By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor 
Philadelphia Phillies third baseman Maikel Franco's two home run performance Saturday was a continuation of the recent dominance that the 24-year-old has displayed in Spring Training.
After struggling in Spring Training in 2014 and 2015, the 24-year-old slugger slashed .294/.333/.721 — a .721 slugging percentage!! — with nine home runs and 23 RBIs in 68 at-bats. If you project that out to the 581 regular season at-bats that he ended up having, Franco would have hit 76 home runs and driven in 196 RBIs, both of which would be new league records.
If you add in Franco's three at-bats yesterday, in his last 71 Spring Training at-bats, he's hit 11 home runs and driven in 25 RBIs. If you project those numbers out to even a 500 at-bat season, Franco would hit 77 home runs and drive in 176 runs. For those of you scoring at home, that's not too shabby.
Franco's Spring Training dominance of course didn't translate to the regular season in the way that the Phillies had hoped in 2016. He did hit 25 home runs and drive in 88 RBIs, numbers which would otherwise have been very encouraging from a 23-year-old. But after a really strong 80-game stint at the majors in 2015 and his aforementioned Spring Training dominance in 2016, it felt underwhelming.
The Phillies fired hitting coach Steve Henderson within hours of the 2016 season ending, perhaps in part because Franco didn't seem to get away from his tendency to become pull-happy, which may have accounted for the dip that both his batting average and slugging percentage saw from 2015 to 2016.
New hitting coach Matt Stairs told Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia's Jim Salisbury early in Spring Training that he believes that Franco has Miguel Tejada type potential, and is dealing with many of the same struggles that Tejada did at the beginning of his career. Stairs has suggested in multiple interviews now that he believes that Franco has the potential to be one of the game's elite power hitters. Manager Pete Mackanin echoed those same sentiments, suggesting that he wasn't satisfied with Franco's production in 2016.
For now, all Franco can focus on is continuing to hit an at the unheard of clip that he's hit at in recent Spring Training games. Perhaps this year his hot Florida bat will follow him up to Philadelphia in April.
