Archive for Robinson Cano

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to take a look at a minimum of two players for each MLB club: One player who exceeded expectations in 2009 and one player that failed to reach his potential. Today, we’re looking at the New York Yankees squad that finished first in the American League East division with a record of 103-59. The perennial powerhouse is currently facing the Los Angeles Angels in the American League Championship Series. As a team, the Yankees posted a Win Probability Added (WPA) of 12.82, which was first overall in the Major Leagues. The last team to come close to posting a similar WPA for the year was the ’05 Red Sox (12.21).

The Good: Robinson Cano, 2B
Second baseman Aaron Hill got a lot of attention in Toronto for his offensive season, but Cano’s wasn’t too shabby, either. Cano reached the 200-hit and plateau for the first time in his career, while hitting .320/.352/.520 with 25 homers. The soon-to-be 27-year-old infielder also hit 48 doubles, which suggests their is more power to come. Although his walk rate remains low at 4.5 BB%, Cano reduced his strikeout rate for the third straight year, from 13.8 to 10.9 to 9.9%. Overall, he was third in the Majors in wOBA (.370) amongst second basemen, behind Tampa Bay’s Ben Zobrist (.408) and Philadelphia’s Chase Utley (.402).

It seems clear that Cano’s hiccup in ’08 was more fluke than anything else. He remains an elite fantasy option at second base. Cano topped 100 runs for the first time in his career, and had 85 RBI – a total that could increase as he moves into a run-producing role now that he’s matured as a hitter. It’s also encouraging that he feasted on just about everything thrown at him save for the cutter, which gave him significant trouble (-4.91 wCT/C). Cano could top 30 homers as he enters his prime in 2010.

The Bad: Joba Chamberlain, RHP
There isn’t much that goes wrong on a team that compiles such an impressive WPA or 100+ win season. However, Chamberlain’s year can be viewed as a disappointment, as the youngster failed to improve and/or live up to lofty expectations. The right-hander did not have a terrible season but his 4.82 FIP and walk rate of 4.35 BB/9 both headed in the wrong direction. He struggled with his fastball in 2009. It went from a rating of 0.79 wFB/C in ’08 to -1.26 in ’09. His slider was still effective at 1.29 wSL/C. His lack of a consistent third pitch (curve or changeup) hurt him while pitching out of the rotation.

The good news is that Chamberlain is still a young pitcher and this was his first full season in the starting rotation, so ups-and-downs should have been expected. Fantasy owners can look at this as an opportunity to buy low on Chamberlain, who still has good stuff and youth is on his side. He also plays for a club that will give him plenty of opportunities to pile up wins. The slider will result in a good number of strikeouts if he can regain control of the heater – making it less likely that hitters will be able to lay off the breaking ball.

Not all of us are looking to sell high and buy low right now. Some of us are just looking for help – any help at all – off the wire. And if you’re in an NL-only, AL-only, or even a 20-team, MI/CI, 5 OF and 2 UTIL league (yeah, that one is fun), you’re looking for any guy that might take the job and start for a while.

Let’s take a look at some of these fringe options. Every once in a while, the ‘first guy off the bench’ can really do some damage in these deeper leagues.

Edwin Maysonet – His speed is the only skill he has that registers as decent on the scouting scale, and his contact and patience are both below average. About what you’d expect from a middle infielder with a minor league career .259/.338/.384 slash line. But you know what? He’s hot. After hitting .271/.343/.379 in his second year at AAA last year, he earned seven at-bats in the majors and got one hit. Repeating seems to work for him, as he’s currently hot in his second try at the major leagues after putting up a batting-average heavy .309/.417/.395 at AAA in his third try at the level. Of course, his current BABIP (over .400) has a lot to do with it. Why not get some stats out of the young guy, though – it’s not like 33-year-olds with injury-riddled histories come back quickly from bad hammies. (Yes Kaz Matsui, I’m looking in your direction. How’s the couch feeling?)

Jonny Gomes – The good news about Gomes is that he’s actually bettered his strikeout percentage over the last three years. Of course, he started at a Russell-Branyan
-esque 36%, and he may have made some of his gains by being reduced to a part-time role (his .219/.309/.425 slash line versus righties is just ugly, and he had twice as many at-bats against lefties as righties last year). On the other hand, Ramon Hernandez
is brittle enough – why push him with more at-bats at first base? While starter Joey Votto is out with his mysterious stress-related illness, someone has to play first. When that someone is Gomes, versus a lefty, take advantage of that .271/.371/.512 slash line against southpaws.

Sean Rodriguez – Howie Kendrick is struggling. Despite being a .294 hitter in a career 300 games, the fact that he has never even put together 400 plate appearances in a single season makes everyone wary. Are his current struggles injury related? Or, as the low .262 BABIP (career .346) suggests, just luck related? He really needs to start hitting better than 12% line drives, and his upside seemingly belongs along side the other high-contact-rate low-pop second basemen like Robinson Cano and Placido Polanco. Rodriguez, on the other hand, is showing mighty power for a second baseman. His .279/.364/.637 slash line shows isolated power that is well above his career .494 slugging percentage in the minors, but right in line with his .645 slugging percentage from last year. Guess he likes Salt Lake City and its 1.16 park factor for home runs in 2008. If the team gets tired of Kendrick, or – gasp – he gets hurt again, Rodriguez is worth a long look.

Ryan Roberts – With all the first basemen in Arizona hurt (what’s in that water?), Roberts has found his way into some at-bats over the past week-plus. This former shortstop’s defense is above-average, so he probably has a chance of sticking as the corner infielder, at least until even Tony Clark is back. Roberts has always been a power-and-patience guy and his major league strikeout percentage (29.8%) is not in line with his minor league one (19.8%). This year, he’s got that number down to 23.9%, which bodes well for his offense. Unfortunately, his BABIP is .471 and ZiPS pegs him for a reasonable .256/.328/.380 finish. There’s not much to like here, since the team has decided that Mark Reynolds is a fine solution at the hot corner despite his poor defense.

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.