Tampa Bay Rays: MLB should market Wander Franco like a teen LeBron James

The Tampa Bay Rays’ have the consensus top-rated prospect in all of baseball. He’s a teenage phenom, he’s a future star in the sport, he’s like the LeBron James of baseball…and you can’t watch his debut on TV.

Tampa Bay Rays‘ phenom and top-rated prospect, Wander Franco, is set to make his debut in spring training today. Willy Adames is scheduled to start the game at shortstop and his relief will come in the form of the 18-year-old who sits atop of pretty much every credible prospect rankings list.

Franco has taken professional baseball by storm. He entered the Appalachian League in 2018 at the age of 17 and cruised to a .351 average, .418 on-base percentage, and a .587 slugging. In his 61 games in Rookie Ball, he hit 10 homers, 11 doubles, and seven triples. He also took 27 walks in just 273 plate appearances while striking out only 19 times. Did I mention that he was seventeen?

Last season, at age 18, he was the recipient of Baseball America’s Minor League Player of the Year Award.

In 175 professional games, he has more extra-base hits (71) and walks (83) than strikeouts (54). His career OPS sits at .928. Have I mentioned that he’s still only 18 years old?

Spring Debut

He’s destined for superstardom and he’ll be making his debut in a split-squad game against the Detroit Tigers in Port Charlotte without a team of national broadcasters and analysts there to bring the momentous occasion into the homes of baseball fans around the nation.

The game will not be broadcast by either the Rays or the Tigers’ local stations.

In fact, as of less than two hours before game time, I can still get tickets behind home plate for $22. There should be more demand to see a kid with this kind of talent.

Why isn’t the MLB properly marketing this phenom who is in their employ? What if Wander Franco was a high school basketball player?

Wondering why Wander can’t debut on TV.

The ethicality of what St. Vincent-St. Mary’s High School did or what the NCAA has done for years, does not apply to Wander Franco.

Why can’t a kid who has dominated every level of professional baseball get the national exposure he deserves in his very first spring game? We should be acting like this is a big deal, because it is. 

Why wouldn’t Major League Baseball promote this like it’s LeBron James against Oak Hill Academy?

Why isn’t ESPN2 broadcasting a momentous occasion such as this?

Why are the Rays broadcasting the other half of the split-squad games instead of Franco’s?

The Rays will be on television on Thursday, but it’s the split-squad playing the Yankees instead of the group with Franco meeting the Tigers.

Build Anticipation

Major League Baseball should be worrying about creating stars. They have opportunities every year to promote future stars of the game. Perhaps they don’t want to shine an even brighter light on the service time structure that encourages teams to purposely leave qualified youngsters off of Opening Day rosters. Maybe they are too busy worrying about the time it takes to intentionally walk a batter.

The world won’t care if Major League Baseball doesn’t appear to care.

It’s okay to market the kid. He’s a paid professional. At least put him on TV so we can see what Baseball America is talking about. So we can see what MLB Pipeline is talking about. So we can see what Baseball Prospectus is talking about. Just so we can see.