TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Saturday, June 11, 2005

The Curious Cases of J. Franco and J. Franco

Tonight I am puzzling over the odd longevity of the two J. Francos still toiling away, Julio and John.

Julio continues as super pinch hitter and part-time first baseman for the Atlanta Braves. Julio has had a very odd series of periods of exile occasionally bordering on the diasporic. In 1995, as a free agent during the strike, Franco signed in Japan with the Chiba Lotte Marines. He hit 10 homers and had 145 hits and a .306 average in the curtailed JL season. He came back to the majors for three more seasons, with the Cleveland team and the Brewers, and managed to hit .322 as a 37-year-old. In 1998 he again couldn't find employment and went back to Chiba Lotte, where he smacked 18 homers, another 141 hits, and hit .290. His career JL OBP ws .389. IN 1999 he signed with the D-Rays at age 40 and had one at-bat all year, and was "loaned" to the Mexico City Tigres by the Devil Rays (stashing him as some kind of insurance, I think). In 2000 he couldn't get a better offer than the Samsung team in the Korean League, where he had 22 HR, 110 RBI, and 157 hits in only 132 games playing against uneven competition -- at the age of 41. In 2001 he went back to the Tigres for another 110 games and 178 hits, and then was "traded" to the Braves in September, where he got another 27 hits in 25 games. Since then, he's more or less stayed put, signing a series of one-year deals with the Braves while much of the roster changed around him. He's also played in the Domincan Winter league off and on , where he's accumulated 267 hits against the usual four-A level of competition.

Through this writing, he's hit 2578 major league hits, 286 in the JL, 316 in the Mexican Leagues, 157 in the Korean League (for whatever that's worth, plus that 267 in the Dominican. Not even counting his 600+ minor league hits. He's put on sixteen different professional uniforms in 11 leagues. He's played in 2165 major league games and at least 700 in other international leagues, not counting the minors, in six countries.

And yes, sports fans, you have it right. That's 4122 professional hits and counting. And if he does hang on for four more years, he might actually make a stab at 3000 major league hits, although this seems a little dubious at present. He's a three-time all-star and was MVP of the 1990 game. He's won five Silver Slugger awards as the top batter at his position (four times at 2B, once at DH, which is kind of a booby prize if you ask me), and won a batting title in 1991 at the tender age of 32. his career batting average just dipped below .300 this year by a few thousandths of a point.

He's said he wants to play until he's 50, and if I'm doing my math correctly, now that he's eligible for the major league pension (he's one year older than the required age of 45), he actually could make more money by retiring from baseball. This is a guy who loves to play ball; perhaps nobody this side of Bill Lee or Rickey Henderson seems to want to play as long as possible more. His first professional game was in 1978.

Now I know that Franco's numbers aren't quite Hall of Fame, nor was he ever really known as a dominant player. He's not even a strong candidate for "Stars in Their Time" here at TDA, yet I have this strong feeling he deserves some kind of recognition for the unique breadth of experience he's had in the sport. If our sport's Hall of Fame were internationalized the way Hockey and Basketball were (and we had, say, Sadaharu Oh in the Hall, where he belongs), we might be able to give Julio some extra credit and slide him on in, in the "Other Achievements" category. Love of the Game ought to count for something.

Then let us turn to the other Franco, John, now 44. He's pitched only 8 2/3 innings thus far for the Astros as a lefty specialist, where he's been so-so thus far. All in all he has 1239 major league innings pitched -- in 1109 games. He's done all his work in the bigs, after some college ball and just over 300 minor league innings. He did miss an entire season, 2002, to injury.

John has an absurdly low 2.84 ERA accumulated during years as a closer and set-up man followed by his slow twilight as a lefty specialist. That's just out of the all-time top 100 in career ERA, but in the top 10 of the post-war period (Pedro Martinez, Whitey Ford, Sandy Koufax, and the late Dan Quisenberry are ahead of him) He has 424 saves, second all-time, although Trevor Hoffman may well pass him this year. He is a four-time all-star and two-time recipient of Reliever of the Year. He's never had as many as 40 saves in a year and was used as part of closers-by-committee for several years in the middle of his run. He is second on the all-time games pitched list, behind Jesse Orosco (he's about 150 games behind Orosco and is unlikely to catch him.)

It's really hard to call Franco a dominant player. He's got just over 960 career Ks, for about 7 per 9 IP, which is respectable but not blurring. He did win the Rolaids award twice, but my recollection is he never brought about the kind of awe from batters that Rivera, Gagne, or Hoffman in their primes have. He has a perfectly respectable post-season record from 1999 and 2000 appearances with the Mets (2-0, 1 save, 1.88 ERA - 15 games and 14 innings), yet has the unhappy distinction of having been traded from the Reds just before their 1990 juggernaut and to the Mets just after their terrific 1986 team, and thus wasn't really associated with a great winning effort.

Like Julio, it's a sort of underwhelming record with a lot of eccentricities to it caused by his being a lefty and a one-inning-or-less man over his career. Yet one would also hope that John's career is remembered as well, if for nothing else, for his tenacity.

It's one of those odd coincidences that they're still both playing, close to the same age, and who knows, maybe they'll face one another one more time. They both seem to be on the verge of release, especially John, and I don't know that there are any more stops for either of them. Yet I wouldn't bet on it, either.

posted by The Crank 8:54 PM