Asdrubal Cabrera got the chance to play every day for the Indians down the stretch in 2007 and showed enough to merit the full-time second base job for the club in 2008. And then he was terrible. Before being sent to Triple-A in early June, Cabrera posted a .184/.282/.247 line in 185 plate appearances.

But he found his stroke at Buffalo, where he hit for both average and power, and soon found himself back in the majors. Cabrera continued to hit after his recall, posting a .320/.398/.464 line in his final 233 plate appearances. In September alone, he had 15 runs, 22 RBIs and a .416 average, thanks to a .448 BABIP.

So, should fantasy owners expect Cabrera to more closely resemble the player who struggled mightily in the first half or the one who outperformed Chase Utley, Ian Kinsler and Brian Roberts in the second half?

Upon his recall, Cabrera made more contact and hit the ball with more authority. His K% was 25.3 percent before being sent down and was 19.1 percent in his second stint in the majors in 2008. His isolated slugging was .063 before the demotion and .144 after the recall. How do these numbers compare with Cabrera’s minor league stats?

Since being acquired from the Mariners via trade in mid 2006, here are Cabrera’s minor league numbers:

	AB	BA	BABIP	SLG	ISO	K%
AA	368	.310	.333	.454	.144	11.4
AAA	369	.293	.353	.396	.103	19.5

If we break down the numbers even further, we see Cabrera struggled in his first exposure to Triple-A (.263/.293/.337) as a 20-year old, but did quite well there last season (.326/.375/.475).

It should come as no surprise that Cabrera struggled in the majors as a 22-year old in the beginning of last season. The encouraging thing is that he got straightened out in the minors and came back to Cleveland and did very well.

Even though Cabrera’s minor league BABIPs are very good, it’s unrealistic to expect him to post the .365 BABIP that he did in the second half of 2008. That figure would have placed him fifth in the majors in the category. However, his other numbers are not out of line with what he has done in the minors and are reasonable numbers to maintain in the majors.

From the small samples that we have, Cabrera is more likely to post a K% under 20 percent than he is to be above 25 percent. And an isolated slugging mark in the vicinity of .140 is not out of the question. He did that in Double-A in 2007 and in Triple-A (.149) in 2008.

The Bill James projection (.277-10-62 with 84 runs and 11 steals) seems very reasonable, although I might go for a little higher average and a few less steals. Either way, that’s a very similar, although slightly superior, season to what Tampa Bay’s Akinori Iwamura put up in 2008.

Cabrera will be an afterthought on Draft Day in most mixed leagues next season. But by the end of the season he will be on an active roster in most leagues. He is definitely someone to consider in the final rounds of your draft.

Batting average is a fickle statistic. Perhaps more than any other metric in the game, batting average is subject to the caprices of lucky (or unlucky) bounces here or there. A player with the skill level of a .300 hitter may find himself hitting 20 to 30 points above or below that number, and it wouldn’t really be considered all that unusual. A player may seem to be experiencing a “down” season, but it might be more the product of poor luck on balls in play than any massive downturn in talent level.

Which brings us to Robinson Cano. Over his four seasons in the major leagues, the Yankees second baseman has seen his performance vary by a considerable amount. Here are his WPA/LI numbers from 2005-2008, with his rank among second baseman in parentheses:

2005: -0.19 (14/15 among qualified 2B)
2006: 1.08 (4/23)
2007: 0.38 (13/26)
2008: -1.31 (17/18)

Cano’s performance has taken over a two-win swing since 2006, from a win above average to 1.3 below this past season. This would be suggestive of a change in skill level, but when we dig a little deeper into Cano’s numbers, not all that much has changed. Below are his batting lines over the past four seasons. Pay particularly close attention to the last number listed:

2005: .297/.320/.458, 3 BB%, 13 K%, .161 ISO, 20.6 LD%, .320 BABIP
2006: .342/.365/.525, 3.6 BB%, 11.2 K%, .183 ISO, 19.9 LD%, .363 BABIP
2007: .306/.353/.488, 5.9 BB%, 13.8 K%, .182 ISO, 16.9 LD%, .331 BABIP
2008: .271/.305/.410, 4.2 BB%, 10.9 K%, .139 ISO, 19.4 LD%, .286 BABIP

In terms of his controllable skills, there’s not a whole lot of difference between these four years, save for a bit of a dip in ISO this past season. Cano has established himself as a player who very rarely walks, makes a lot of contact and has a little more pop that the average middle infielder. What has fueled Cano’s varied performances is his batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Cano had a ton of bounces go his way during his .342 year in 2006, but very few auspicious hops this past season, when he batted just .271.

Given Cano’s 19.4 LD% in 2008, we would expect his BABIP to come in around .314 instead of his actual .286 mark (LD% + .120 gives us expected BABIP; .194 + .120= .314). Adjusting for that difference, Cano’s 2008 line “should” have been about .299/.333/.438. If we adjust for the BABIP variance in his other seasons as well, we can get a more approximate level of Cano’s talent:

2005: .320 BABIP, .326 Expected BABIP. Revised Line: .303/.326/.464, .790 OPS (.778 actual)
2006: .363 BABIP, .319 Expected BABIP. Revised Line: .298/.321/.481, .802 OPS (.890 actual)
2007: .331 BABIP, .289 Expected BABIP. Revised Line: .264/.311/.446, .757 OPS (.841 actual)
2008: .286 BABIP, .314 Expected BABIP. Revised Line: .299/.333/.438, .771 OPS (.715 actual)

Over this four-year period, the difference Between Cano’s highest and lowest actual OPS is 175 points. Once we adjust for the vagaries of balls put in play, however, the gap between his largest and smallest OPS is 45 points. In other words, Cano’s skill level hasn’t really varied all that much over this time frame: he’s about a .300/.325/.460-type hitter.

This exercise with Cano is an example of why batting average-dependent players are so risky. When a player derives a significant portion of his value from his average (which can vary drastically from year-to-year), it becomes extremely difficult to predict what sort of season that player will have. As we have seen with Cano, a .300-level hitter can show similar controllable skills yet have his batting average swing from .342 to .271. Unfortunately, it appears as though fantasy owners are going to have to continue to ride this roller coaster with Cano, as his plate discipline hasn’t shown much improvement through the years:

Outside Swing Percentage (O-Swing%), 2005-2008:

2005: 25.6%
2006: 30.8%
2007: 34.4%
2008: 30.7%

One of our new statistical toys, First Pitch Strike Percentage (F-Swing%), also serves to show Cano’s iffy plate approach. Cano had a first-pitch strike called against him 62.6% of the time in 2008, 11th-highest in the majors among qualified batters.

Such are the perils of drafting Robinson Cano. He’s plenty valuable if he’s hitting .300+, but he’s a cipher if he bats .270. If you’re going to invest in Cano, just realize that predicting his performance level is much trickier than it is for most other batters.

The Florida Marlins and Washington Nationals consummated a deal this week that saw Major Leaguers Scott Olsen and Josh Willingham relocate to the nation’s capital, while a trip of inexpensive youngsters head for some fun in the sun. Of those three players obtained by Florida – Emilio Bonifacio, Jake Smolinski, and P.J. Dean – only Bonifacio is likely to receive any significant playing time in the Majors in 2009… or 2010 or 2011.

Bonifacio was originally signed by Arizona as a non-drafted free agent out of the Dominican Republic in 2001. He has six minor league seasons under his belt and posted modest numbers during that span, although he did show impressive stolen base abilities each season. His career minor league line is .285/.341/.362 in 2,574 at-bats.

Bonifacio first surfaced in the Majors in 2007 with Arizona and he hit .217/.333/.261 in 23 at-bats. In 2008, he managed 157 at-bats split between Arizona and Washington (He was acquired in the Jon Rauch deal). Bonifacio hit .243/.296/.337 with an ISO of .095 as well as rates of 7.7 BB% and 27.2 K%. He strikes out too much to be an effective lead-off hitter and he does not walk enough to take full advantage of his speed. On the plus side, his strikeout rate in 2008 was about 10 percent higher than in his minor league career, so we can chalk some of that up to the small sample size. Bonifacio also swings at pitches outside the strike zone just 28 percent of the time.

At the Major League level, Bonifaco has been successful stealing bases just seven times in 12 attempts (58%). At the minor league level, Bonifacio has shown the ability to steal 50-60 bases a season, which could come in extremely handy in Fantasy Leagues. Bill James projects Bonifacio to steal 27 bases, at a modest success rate, with regular playing time in 2009. His projection of a .272 average may be a little on the high side, though.

After focusing on some other more important areas in your fantasy draft, look to Bonifacio for some cheap steals – just don’t expect much more out of him.

Daniel Murphy entered the 2008 season not even among the Mets’ top 10 prospects according to Baseball America. Prospect maven John Sickels gave him a “C” grade but called him a sleeper. Yet Murphy surprised the experts, as he rocketed to the majors where he posted a .313/.397/.473 slash line in 131 at-bats. In 2009, Murphy is viewed as a player to supplement the team’s core of Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes and David Wright. The only question is where he will play.

A natural third baseman, Murphy saw the bulk of his playing time in left field for the Mets last season. This year he’s playing second base in the Arizona Fall League and is slated to play left field later in the year when he plays Winter Ball in Puerto Rico.

An .870 OPS bat will play anywhere in the field. But Murphy did post a .386 BABIP last year. He also struck out in 21.4 percent of his at-bats. Sickels praised Murphy for his line drive swing and he lived up to that reputation, with a LD% of 33.3, which was greater than his FB% of 25.5 for the Mets.

Murphy’s value goes through the roof if he is the team’s starter at second base on Opening Day. However, that seems unlikely at this point. Still, he will be a nice end-game acquisition on Draft Day. Yes, the BABIP was high in the majors, but so was the strikeout rate. At Double-A he fanned just 46 times in 357 at-bats. If his strikeout rate drops closer to his career minor league rate of 12.1 percent, a .300 average is not out of the question. Murphy has double-digit HR potential and his R/RBIs should be above-average in the team’s strong lineup.

The best-case scenario is Murphy claims the team’s starting second base job and bats second in the lineup. He could post a .300-12-70 line with 95 runs scored batting behind Reyes and in front of Wright and Beltran. In the more likely outfield batting seventh scenario, Murphy’s runs would take a big hit but he would compensate with a few more RBIs.