The Philadelphia Phillies are in bad shape. All the success that they saved up for in 2011 has officially come tumbling down like a deadly game of Jenga. With a depleted farm system and over-payed veterans, they are in a situation similar to what the Houston Astros were in. However, the Houston Astros realized it in time, fired Ed Wade and started trading away pieces of their MLB club for a multitude of young, promising prospects.
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The Philadelphia Phillies have recently promoted Maikel Franco. If you ask someone in Philly who Maikel Franco is, they may tell you he’s the messiah. But unfortunately, he’s not.
Maikel Franco is one of the few good prospects in the Phillies system. He’s a solid all around player at a premium position like third base. He could be a building block for the Phillies’ future. The problem is that you need more than one brick to construct a building. Maikel Franco is only 23 years old and he’s one of a very small collection of prospects that’s anywhere near making an impact at the Major League level.
Aaron Nola has the potential to be a stud, but that’s only two building blocks. J.P. Crawford is on the brink of something special as well, so there’s three.
Aside from that, you’d think that a few trades would land them some more key players, but if you look at what the Phillies have and what they’d be asking, their movable pieces are actually incredibly slim pickings. Ryan Howard is incredibly over-payed and Ruben Amaro Jr. may not want to move his prized possession, especially if he has to stomach some of the cost. The same goes with Cliff Lee and Chase Utley.
Cole Hamels may be the only piece that can fetch a good return and even then, the idea of getting a MLB-ready young star is questionable, especially when it may serve them better to grab a handful of far-off prospects with higher ceilings.
Then there’s the idea of hanging on to Howard, Utley, Lee and Hamels – a terrible idea, I’d say, but Amaro may pull it off. By the time this small collection of prospects reaches full maturity, those four will have drained the wallet of the Phillies and left the farm system with whatever prospects the Phils can salvage from the next few drafts.
The point is that Maikel Franco is coming into Philly at an odd time where the old guys are in limbo between lingering and being sold for less than Amaro wants, and the young guys are either non-existent, not enough or too far off. As such, it’s important for Phillies’ fans to not get overblown with excitement over the future that Maikel Franco is supposedly bringing. However, the excitement appears to already be overblown, as this rambunctious Phils fan displayed on Franco’s first home run (via MLB.com):
Then again, it is Philadelphia.
I’m not saying that Phillies fans shouldn’t be excited over Maikel Franco. He’s a talented player and one of the few guys ‘worth watching’ as Philly.com puts it. But given the time frame of his arrival, he’s going to be well into his veteran years before the Phillies can mount any semblance of respectability, barring some seriously outstanding free agent moves.
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Another potential option is to build up Franco enough and get him enough experience to trade him away for a wide array of younger prospects that would all be hitting their heyday together. While that is an awfully Pittsburgh-Pirates-esque approach to things, it would serve a good purpose and it wouldn’t have to become a trend. The problem is that I don’t think Amaro would ever dare to do such a thing. I also think that Philly might burn down if it were to happen.
A lack of success is not going to be the easiest thing for a city like Philadelphia to swallow. It really is concerning given the people that are in charge because immediate success is not an option, but Amaro doesn’t appear willing to accept that. The farm system isn’t going to be rebuilt just by a few good picks per draft. I don’t know what the Phillies draft strategy is, but the quickest route to success is through a youth infusion from within.
Maikel Franco is just unfortunate in his timing. A trade would probably be best for him, but as stated, the likelihood of such a trade is slim to none given the track record of how the Phils run their organization.