Hard to believe, but Cano even hotter than last year
ByIn 2007 and in 2008, Robinson Cano got off to a slow start. After nearly winning the batting title with a late surge in 2006, Cano stumbled a bit in August, posting a .270/.320/.337 April. Things got worse in May, and he hit rock bottom on May 16 when he was hitting .234/.276/.312. He took off after that, though, and in his final 522 PA he hit .326/.374/.536, which more resemble the Cano we had gotten to know in 2006.
Photo credit: Chris Carlson/AP
In 2008 his start was even worse. He hit under .200 for almost the entire month of April, finishing the month at .151/.211/.236. While he hit rock bottom on May 3 that year, his recovery didn’t go as well as in 2007. His .300/.327/.452 line from May 4 through the end of the season wasn’t terrible, but it was far below what we had come to expect from Cano. It got so bad that Joe Girardi ended up benching him in September.
The narrative, then, entering the 2009 season was that Robbie had to get off to a hot start in order to fend off his critics. As we saw, he responded. Through 20 games he hit .381/.418/.619, and while he didn’t keep that up for the rest of the season he still kept up a respectable line of .311/.341/.505 from Game 21 through Game 162. His final line, .320/.352/.520, represented his best production since that superb 2006 season.
In 2010, we’ve seen more of the same. Cano’s hot start is a big reason why the Yankees have gotten off to such a hot start. In the first 20 games he’s hitting .390/.430/.701, which closely resembles his 2009 start. The good news, though, is that he has shown improvement in every category. His BA is clearly higher. In his first 20 games last year he walked 6.6 percent of the time and had a .238 ISO. This year he has walked 7 percent of the time and has a .312 ISO.
There’s just no way Cano will keep up this production throughout 2010. Yet even if he drops off a bit he’ll finish strong this season. It’s tough to ignore such a massive increase in power. It comes at the cost of strikeouts — Cano’s 13 percent strikeout rate is his highest since 2007 — but he’s also shown a bit more willingness to take some pitches and even draw a walk. I’m being cautious, given Cano’s similar start last year, but it seems like this year could be his best yet.
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The Mason Williams Watch
I still say “Murderers Row and then Cano”
Sincerely,
Jim Leyland
Really, even with a K rate of 13%, which he probably won’t maintain all season, he would only have about 15-20 more K’s than last year. I’d rather have this impressive Cano with 15-20 more K’s.
Robinson Cano is hotter than Roger Clemens’s balls.
He’s been kind of like those CougarLife pics, whereas they always put the best package in the middle (cleanup) but the eye follows to right (5 hole).
Imagine how much hotter he’d be if Larry Bowa was riding his ass.
Or if Melky was still with the Yanks…
Or if he played the game the right way…
If he were half as gritty and gutty as Brett Gardner he’d be hitting .440.
No! That’s the entire reason he’s doing so well!! Melky was obviously holding him back.
just to clarify: /sarcasm’d
don’t clarify. it’s funnier when people don’t know you’re kidding.
When evaluating the Vasquez trade add plus marks for the effect getting rid of Melky has apparently had on Cano.
Are you saying Melky was a cancer to clubhouse chemistry?
I hope that’s sarcasm, but I fear it’s not.
Would it really surprise you if there was a “Billy Martin/Copa” type banishment of Melky put into place once that compromising shirtless picture of him surfaced on the internet?
No, but it would really surprise me if this whole “Melky and Robbie party too much and are too chummy and too lackadaisical and they’ll be better once you break them up and put them on separate teams” concept would exist if Melky and Robbie were two white guys instead of two Dominicans.
/seriousresponsetoyoursemiseriousreply’d
His laziness wont allow him to sustain this pace. Its only a matter of time before Sugar Cano is DFA’d.
/Sarcasm’d
Over the weekend I was listening to the Yanks on XM/Sirius and the Angels announcer said he was in the Yankee clubhouse before the game and Cano was putting cologne on. When he asked him why he was doing that, Robbie said he “likes to smell good when he’s running the bases”. Gotta love it! Jeter has Driven and now Robbie will need his own scent.
ha!
I just hope Cano doesn’t hit too many HR’s.
(sarcasm…beating a dead horse)
Fact: Cano in latin means “killer liners”
(this may not be an actual fact)
Fact: Cano in Bostonian means “I wish our second baseman had a beautiful head of hair like theirs…”… Fact.
It’s obvious who is to blame when it comes to the rise of Cano… that’s right… Crab People.
he’s just…so…good…
I hate to triple post, however, in splooging all over the internet (fangraphs is the main victim) looking for awesome stats regarding our sweet second baseman, I found that Robbie is 3rd in WAR rankings behind Johnson and Utley.
Can a normal everyday fan calculate WAR with other given stats. If so, how does one go about doing so– besides the obvious lurking of fangraphs.
All baseball bias aside, it seems to me that Cano has been the most valuable 2nd basemen in the short season. Does his fielding really bring him down so much? And if so, I was always under the impression that Robbie was a superior defender in comparison to Johnson.
Oh! And what does RAR stand for.
Sorry if this is too off-topic.
Considering the composition of the team now and in the future, would people still trade Cano straight-up for Matt Kemp? I’m not sure that would be a smart trade for the Yankees to make.
i never thought it was. call me a homer
10 out of 10 times. I love Cano. He is one of my favorite players, one whom I root for above almost everyone else. But Kemp is… every baseball cliche and then some. I wouldn’t love doing it, but I’d have to find away to say farewell to that swing.
Kemp has been called lazy as well…except his GM did it in an interview.
Cano is more of a rarity at 2B, than a poor fielding CF. In fact, I’ll go way out and rate Cano MLB’s 2nd best 2B (behind Utley)…Kemp isn’t even the best OF in LA and not top 10 in the game.
mi jugador favorito!!
I just noticed that Canó is listed as having an 11.6% SO rate on baseball-reference.com, while Fangraphs’ K rate is at 13%. I realized that Fangraphs calculates K% in terms of at-bats, while baseball-reference.com’s SO % is calculated in terms of plate appearances.
My initial thought would be that the more accurate number would be baseball-reference.com, since it relates strike outs with walks, sacrifices, etc, whereas Fangraphs’ ratio doesn’t account for this.
If so, then Canó’s 11.6%, while higher than the past two years, would actually be more in line with his career SO rate (11.1% on b-r) than Fangraphs’ 13% would seem. In other words, as long as he can keep up his increased BB%, then the increase in SO% is virtually canceled out.
But, does this make sense? Is there a reason why one calculation is better than the other that I’m missing?