All Hail Franchy Cordero, San Diego's Dong-Smashing Superhero

Excellently named Padres outfielder Franchy Cordero can sure launch a goddamn tater. He plays in San Diego, which is as obscure a professional baseball outpost as you can find without going to the minors, but we should all be paying attention to young Franchy. According to Statcast, Cordero has already crushed three home runs this season at least 456 feet, including a 489-foot monster that stands as the longest dinger hit so far on the year. We are gathered here today to admire these huge-ass dingers, in all their glory.

Let’s start with the hugest of them all, the 489-footer. Cordero smoked this one off Arizona’s Matt Koch in the top of the fourth inning of an eventual Padres win, a little over a week ago. Look where that poor baseball finally winds up:

This next one is a go-ahead 456-foot two-run job in the top of the 7th inning, against Rockies reliever Jake McGee. The Padres, lifted by Franchy’s display of titanic power, would go on to score nine runs in the inning and win going away. This poor, bruised baseball disappeared in the idyllic little woodland area beyond Colorado’s centerfield wall, never to return:

Saturday afternoon Franchy’s Padres beat the absolute hell out of Mets pitcher Jason Vargas, making his not-at-all triumphant return to New York’s starting rotation, to the tune of nine hits, three walks, a triple, two dingers, and nine earned runs in 3.2 terrible, hilarious innings. Franchy’s blow was the deadliest: this towering smash that nearly made the second deck in right field after traveling 459 feet:

Our guy Franchy is batting just .241 on the season, with a wretched .281 on-base percentage. He strikes out a ton. But he’s just 23 years old—according to my reading of baseball’s irritating definition of a rookie, this is his rookie season—and he swings a mighty bat, and he has sure figured out the mashing part. All hail Franchy.