Tuesday, June 23
Kris Bryant is a stud and Joc Pederson leads all first-year players with 18 home runs.
But I'm going to put out the argument that Maikel Franco is the best rookie in baseball.
Pederson's 18 homers come with a .252 batting average and 82 strikeouts. Bryant is hitting .282 with 10 homers, 42 RBIs and a slugging percentage of .485.
Franco is batting .312 with nine homers, 24 RBIs and a slugging percentage of .574. He's had around 120 fewer plate appearances than Bryant, too.
Franco's home run rate per at bat is 15.6, which is exceeded by only 13 players.
Sure this is a short sampling. Franco still could turn into Domonic Brown, who teased two years ago with a hot streak. But Franco sure looks like the real thing to me. He's a reason to watch the Phillies - the only reason unless you have Ben Revere and Cesar Hernandez on your Rotisserie team like I do.
Cesar Hernandez? Trust me it's a very deep league.