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Originally Posted by dougdirt
I am not sure what you are asking.... but there isn't even a good comp for anyone having the peripherals he has in the minors in terms of K/BB. I doubt you are going to find anyone with a career minor league .311 OBP (Francisco's current career MiLB OBP) having success in the majors. Even low OBP guys in the majors had decent OBP's in the minor leagues.
Here are the Top 10 Lowest OBP's in the majors in 2009 with at least 300 PA career minor league OBP's
Dioner Navarro .352
Ronny Cedeno .329
Bill Hall .306
Rod Barajas .320
Yuniesky Betancout .311 (in 1 full season at AA/AAA)
Willy Taveras .370
Hank Blalock .394 (man what cliff did he fall off of)
Alex Gonzalez .318
Ivan Rodriguez (N/A at baseballreference)
Chris Davis .366
Benjie Molina .350
Only Bill Hall and Yuniesky Betancourt are in the same area as Juan Francisco has been. Bill Hall actually may be a good comp for Francisco.
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Interesting and its what holds me back with Francisco as well, but KC and others have a good point about rare skillsets. Francisco's power is a rare skill that none of the others on this list have.
A good comp might be the guy that Redszone lusted for last year - Jermaine Dye. Dye had OBPs at various levels rising through the Braves system at age 22 and lower of .327, .393 (with a .347 BA in a small sample), .346, .329 and .264. None of those had an ISO-D of over .050. In AAA as a 22 Y/O Dye went .232/.264/.423 in about 150 PAs. After that he spent a half season in the Braves OF and went .281/.304/.459 in 292 ABs with just 8 walks and 67Ks. Dye even played a little 3B in the low minors before converting to the OF. Francisco's skills show ISO-D as a tad worse with more power than Dye showed in the minors.
Francisco seems to be trending upward a bit in his ISO-D numbers but still needs to improve for sure. I'm a lot more optimistic about him than I was a year ago simply because he keeps hitting, but still wouldn't be surprised if he washes out completely. I currently have him at #5 on my list and if he keeps hitting, I'd keep promoting him no matter what the peripherals say.