Is Phillies' Franco ready for jump to the big leagues?

In hotels and country clubs and event centers across Pennsylvania one week last month, members of the Phillies brass outlined an objective - to identify the team's next core of players.

On his current career trajectory, Maikel Franco is a potential middle-of-the-order mainstay. Only 22, he has displayed soft hands, a cannon arm at third base, and streaky power at the plate.

But it remains to be seen when the organization's most major-league-ready prospect will stick with the Phillies. On the heels of a great winter in his native Dominican Republic, he will compete in spring training with Cody Asche, but general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. isn't planning on Franco's being in the big leagues - at least not yet.

"We'll have to see what happens in spring training," Amaro said last week

of Franco's chances to make the team. "There's a lot of different factors that are involved, his development being the most important one. In a perfect world we would let him continue to develop [in triple A], but things can change. We'll see what happens throughout the course of the spring. A lot of those things will be answered then."

Spring training is not a foolproof indicator of whether a prospect is ready for the major leagues. If Franco is to make the Phillies' opening-day roster, he will likely have to more than outplay the 24-year-old Asche. Long-term contractual implications are at play, too, a factor that any team, especially one committed to rebuilding, takes into account.

If Franco, who was unavailable to comment, spends roughly the first six weeks of the season in the minors, the Phillies can delay his eventual free-agent eligibility by a year, until after the 2021 season.

Promoting Franco for 27 days in September created this scenario, which boils down to choosing between having him for April and part of May this season or controlling him for another year down the road, when he should be in his prime. At the same time, performance triggered Franco's September call-up - "In a lot of ways, he kind of forced our hand," Amaro said at the time - so that provides reason to believe a strong spring could have a similar effect on his chances to make the opening-day roster.

Asche enters camp as the Phillies' starting third baseman, likewise for the embattled Ryan Howard at first base, the other position Franco can play. Franco is expected to see time at both corner infield spots this spring.

Whether he starts the season in the majors or minors, a logjam at third base looms. The Phillies recently began putting Asche through fundamental drills in the outfield to gauge the viability of a future switch. Two weeks of work in Clearwater, however, are not enough to discern whether he could some day play left field.

Franco may yet need more seasoning in the minors. He was one of the International League's youngest players last season, and when he was promoted in September he became the Phillies' youngest position player to make his debut since Jimmy Rollins in 2000.

This will be just his second big-league camp; he struggled last spring, mustering seven singles in 38 at-bats. That was the prelude to an uneven season at triple A, where more-experienced pitchers took advantage of the free swinger. A resurgent second half led to his September promotion.

The Phillies hope Franco's recently concluded winter-ball experience helps prevent another slow start to the season. A 65-game stint with Gigantes del Cibao ended Feb. 7 in the semifinals of the Caribbean Series in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Five games there capped a marathon baseball year for Franco: Since the start of the triple-A season, he has logged an eye-popping 833 at-bats over 214 games.

Franco's winter was encouraging. He averaged an extra-base hit about every nine at-bats between the regular season and playoffs of the Dominican Winter League. A two-home-run, seven-RBI explosion clinched Gigantes a league championship and a berth in the Caribbean Series.

Franco struggled in the series - he had more strikeouts (six) than combined hits (five) and walks (zero) in 23 at-bats - but Gigantes manager Audo Vicente came away from the season impressed.

Vicente, a roving infield instructor in the Diamondbacks organization, said last week by phone that Franco's skill-set reminds him of countryman Adrian Beltre, the veteran third baseman Franco has said he aspires to emulate. Vicente envisions Franco as an everyday player with the potential for 25 or 30 home runs a season.

"Every time he's started slow, he's finished strong, and so for me that speaks to what's inside this young man," said Joe Jordan, the Phillies' director of player development. "It isn't all figured out yet, but he's heading in the right direction."

Franco's first big-league stint in September was uninspiring - 56 at-bats yielded a .179 average with two doubles, five RBIs, and 13 strikeouts to only one walk. Ryne Sandberg didn't put too much stock in such a small sample size. More important in the second-year manager's mind is that Franco garnered big-league at-bats, and from them, the team hopes, he realized the adjustments needed.

"Players like him who have winter ball like that sometimes come into camp and are ahead of the rest of the camp, because they did play winter ball," Sandberg said last month, when Franco was still in the middle of the Dominican Winter League playoffs.

"He's had some success, so I'll be anxious to see how that translates into our camp and how he does. Maybe he can get off to a real good start in spring training, and who knows where that will take him?"