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It’s Dumb that the Phillies Are Trying to Get Maikel Franco Back this Season
By Jim Adair
Published:
It’s been just about a month since Maikel Franco suffered a non-broken broken wrist when he took a fastball to his hand and fell to the ground in pain. The Phillies have 22 games remaining in their season, and they want to bring Franco back before this year’s finale. That’s stupid.
Both David Murphy and Ryan Lawrence displayed something on Twitter that the Phillies seem to have a lack of: Common sense. Franco is your best young star (non-pitcher category) and has already committed to playing winter ball to keep loose/get better in the off-season. It’s not like he doesn’t improve the team. From Lawrence’s report:
The Phillies are 22-40 (.355 winning percentage) in the 62 games they’ve played without Franco (before he was called up from Triple A on May 15, and after he was hurt). With Franco healthy and available, the Phillies are 32-46 (.410 winning percentage).
The Phillies are averaging 3.52 runs per game without Franco and 4.09 runs per game with him. The National League average for runs per game is 4.13.
Still below average, but obviously better. However, it doesn’t matter. This team isn’t going to win anything other than the futility award for the worst team in baseball. They’re already been eliminated from playoff contention. And Franco is perhaps your best shot at a superstar currently on your roster, so why rush him? Why put him back into meaningless baseball games with a wrist that, while pain-free, might still be susceptible to re-injury (cough cough Joel Embiid cough). The return of Franco isn’t going to fill the stands are the scorecard, so just hold him out until next season, when he probably won’t be playing for anything either, but we can pretend he is for about half the season.
When he's not writing about sports here or ranting about them on Twitter, Jim is probably watching X-Files on Netflix or drinking a beer somewhere. Jim has nothing against hockey, it's just not his style. He once met Duce Staley at a Sixers game.