Phillies trade Francisco
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Phillies trade Francisco
Daily News staff
On the day teams had to tender contracts to arbitration eligible players, the Phillies traded outfielder Ben Francisco to the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for minor league lefthanded reliever Frank Gailey.
Gailey, 26, is a product of Archbishop Carroll and West Chester University. He was a 23rd-round pick of the Blue Jays in 2007.
He split last season between Single-A Dunedin and Double-A New Hampshire in the Blue Jays’ minor league system where he combined to go 5-6 with a 3.41 ERA in 45 relief appearances.
For his minor league career he has gone 23-15 with a 2.45 ERA in 175 games (one start).
"Even as a collegiate pitcher, one of the things that Frank did better than just about everybody at that level is he had a great feel for how to get certain hitters, guys he was going to throw it by them or force contact early in the count," said former West Chester coach Greg Mamula, now an assistant coach at Cincinnati. "He has good movement on his pitches, he can change speeds. There are a lot of different things he can do as far as location, movement and changing speeds and that's been reflected in minor league baseball."
"How he’s made his way through the minors and had success and the way he is going to potentially get big-league hitters out is to expose their weakness because he can do different things with a baseball."
Mamula said Gailey will benefit from coming home.
"He’s a kid from Philadelphia so he’s got family and friends there," he said. "At the time, he was well known as one of the top high school pitchers and going to West Chester, he has that following and has got the support ... There’s going to be a lot of people following him, obviously, and a lot of people requesting tickets from him whether he's in Reading, Allentown or Philadelphia."
Francisco, 30, spent parts of three seasons with the Phillies (2009-11), where he hit .259 with 17 home runs and 75 RBI in 225 games. He was initially acquired in the trade that brought Cliff Lee to the Phillies the first time. He hit .244 with 6 home runs and 34 RBI last season.
He made $1.8 million last year and was likely to get a raise via arbitration.
The Phillies have made significant moves to remake their bench and ran out of room for Francisco. The team has added Jim Thome, Laynce Nix and Ty Willingham, along with re-signing Brian Schneider. It is likely the Phillies tender Wilson Valdez before the midnight deadline tonight.
He appeared in 17 career postseason games for the Phillies and belted the sixth postseason pinch-hit home run in club history in Game 3 of the 2011 NLDS against St. Louis.
Tweeted Phillies centerfielder Shane Victorino, "Gonna miss my boy BennyFresh #goodluck in Toronto bro!"
The Phillies now have 39 players on the 40-man roster.
- Yes, and you won't see him against righties like Manuel had him throu May...he'll be a nice rh Dh option when Encarnacion plays first...That club can really hit.
— bearsfriend - Great for Ben. He's a good player, but Charlie had no idea how to use someone with his skills, particularly his knack for just getting on-base in late innings.— JayW
- Between the 1st and 3rd innings, BenFran batted .282 with a .388 on base percentage. Between the 7th and 9th innings, he batted .228 with a .330 on base percentage. His "knack" for getting on base in late innings is in your head. — phillyl0
- The numbers for the whole season don't tell the whole story. First, hitting in the late (8th and 9th) innings is generally harder because batters often face specialized pitchers. Second, in the last third or so of the season Francisco was trying to hit the long ball, knowing by then that that was what Charlie expected. Swinging for the fences in the late innings is always a longshot, partly because of the first reason I mentioned. — JayW
- I notive that your numbers do show that he was getting on base a third of the time in the late innings. That's not bad. In both the early and the late innings his on-base numbers were good. But the Phillies don't play that kind of baseball. — JayW
- I hear that Pat The Bat is washing dishes in a kitchen at a bar on South Street nowadays.— orange rhino
- I was really hoping his HR against the Cardinals would be last season's version of Matt Stairs' HR, but alas....— uncle meat
- I wonder i Toronto will put him the right position to be succssful. Ooops, wrong sport........— vipers53
- Pat the Bat will be auditioning to play the Gimp in the Pulp Fiction remake.
Ben Fran's shot off of Garcia in Game 3 was easily his best hit as a Phillie. What a shocking and fantastic hit! Shame we then went onto to lose to the Cards even with Oswalt and Halladay pitching back to back...— kwasi2323 - Ben had some big hits people posting here seem to forget about. And he was a good guy.
— mmds - Assuming Howard's on the DL on opening day, our 25-man roster now appears to include John Bowker, instead of Ben Francisco. This is an improvement?— Beak
- Good Luck Ben! Thanks for your effort.— baworks
- Who is Ty Willingham? Did we sign Josh Willingham's lesser brother and not make an announcement? :-P— grales
- Ty Willingham, really? The ex Notre Dame coach, really? Or is it you just don't have a clue and it's Ty Wiggington. So sad.— drmndbendr
- He was awful, but he did win Game 3 with that HR against Garcia. Lets remember that the rest of our "stars" did NOTHING. At least he came up big there.— gluteman
