The Guardians got a young SS in the famous "Mr. 5 for 1" (Von Hayes) trade to Philadelphia in Dec. 1982. A recent video I saw showed Franco, at age 65, taking some swings. He looked very similar to how he looked, both physically and with his swing, as he did when he played in the majors.
This reminded me of my feeling that Franco should be considered by a veteran's committee for induction into the MLB HOF.
Franco, who played until he was 48 years old, was not, at the time, the typical ML player who sought, each year, to play in the major leagues. Franco, in a number of years, saw that he could make more money playing overseas than he could in the US, assuming that he had a major league (as opposed to a minor league contract with a spring invite). He therefore missed playing in the majors in 1995, 1998, 1999 and 2000.
In looking over his stats, Franco had 2586 career hits in the seasons he did play in the majors. If you apply conservative estimates for what he would have done in the US for the years he was abroad, Franco would have ended up with roughly:
BA: .298
Hits: 2943
Runs: 1477
RBI: 1352
2B: 456
3B: 57
HR: 205
BB: 1066
BB/SO: 1588
SB: 300
Looking at the 24 SS in the HOF, plus Franco, here are what his rankings would be:
BA: 5th
Hits: 5th
Runs: 6th
RBI: 6th
2B: 6th
3B: 23rd
HR: 5th
BB: 6th
BB/SO: 23rd
SB: 10th
Except for triples and BB/SO ratio, his offensive numbers look very comparable to HOF shortstops.
There are 2 kickers here, of course, one being that he was a full-time SS for only 5+ years of his career and, even then, was a below ave. defensive SS. Comparisons from different time periods are difficult due to changes in gloves, astroturf vs grass, field upkeep improvements (e.g., different types of grass, in-ground sprinkler systems, etc.). However, looking at the HOF SS, Franco probably would have been, at best, 22nd defensively on this list, even given that the list included Ernie Banks as a SS!
People can also claim that his stats were inflated by the advent of DH and, therefore, the ability for him to extend his career to his age 48 season. Still, a number of HOFers (including half a dozen shortstops) inflated their stats by playing into their 40s. One example that comes to my mind is Early Wynn, who had 29 of his 300 wins after he turned 40 and retired once he got to that magic number of 300. To be fair, Franco, in his age 46-48 seasons, only totaled 129 of his hits, 10 of his HRs and 12 of his SBs.
Still, beside the above, there are many other confounding circumstances that make it hard to do a direct comparison. However, IMO, longevity should not be considered a detriment to HOF consideration. It should be a plus, especially when the vast bulk of a player's production was made earlier in his career. Add to this that he spent the majority of his career as a middle infielder and I think Franco has a case for induction into the HOF.
A final word: just looking at the most hits in ML baseball for a career, inclusion of these estimated numbers would put him 43rd place on the all-time hits list with only 6 players above him not in the HOF, with three of those, Pujols, Cabrera, Suzuki, likely 1st ballot HOFers and the other 3, Palmeiro, ARod, Rose, likely not to be elected due to other issues.
The Contemporary Era HOF Committee looks at players whose major contributions occurred after 1980. Let's hope that committee will consider Julio Franco worthy to be inducted into the HOF at some point in the near future. Don't know if he is a HOFer, but, for me, he is in the conversation.
