put. A lot of people here see this as Benetendi for Cordero or Benitendi for the prospects, but it's Benintendi for all of the above. There is every reason in the world to want Franchy off the big league roster ATM, but zero reason to think his career is over at this point. He's got an option left and as OCD pointed out there was no minor league season last year. The minors are for development and I'm not convinced that Cordero is done developing. Best case scenario with Cordero is that he becomes a useful player for the Sox or shows enough improvement in his time in WOOster that he becomes a player that other teams might be interested in. Perhaps neither happens, but there's no reason to come to that conclusion just yet.I think your sample choice is directed by your presumed narrative. Is your point is that the Sox won't continue to run him out there because their history is to move on from players who are clearly through (and Ellsbury is just for reference)? Unless that mandated comes from the ownership group, wouldn't we be better off getting a list of players that TB cut and put out to pasture in the last 5 years or so? Franchy's narrative has to be different; a more usefull comparison would be players from across the league who came up from the minors and were absolutely terrible, and how much rope they were given before they were sent down to the minors. Maybe we're lucky and there are some older players in that mix.
I think Franchy is as much a lottery ticket in this deal as some of the other players; Bloom banked on his advanced contract numbers (and contract/ options/ extra year of control) as a better fit than Benintendi, but I expect that the real prize will be the Mets PTBNL (and salary relief from Ben10). Franchy is still hitting the ball really hard, he's just not showing the improved contact rates we hoped might be portended by last year's small sample. As we're looking at the advanced numbers sometimes we'll get a player who turns it around like Pivetta, and other times it will be more of a project...
I still think about Wily Mo Pena in comparison to Franchy; Wily Mo's development was derailed by his MLB contract that pulled him into the majors well before he was ready. Franchy can go down, but there were no minor leagues last year, and the fact that they started late this year meant that if he was going to get the reps to work on his swing it had to be at the MLB level. That is just not ideal for anyone hoping to improve (to say nothing of doing it in this offensive environment). I think he'd already be down in other years, and this year some (in)opportune injuries forced the Sox's hand a bit. It's also more glaring as the Sox are in contention, and based on the thread title and responses to where you first posted this data, it wasn't really expected by many of us. With the arrival of Santana, I expect that he'll wind up in Worchester relatively soon, but I don't think it will mean he's out of baseball.
Who would you call up in his place? Duran just got to triple A and now is off to play for the Olympic team. He will probably go down when Christian Arroyo is ready to come back from his injury. Frenchy actually had a couple of hits yesterday.He's a lottery ticket at this point, as are the PTBNLs. Lottery tickets have some value, but most of them end up being worthless in the end. I think that sometimes gets forgotten or ignored here at prospect-obsessed SoSH.
And a lottery ticket is of little value to this team right now if we really think we're playoff contenders. Hard to see any reason to be wasting a roster spot on Franchy right now.
Anyone who can hit including Duran. Or anyone who can steal a base as a pinch runner. We have Verdugo, Renfroe, Hernandez, Gonzales, Santana, and JD (if need be.)Who would you call up in his place? Duran just got to triple A and now is off to play for the Olympic team. He will probably go down when Christian Arroyo is ready to come back from his injury. Frenchy actually had a couple of hits yesterday.
Right! Can you imagine their record if he had been playing someone else in that spot?Anyone who can hit including Duran. Or anyone who can steal a base as a pinch runner. We have Verdugo, Renfroe, Hernandez, Gonzales, Santana, and JD (if need be.)
Franchy's OPS is .464. Cora keeps putting him in the line-up though. It's managerial malpractice.
Yeah. They might be 30-17!Right! Can you imagine their record if he had been playing someone else in that spot?
Cordero is a putrid, appalling, joke of a player at the plate.Right! Can you imagine their record if he had been playing someone else in that spot?
If you go by bWAR, you'd have to replace Cordero with a 3.5 WAR/162 player to come up with 1 win at this point in the season.Cordero is a putrid, appalling, joke of a player at the plate.
And yes, all the games actually count at the end of the season, no matter how hot a team is at any given point.
Ten years ago the Sox lost a post-season berth to the Rays by one game. Mike Cameron has 94 at bats with a .477 OPS. How important was it that he have them?
How is that? You look at his performance and look for similar performance. It is hard to find many samples as bad with as many at bats. Ellsbury I mentioned was guy that was hurt and was shut down for the season. The others were vets that had proven track records, being paid a pretty good salary so they got an extended chance. He needs to go down. i am sympathetic towards him, just as I was to injured Allen Craig.I think your sample choice is directed by your presumed narrative. Is your point is that the Sox won't continue to run him out there because their history is to move on from players who are clearly through (and Ellsbury is just for reference)?
So, if we took out Xander, JD, and Devers from the lineup, and replaced them with competently fielding .474 OPS Franchy clones, we'd still be over a .500 team?If you go by bWAR, you'd have to replace Cordero with a 3.5 WAR/162 player to come up with 1 win at this point in the season.
No idea but apparently he's only at -0.3 WAR in his 33 games and 99 PA. -0.4 bWAR.So, if we took out Xander, JD, and Devers from the lineup, and replaced them with competently fielding .474 OPS Franchy clones, we'd still be over a .500 team?
It was the reserve clause era, but John McGraw insisted on keeping Mel Ott with the big league club because he didn't want his swing messed with in the minors.He's 26. He has options. Keeping him on the ML club when you've got 2 utility men and MiL players who can hit and run better than Franchy has been doing.
When he lives up to his bat-speed/launch-angle/foot-placement/anti-counter-spin/secret sauce Mightly Metrickatude (e.g., actually productively hits) in AAA, then call him back up.
Right now, it's malpractice.
He started the year with 3 years and 38 days of service time. So if he were to spend at least 39 days in Worcester this year, they could theoretically push his free agency off by another year. I have no doubt that that will have zero influence on how they proceed with him going forward.Where is Franchy on the service clock with not a lot of MLB games played over 4 preceding seasons?
Not just a HR -- it was the hardest hit ball in MLB this year. 474 ft HR.Well, he just did something useful (HR), so I may as well keep bitchin.
I honestly do not care, preferring he hit 425 ft HRs more frequently.Not just a HR -- it was the hardest hit ball in MLB this year. 474 ft HR.
View: https://twitter.com/NESN/status/1396558862631768070?s=19
Yeah, Wily Mo could do that too on the rare occasion when he made good contact. The obsession with stats like this is not good.I honestly do not care, preferring he hit 425 ft HRs more frequently.
Quoted for posterity.Some of these posts are gonna be pretty funny when Franchy’s hitting 30+ home runs a year for us from the 5-hole next year.
Through May 5: .163 xwOBA, 85.9 mph EV, 40.6 K%, 54.5 GB%
Since May 6: .371 xwOBA, 90.2 mph EV, 28.9 K%, 37.5 GB%
Considering his short spring training (18 PA), it looks like Cordero is pulling out of his post-pandemic early season slump quicker than Renfroe and Dalbec did.
Yeah, I’m deliberately trying to counter the foaming schadenfreude and bad-faith comparisons in this thread, yours included. Cordero, Renfroe and Dalbec are roughly similar players, and it’s taken them all the same number of plate appearances this year to make adjustments and come around.Quoted for posterity.
Isn't this where most people are at? The most common word used with Franchy in a sentence is probably option(s).I think players like Franchy Cordero are exciting, and I’d like for him to succeed — not get run out of town by the wolves on WEEI. He may still benefit from some time in Worcester (mostly because Danny Santana is gonna be excellent for us), but I’m looking forward to him being a lineup mainstay the next several years. The guy just hit the ball 474 feet off one of the best pitchers in baseball. Let’s give him the same patience we’ve given Dalbec and let him figure it out.
As I said, those guys lost their job because you can place them at the end of their careers (due to age and injury), and Franchy clearly isn't. A meaningful comparison would be players overwhelmed at the MLB level and sent down to miLB to further develop, and then what happened to them. Under normal circumstances, the idea that you'd send him to the minors to develop with consistent PAs, but what do you think should happen when there are no minor league games for him to get into, or there are a rash of injuries when you could send him down? And what would the real benefit have been?How is that? You look at his performance and look for similar performance. It is hard to find many samples as bad with as many at bats. Ellsbury I mentioned was guy that was hurt and was shut down for the season. The others were vets that had proven track records, being paid a pretty good salary so they got an extended chance. He needs to go down. i am sympathetic towards him, just as I was to injured Allen Craig.
Aren't they now? These are the stats that also brought us Pivetta and Richards, who also had their warts. Part of building a team capable of sustainable winning is finding and developing players, and that means sticking through some tough times as they develop. I feel like part of this discussion is making what seems like an easy fix for short term satisfaction, and not putting up with the frustration required in that time for long term benefit (and of course it's harder if you don't know that that benefit will be there.Yeah, Wily Mo could do that too on the rare occasion when he made good contact. The obsession with stats like this is not good.
Nothing would make me happier than for Franchy to succeed and hit 30 HR for us this year. (And I wouldn't advocate changing the roster if he began to turn it around. Yesterday was a start.)Yeah, I’m deliberately trying to counter the foaming schadenfreude and bad-faith comparisons in this thread, yours included. Cordero, Renfroe and Dalbec are roughly similar players, and it’s taken them all the same number of plate appearances this year to make adjustments and come around.
We’re not talking about some late-career, injury wrecked guy like Allen Craig or noodle bat like James Loney. The WMP comparisons are still lazy and wrong too. Wily Mo led baseball in swinging strikes when strikeouts were much more rare than they are now. Cordero whiffs a lot, but some of his issues have been pitch recognition and watching hittable strikes go by. There are a lot of modern-day players who make it work with Cordero’s contact rate, and few who can hit it as hard as he does. His contemporaries from today’s game are guys like Tyler O’Neill, Ryan Mountcastle, Adolis Garcia and Bobby Dalbec. Success stories in this mold are guys like Teoscar Hernandez. If you want a historical Red Sox player, I’d suggest he’s closer to Carlos Peña than Wily Mo.
And he’s clearly getting better. Since May 6, Franchy has hit 6 balls in play classified as barrels or solid contact. That’s fifth on the team, tied with J.D. Martinez, Bogaerts and Vazquez, and in much fewer PAs. By comparison, he had only 2 from the beginning of the season until May 5.
I think players like Franchy Cordero are exciting, and I’d like for him to succeed — not get run out of town by the wolves on WEEI. He may still benefit from some time in Worcester (mostly because Danny Santana is gonna be excellent for us), but I’m looking forward to him being a lineup mainstay the next several years. The guy just hit the ball 474 feet off one of the best pitchers in baseball. Let’s give him the same patience we’ve given Dalbec and let him figure it out.
I always enjoy how those that are quick to say "small sample size" when somebody sucks for six weeks are also ready to proclaim somebody else a real find when they've been good for six weeks.*Aren't they now? These are the stats that also brought us Pivetta and Richards, who also had their warts. Part of building a team capable of sustainable winning is finding and developing players, and that means sticking through some tough times as they develop. I feel like part of this discussion is making what seems like an easy fix for short term satisfaction, and not putting up with the frustration required in that time for long term benefit (and of course it's harder if you don't know that that benefit will be there.
I don’t think I agree with you here. Or else I’m not sure what you mean by “overall approach.” There’s no way we can account for a hitter’s mental or psychological approach, but I’ve watched maybe half of Franchy’s PAs, and early on he struck me as a guy who was overthinking it — a guy whose brain was ahead of his body in applying a new hitting approach. After a pandemic, lots of lost time due to injury, an abbreviated spring and a new team/hitting coach, that all intuitively checks out.There's no indication that he's going to get overall better results. That's because things like hit-speed/distance/barrels don't account for overall approach. Franchy can moon-shot something every 50th at bat, harder than anyone else, and that simply won't make him a viable major leaguer.
Having read chawson singing Danny Santana's praises since before the Sox signed him, I don't think his confidence is based on three games.* and we've already seen another poster pretty much guarantee that Santana is going to be great based on three games!
definition of a small sample size, but if the last 4 games show how he plays with little or no confidence I think they should double down on making fun of anything about him that they can do to get him even more in the "I'LL SHOW THEM" mode that he must be in nowI always enjoy how those that are quick to say "small sample size" when somebody sucks for six weeks are also ready to proclaim somebody else a real find when they've been good for six weeks.*
I hope you're right about Franchy and Pivetta and Richards, but I'm not ready to be sure. Meanwhile Cordero is a black hole and we are possibly destroying whatever little confidence he has left after his many recent struggles. Seems like a bad idea for everyone to keep him around right now.
* and we've already seen another poster pretty much guarantee that Santana is going to be great based on three games!
I guess this is where I have to trust in the professional insight of Cora and his staff and of the front office to determine if Cordero is benefitting from his difficult 2021 MLB experience. I have to believe that if they saw a young player who was getting his confidence crushed by failure and risking long-term damage to his career, they would find a way to send him down. Conversely, if Franchy is dealing well with his struggles at the plate and is doing everything they ask and responding well to instruction, but the results just aren't there yet, they may have determined that it is worth giving him some more playing time at the big league level than might otherwise be warranted for a similarly-struggling youngster. I guess I just want to believe that the Red Sox aren't oblivious to the psychological aspects of his rough start.I hope you're right about Franchy and Pivetta and Richards, but I'm not ready to be sure. Meanwhile Cordero is a black hole and we are possibly destroying whatever little confidence he has left after his many recent struggles. Seems like a bad idea for everyone to keep him around right now.
The physical ability to hit a single thrown baseball very hard is not the same thing as being a viable MLB hitter. Franchy has never established he can do the former consistently enough to be the latter. (The history of baseball is littered with toolsy players who never amounted to anything.)I don’t think I agree with you here. Or else I’m not sure what you mean by “overall approach.”
Again? Seriously, what historical performance does that increased barreling correlate with? Majors or Minors. (Honest question.)But lately, he is getting better results. It’s small sample size, but he’s barreling the ball again, pulling it a lot more and hitting it in the air. I don’t know what we can attribute that to, but it’s happening.
Well, last first, those parts of the fan base aren't me. Next, he's not "making adjustments" - he's simply not hitting. Next, the Padres developed this guy. Here's a 2018 article on Franchy's limitless potential. https://community.fangraphs.com/the-endless-possibilities-of-franchy-cordero/More broadly, the Sox very rarely have occasion to give a high-upside player like this PAs at the major-league level except in those rare seasons when we’re out of it by midseason, like 2012 and 2014. Teams like the A’s and Rays develop guys like this all the time. I think some parts of the fan base have a hard time seeing a player make adjustments at the major league level, especially if he just supplanted a fan favorite.
Also, FWIW WMP played in parts of four major league season before joining The Sox in 2006. Franchy played in parts of four major league seasons before joining The Sox this season. Pena had just over 900 PA's during that period while Cordero had just over 300.Yeah, I’m deliberately trying to counter the foaming schadenfreude and bad-faith comparisons in this thread, yours included. Cordero, Renfroe and Dalbec are roughly similar players, and it’s taken them all the same number of plate appearances this year to make adjustments and come around.
We’re not talking about some late-career, injury wrecked guy like Allen Craig or noodle bat like James Loney. The WMP comparisons are still lazy and wrong too. Wily Mo led baseball in swinging strikes when strikeouts were much more rare than they are now. Cordero whiffs a lot, but some of his issues have been pitch recognition and watching hittable strikes go by. There are a lot of modern-day players who make it work with Cordero’s contact rate, and few who can hit it as hard as he does. His contemporaries from today’s game are guys like Tyler O’Neill, Ryan Mountcastle, Adolis Garcia and Bobby Dalbec. Success stories in this mold are guys like Teoscar Hernandez. If you want a historical Red Sox player, I’d suggest he’s closer to Carlos Peña than Wily Mo.
And he’s clearly getting better. Since May 6, Franchy has hit 6 balls in play classified as barrels or solid contact. That’s fifth on the team, tied with J.D. Martinez, Bogaerts and Vazquez, and in much fewer PAs. By comparison, he had only 2 from the beginning of the season until May 5.
I think players like Franchy Cordero are exciting, and I’d like for him to succeed — not get run out of town by the wolves on WEEI. He may still benefit from some time in Worcester (mostly because Danny Santana is gonna be excellent for us), but I’m looking forward to him being a lineup mainstay the next several years. The guy just hit the ball 474 feet off one of the best pitchers in baseball. Let’s give him the same patience we’ve given Dalbec and let him figure it out.
I know this is a throwaway line but:With the exception of Gary Sanchez, who is kind of terrible
Enrique Hernandez clocked one out at 118 in 2016. We must get that guy! He will also be Judge-esque. But even better since his contact skills are already decent. All we need is a power-nickname.Remember, at 118.6 mph, Franchy just hit the hardest ball a Red Sox player has hit in the tracking era, i.e. since 2015. Over that 5ish season span, only Giancarlo Stanton, Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Nelson Cruz, Vlad Guerrero, Jr. and Gary Sanchez have hit even a single ball harder than that mark.
With the exception of Gary Sanchez, who is kind of terrible, there just aren't many hitters with that kind of outlier exit velocity, and most of them are pretty great hitters. Obviously, he needs to make contact to tap into that power, but that's what we were all saying about Aaron Judge when he struck out a ton in his early partial season.
Another fun fact: Cordero has already hit four balls in play this season harder than Andrew Benintendi’s hardest-hit ball in a Red Sox uniform (a single to right against Oakland).Enrique Hernandez clocked one out at 118 in 2016. We must get that guy! He will also be Judge-esque. But even better since his contact skills are already decent. All we need is a power-nickname.
Didn’t you just argue the opposite a few posts ago? I disagree strongly, being able to hit a ball 118 is like being able to throw 100, it’s still pretty rare and a big deal. Being able to throw 100 also doesn’t mean you’re good in and of itself but it sure helps and is very worth noting.So... can we agree that exit velocity, without any additional information, has no predictive value? I'm not sure why it keeps being brought up, other than that it's a new shiny metric to cite. Barrels is definitely a more interesting statistic, but that also has to be read in context.
I posted a couple examples upthread of Franchy "crushing" balls that had exit velocities of over 100 mph. One was a routine chopper to second and the other a pop up to center. The launch angles on those were extreme in both directions. But the EV of those bad result at-bats still helped Franchy's cited EV averages.
You ignored my question on your earlier post - what historical performance does Franchy barreling the ball “again” correlate to?Another fun fact: Cordero has already hit four balls in play this season harder than Andrew Benintendi’s hardest-hit ball in a Red Sox uniform (a single to right against Oakland).
No, we can’t agree to that. Hit probability is strongly correlated with exit velocity. There are other factors too, of course. Hitting a 101-mph two-hoppers to second like Yandy Diaz won’t get you very far. But very simply the harder a ball is hit the less likely it’ll be converted into an out.So... can we agree that exit velocity, without any additional information, has no predictive value? I'm not sure why it keeps being brought up, other than that it's a new shiny metric to cite. Barrels is definitely a more interesting statistic, but that also has to be read in context.
The rest of his career.You ignored my question on your earlier post - what historical performance does Franchy barreling the ball “again” correlate to?
The .678 OPS career?No, we can’t agree to that. Hit probability is strongly correlated with exit velocity. There are other factors too, of course. Hitting a 101-mph two-hoppers to second like Yandy Diaz won’t get you very far. But very simply the harder a ball is hit the less likely it’ll be converted into an out.
I’d argue that exit velocity is more correlative with success nowadays because a) advanced scouting has optimized fielders’ positions, cutting the reaction time necessary to convert BIP into outs, and b) this year the new lighter ball has more drag, resulting in a measured reduction in fly ball distance and home runs.
Not saying it’s the only thing.
The rest of his career.
??Some of these posts are gonna be pretty funny when Franchy’s hitting 30+ home runs a year for us from the 5-hole next year.
Through May 5: .163 xwOBA, 85.9 mph EV, 40.6 K%, 54.5 GB%
Since May 6: .371 xwOBA, 90.2 mph EV, 28.9 K%, 37.5 GB%
Considering his short spring training (18 PA), it looks like Cordero is pulling out of his post-pandemic early season slump quicker than Renfroe and Dalbec did.
That's fair. It was a throwaway line, and you're right: there's more to Sanchez than his last few seasons, and I shouldn't be snide about it.I know this is a throwaway line but:
Gary Sanchez: 11.0 career bWAR, 1654 ABs (28 years old)
Christian Vazquez: 4.7 career bWAR, 1725 ABs (30 years old)
Also, this always blows my mind, Sanchez has 120 career HRs in those 1654 ABs and Judge is not too far ahead with 131 in 1674 career ABs.
Also Chris Gittens has shown this kind of exit velocity but has yet to be promoted (AA League MVP in 2019, crushing AAA this year, a 27 year old 1B for NY).
Yup. I don't quite understand the point you're trying to make. Isn't the aim in the middle of a rebuild, as we thought we were 8 weeks ago, to try to identify and acquire undervalued players? Almost by definition, those will be players who have some underlying skill that hasn't yet shown up in performance for whatever reason.Enrique Hernandez clocked one out at 118 in 2016. We must get that guy! He will also be Judge-esque. But even better since his contact skills are already decent. All we need is a power-nickname.
Are we in the middle of a rebuild? Should we prioritize player development of Franchy at the ML level instead of using AAA for that, because. . .we don't need to win games?Yup. I don't quite understand the point you're trying to make. Isn't the aim in the middle of a rebuild, as we thought we were 8 weeks ago, to try to identify and acquire undervalued players? Almost by definition, those will be players who have some underlying skill that hasn't yet shown up in performance for whatever reason.
If the team is unexpectedly competitive because the early returns on the starting pitching version of this play have been pretty great (i.e. betting on SPs like Pivetta and Richards with high-end spin rates but health or performance question marks), that seems like evidence for the effectiveness of this kind of strategy, not cause to abandon it. Sure, not every hitter with high EVs is going to be good right away (or at all), just like there are pitchers who can throw hard or get big spin rates but are nevertheless terrible. It seems like we have some good things going on in our pitching program to help those guys unlock that performance.
It may be that hitting analogues — swing or plate approach tweaks — are slower to implement. But in recent weeks watching Franchy, I see a rising contact rate, a falling strikeout rate, more hard contact and more hits in the fast-stabilizing stats. And, you know, he's gained 100 points of OPS in four games. I doubt that torrid pace will continue, but if I were running the team, I would give it a few more weeks; if he's still sporting a (I don't know) sub-.600 OPS, then I'd look at optioning him at that point.
In his MLB career (236 batted balls), Franchy has a barrel % that is comfortably above average (10.6% Franchy, 6.5 MLB average), but that is barrels per batted ball event (does not factor in the strikeout rate of the player, which would negatively affect him).Again? Seriously, what historical performance does that increased barreling correlate with? Majors or Minors. (Honest question.)