WASHINGTON — After getting hired by the Phillies in November, hitting coach John Mallee dove into data on the players with whom he would be working. And it didn’t take long to draw a few conclusions about Maikel Franco.
“His exit velocity is really good,” Mallee said the other day, “but his ground ball rate is too high.”
Indeed, Franco hit the ball as hard as almost any of the Phillies last season with an average exit velocity of 88.9 mph, according to Statcast. But he also was among the team’s most extreme ground ball hitters at 45.