Amid Long On-Base Streak, Wander Franco Has Found His Groove

On Tuesday night, rookie sensation Wander Franco extended his streak of getting on-base at least once to an impressive 31 games. There’s still quite a ways to go before you make the shade of Ted Williams wonder if his 84-game (!) streak is in jeopardy, but it’s a mighty impressive feat for a 20-year-old.

That said, Franco is no ordinary rookie. As much a consensus No. 1 prospect as anyone I can ever remember, he didn’t exactly sneak up on anyone who was paying attention; his 80 Future Value grade — a first on our prospect lists — wasn’t something given out recklessly. At 18, an age at which minor league prospects are just getting started in the “real” professional leagues, he was already terrorizing the full-season Florida State League, hitting .339/.408/.464. That would be great for a first base prospect; for a young shortstop, it’s astounding.

Despite losing a key developmental season in 2020, Franco didn’t need much time to get going. Skipped right to Triple-A this year, he hit .315/.367/.586 for the Durham Bulls and was called up six weeks later. Outside of a home run in his very first game, the first week or two was an adjustment period; through 14 games, his line stood at .211/.274/.351 with 13 strikeouts in 57 at-bats against five walks. But since starting his on-base streak, he’s hit .314/.385/.504, also with 13 strikeouts but in 121 ABs.

Every streak has some element of good fortune, but in Franco’s running plate discipline numbers, you can almost see him adjusting to pitchers. And those numbers tend to be “stickier” than most other offensive numbers; short-term changes in results are more likely to be real compared to, say, batting average.

After his first two weeks in the majors, Franco’s contact rate increased despite him simultaneously swinging at more pitches. As pitchers in recent weeks have started throwing fewer strikes against him, that swing rate has responded accordingly, but his rate of contact has continued to rise. His performance during the streak isn’t exactly a galaxy away from his ZiPS minor league translation of .291/.335/.503 at Durham; combine that with the real improvements in plate discipline, and you can make a good argument that we’re seeing the bonafide Wander Franco in these waning days of summer.

Amusingly, you could make an argument that he’s been slightly unlucky during this stretch. Including cross-season streaks, there have been 199 on-base streaks of 31 games or more since the start of the 2002 season. Those players combined for a .378 BABIP during those runs, nearly 50 points above their collective zBABIP (the ZiPS estimate of BABIP from hit data) of .329. ZiPS thinks that Franco has “earned” a .329 BABIP during his streak, which is four points off his actual mark of .333 over those 31 games. For the curious, perhaps the unluckiest player in this luck-filled category is Edwin Encarnación, who somehow managed a 31-game on-base with a shockingly low .215 BABIP, well below the next worst (Alex Bregman at .261).

Regardless of where the streak goes, Franco’s seasonal line of .273/.336/.440 and 1.6 WAR in only 54 games ought to put him in the AL Rookie of the Year discussion. I’m not a voter for that award (I have an NL Rookie of the Year vote this season), but I would certainly give him serious consideration. After all, unlike the MVP award, which explicitly instructs us to consider value (defined as “strength of offense and defense”) and games played, there’s no similar instruction that Rookie of the Year necessarily means most valuable rookie. As such, along similar lines in Hall of Fame voting, I personally consider a blend of peak and year to be appropriate.

Right now, Franco ranks eighth in the AL by WAR. Adding in our depth chart projections gives us an idea of where he should end up after the final month of the season.

A month isn’t a long time, but we still have Franco closing a third of the gap between him and the AL leaders. While I suspect that one of the Garcias will end up winning the award, Franco is close enough that I can imagine many voters debating about how to treat a half-season of numbers (his debut was in Tampa Bay’s 74th game). Facing off against a rookie having a crazy-awesome season, he would likely be dead in the water. Without that, Shortstopissimo Wander Franco is still alive.

One last thing on Franco. In response to a piece earlier this week, I heard some disappointment from readers that he didn’t appear on the list of players with a projected chance at 500 homers (for what it’s worth, he just missed the cutoff). He may not have established his home run power enough to get ZiPS excited in that department, but his long-term projection remains bananas. So, nothing wrong with a little fan service!

That’s the projection of a perennial All-Star and one who doesn’t need that many things to go right to start making a solid Cooperstown case. Between Fernando Tatis Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Ronald Acuña Jr., Juan Soto, and so on, baseball fans have been blessed with one of the most exciting groups of young phenoms at any time in history. Franco appears to be at the point where he can demand a membership card.