Baltimore Orioles: What’s Going Wrong for Maikel Franco?

Orioles third baseman Maikel Franco has been in a deep slump for the past few weeks. What’s causing his struggles at the plate?

Following the Baltimore Orioles‘ 5-1 loss against the New York Yankees on April 27th, the second of four games against New York to end the month of April, Maikel Franco‘s season-long batting average hit .264, his peak so far this season. Since then, hits have been hard to come by for the 28-year-old and his batting average has plummeted down to .196 on the year.

In his last 13 games, Franco has an OBP of .130, which is the worst of any hitter in Major League Baseball over that span. Although, Franco’s plate approach during this poor run has featured a 14.8% strikeout rate, ranking him within the top 25 hitters in the American League. As is common in baseball, a poor OBP is oftentimes a result of a high strikeout rate. That’s not the case with Franco, however.

What seems to be the culprit for Franco’s dry spell is his batting average on balls in play (BABIP). In such events over his past 13 games, Franco is batting .098; the second-worst mark in MLB. A number of different factors can cause a hitter’s BABIP to falter. For one, defensive shifting has been popular in impacting the success of balls in play in the modern era.

According to Baseball Savant, Franco is shifted against in 32.7% of his plate appearances, the highest percentage of his career and well above the 18.4% league average for right-handed hitters this season. Against Franco, the second baseman is often shifted to position himself behind the base, allowing the shortstop to close the gap between third base and shortstop.

Franco’s season-long spray chart shows that his 56.8% pull percentage often puts batted balls in the hands of the opposing team’s third baseman or shortstop. Ideally, Franco’s tendency to pull the ball would allow him to power the ball into left field for extra bases and home runs. However, Franco has struggled with making hard contact this season, barreling up a career-worst 3.6% of his batted balls so far this season, which is another source of trouble in this slump.

Lastly, a notable change in Franco’s approach at the plate may be a cause for concern. Franco is swinging at his lowest rate since 2015, watching strikes at a career-worst 17.5% clip. Franco seems to be lacking an aggressiveness at the plate that he’s had throughout his career, swinging at pitches in the zone 6.9% less than his career average to this point in the season.

If Franco is capable of returning that aggressive element to his plate approach as the season rolls on, his slump should be broken sooner rather than later.