Next year at this time, when we’re assuredly celebrating the first of many consecutive playoff seasons for the Philadelphia Phillies, we may take a look back at the sad years between 2012 and 2019 to remind ourselves how good we have it. When scanning those rosters, we may come across the names Maikel Franco and Cesar Hernandez and remember that those were the types of players that routinely saw a lot of playing time for the team during that barren time period.
Both players joined the big league team in the mid-teens as products of the Phillies’ international scouting team.