Weekend Rumblings - News for December 21, 2019
While we’re discussing Franco, the Royals also did their homework on Franco’s hitting mechanics, which had changed this past season. In the demotion story, Gelb wrote: “The Phillies asked Franco to stop hitting the ball on the ground. He is slow and blessed with a powerful swing. But the result was an infield popup rate (23.7 percent) that was higher this season than any other hitter with at least 200 plate appearances in the majors.”
The Royals, who revamped their hitting-development department late in the season with director of hitting performance Alec Zumwalt streamlining communication among hitting coaches, noticed a few oddities in Franco’s swing from his more successful seasons (2016-18) to last season (2019) in a video study session.