Archive for Robinson Cano
Appreciating a core of peak-age players
Posted by: | CommentsWhen the Yankees closed out the 2008 season, youth was not on their side. The team had just two regulars — Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera — on the right side of 32, and four of their key starters still under contract for 2009 were going to be playing their age 35 seasons. The team needed to get younger and get their quickly.
Since missing the playoffs that year, though, Brian Cashman has built up a World Series Championship that features a solid core of young players who are all enjoying or are about to hit their peak performance seasons. He has replaced some late-30s players with some late-20s guys, and the team should enjoy these peak years as their veterans begin inevitable declines. At the risk of sounding too hyperbolic, the timing couldn’t have been better.
In 2010, the Yankees should expect more of the same. Robinson Cano will be playing his age 27 season and Mark Teixeira his age 30 season. In the outfield, Nick Swisher will be baseball aged 29 this year and Curtis Granderson 28. The the tail end of the peak-age spectrum is Nick Johnson, who will be playing his age 31 season. With Derek Jeter nearing his 36th birthday, A-Rod pushing approaching 35 and Jorge Posada playing his age 38 season, the Yankees will be turning to the young guys for more and more production.
So what do all of these age-related numbers mean for the Yankees? For a long time, the accepted baseball knowledge held age 27 to a peak performance years for most players. Some can sustain that peak for a few years; others can’t. Generally, well above-average players will remain above-average players even throughout their mid-to-late 30s while some see precipitous declines. In either event, good teams will feature a mix of seasoned veterans on the way out and younger players on the way up.
Lately, though, a new study by J.C. Bradbury has challenged those assumptions. The Sabernomics scribe wrote about his findings at length for Baseball Prospectus earlier this week. Basically, he found that players seem to peak at age 29, two years later than previously expected, and that some skills mature later than others and some earlier. For hitters, Bradbury’s table looks like this:
| Metric | Age |
|---|---|
| Linear Weights | 29.4 |
| OBP | 30 |
| SLG | 28.6 |
| AVG | 28.4 |
| Walk Rate | 32.3 |
| XBH Rate | 28.3 |
| HR Rate | 29.9 |
The Yankees, then, should enjoy some very good years from their core of youngsters. Nick Swisher and Curtis Granderson are amidst their peak years while Mark Teixeira is sitting on the cusp. Nick Johnson’s stellar walk rate could increase even more, but the true guy to watch is Robinson Cano. After a bad 2008, Cano bounced back with a stellar 2009. He hit .320/.352/.520 with 25 home runs, 48 doubles and a pair of triples. Not yet at his peak, Cano reached career highs in all of his counting stats and neared career highs in his rate stats. He should only get better.
Throughout the mid-2000s, the Yanks turned into a team with aging superstars. They saw Gary Sheffield and Bobby Abreu arrive past their peak years. They witnessed Jason Giambi turn into a mid-30s pumpkin and then back into a slugger, and they watched Hideki Matsui’s knees crumble. For 2010, at least, age is finally on the Yanks’ side, and if all goes according to plan, the Yankees will enjoy the benefits of youth.
By the Decade: Second base sluggers
Posted by: | CommentsWe pick up our Yankees By the Decade series today with the guys who manned the second base spot. Much of the decade was dominated by two top-hitting second basemen with a whole bunch of rather forgettable — but ultimately adequate — fill-ins in between.
| AB | Hits | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | IBB | HBP | K | GDP | BA | OBA | Slug% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Robbie Cano | 2826 | 861 | 198 | 17 | 83 | 386 | 129 | 14 | 21 | 330 | 93 | .305 | .337 | .475 |
| A. Soriano | 1946 | 557 | 120 | 10 | 95 | 265 | 90 | 8 | 29 | 410 | 23 | .286 | .325 | .505 |
| Miguel Cairo | 457 | 134 | 23 | 7 | 6 | 57 | 25 | 1 | 14 | 60 | 8 | .293 | .344 | .414 |
| C. Knoblauch | 328 | 89 | 19 | 2 | 5 | 20 | 31 | 0 | 4 | 34 | 4 | .271 | .341 | .387 |
| Enrique Wilson | 296 | 69 | 14 | 0 | 7 | 43 | 16 | 0 | 2 | 25 | 5 | .233 | .273 | .351 |
| Jose Vizcaino | 157 | 43 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 24 | 1 | .274 | .310 | .338 |
| Luis Sojo | 97 | 32 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 15 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | .330 | .356 | .464 |
| Tony Womack | 86 | 25 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 14 | 2 | .291 | .330 | .337 |
| Clay Bellinger | 41 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 0 | .244 | .326 | .512 |
| Nick Green | 37 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 0 | .189 | .286 | .297 |
| W. Delgado | 25 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | .240 | .355 | .28 |
| Rey Sanchez | 25 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | .320 | .370 | .360 |
| Wilson Betemit | 20 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 1 | .250 | .250 | .600 |
| Ramiro Peña | 13 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | .154 | .154 | .154 |
| A. Gonzalez | 12 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | .167 | .231 | .167 |
| Cody Ransom | 9 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .222 | .222 | .333 |
| Homer Bush | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | .000 | .125 | .000 |
| Mark Bellhorn | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .200 | .429 | .800 |
| Robin Ventura | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| Jerry Hairston | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .333 | .333 | .333 |
| Felix Escalona | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .333 | .333 | .667 |
| Andy Phillips | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| A. Cannizaro | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| Totals | 6399 | 1855 | 401 | 37 | 205 | 822 | 326 | 24 | 74 | 952 | 145 | 0.29 | 0.327 | 0.46 |
Between the two of them Alfonso Soriano and Robinson Cano combined for 74 percent of all Yankee second base at-bats, and they didn’t do too badly for themselves. On the whole, Yankee second basemen hit .290/.327/.460. The on-base percentage is a little low, but the batting average and slugging figures look a-OK to me. As a comparison, Boston’s second basemen hit .274/.330/.420 on the decade.
Individually, Soriano and Cano were both among the top of the game at their position, and yet, fans always wanted more. Before getting sent to Texas for A-Rod, Soriano launched 95 home runs and hit .286/.325/.505, mostly at the top of the Yankee order. Cano doesn’t have the same power as Soriano but has show a bit more patience. He has hit .305/.337/.475 with just 330 strike outs to Soriano’s 410 in 1000 more ABs.
Why then do Yankee fans always feel as though their second basemen should be better than they are? Cano takes a lot of guff for seemingly not hustling in the field or for being a lackadaisical base running. Soriano was accused, rightfully so, of flailing and too many pitchers, and fans and commentators always wanted him to exhibit more patience than he did at the plate. Always, it seems, Yankee fans want more, more, more.
What we can see from the chart, though, is how the Yankees have it good with a decade bookended by Soriano and Cano. Although Soriano’s .830 OPS is slightly better than Cano’s .812 mark, I have to give the decade award to Robinson Cano. He has far more playing time in pinstripes this decade than Soriano, and I like the OBP edge. We might be singing a different tune had Soriano’s late-game home run held up on a Sunday night in Phoenix, but that’s ancient history now.
Beyond those two, the decade was filled with a quest to fill the whole. I was surprised to see Miguel Cairo’s numbers at second base looking so decent. In nearly a season’s worth of at-bats, he hit .293/.344/.414. Considering those numbers are far above his career triple-slash line of .266/.315/.358, the Yankees were able to catch a bit of lightening in a bottle with Cairo, and it’s no wonder that Joe Torre seemingly fell in love with giving him playing time.
In the end, the Yanks had a good run this decade largely in part because of the solid play at second base. Robinson Cano has been an anchor since 2005 after the misguided Tony Womack experiment came to end. Before him, we lived through the era of Soriano, and even the guys who filled the hole for a year weren’t too bad. Meanwhile, Cano is just 27, and the next decade should belong to him. We know what he brings to the table; we know what he doesn’t bring to the table. As he hits his peak years offensively, he’s a great second baseman for a great Yankee team.
Looking at Robbie Cano’s baserunning
Posted by: | Comments
I was originally planning to put together a post looking at the Yankees’ baserunning in 2009 as a team, but once I started digging deeper and deeper, I found some really interesting stuff about Robinson Cano, so I decided to give him his own post. Don’t worry, the team-centric baserunning post will be up before long, but let’s take a look at the Yanks’ second baseman first.
As you probably already know, Cano is an atrocious basestealer. He was successful on just 5 of his 12 stolen base attempts in 2009, and for his career he’s just 17 for 38, a ghastly 44.7% success rate (break-even is 72-75%, depending on who you ask). This isn’t anything new either. Following an 11 for 13 debut as a sprightly 18-year-old in the rookie level Gulf Coast League, Cano stole just 11 bases in 19 attempts (57.9%) in the final 434 games of his minor league career. For a young and athletic middle infielder, the guy isn’t very good at swiping bases.
Baseball Prospectus has a stat for pretty much everything, including baserunning. Equivalent Stolen Base Runs (EqSBR for short) measures the “number of theoretical runs contributed by a baserunner above what would be expected given the number and quality of their baserunning opportunities,” which in English means it’s how many runs above average a player’s steals are. It’s not based on just bulk stolen base numbers, it factors in the game situation (a steal in a one-run game is greater than a steal in a ten-run game, a steal of third is better than a steal of second, etc.) while adjusting for park, batter handedness, the whole nine.
In 2009, Cano’s basestealing was worth -2.06 runs, which is pretty bad. In 2008 it was worth -1.49 runs, which is better, but still bad. In 2007 it was worth -1.21 runs, and in 2006 it was worth -0.72 runs. So not only is Cano’s basestealing so bad that it’s costing the Yankees runs, but it’s gotten progressively worse in each of his four full seasons. That’s not an encouraging trend for a guy still in his mid-20’s at an up-the-middle position, but stealing bases is just one piece of the baserunning pie.
BP’s Equivalent Base Running Runs stat (EqBRR) encompasses all forms of baserunning, including steals, advancing on balls in play, moving up on wild pitches, stuff like that. It’s actually the sum of EqSBR and four other similar stats, but we’ll get to that in a minute. What’s important right now is how valuable Cano’s overall baserunning has been throughout his career.
This year Cano finished with +0.4 EqBRR, the first full season in which his baserunning has been beneficial to the team. Last year he was at -0.7 runs, the year before it was -2.2 runs, and in 2006 it was -3.4 runs. Do you see what’s going on here? Let’s plot this out…
(click any image in this post for a larger view)
Well isn’t that cool. Despite getting worse and worse each year when it comes to stealing bases, Cano’s overall baserunning has actually gotten better as his career has progressed. Five years of engineering school allows me to deduce that Cano must have improved in the other aspects of baserunning (that’s the yellow line) for this to be possible (how’s that for analysis?). Remember when I said EqBRR is the sum of five other stats? Well let’s break it down into those individual components to see where the improvement actually is.
Everything in the chart is in runs, and I spared you the five-letter acronyms and just wrote out what each stat considers. There’s a stat for advancements made on groundballs to infielders (“Grounders”), sac flies (“Balls In Air”), base hits (“Hits”), and pretty much everything else (“Other”). “Stolen Bases” is just EqSBR. If you’re that interested, head over to BP’s glossary and you’ll find everything you need.
As you can see, the improvement in Cano’s overall baserunning comes from an improvement in his ability to take the extra base on sacrifice flies and base hits. Remember, these stats adjust for game situation and stuff, so Cano’s probably doing a better job of picking his spots as well. The slight dip in “Hits” this year isn’t much of a concern, because right now we have nothing to suggest it’s more than just a statistical blip. I’m thinking it might have something to do with the New Stadium; maybe he was being a little cautious not knowing what kind of bounces to expect.
Overall, Cano’s gone from costing the team nearly two runs (1.68, to be exact) on the bases in those situations (sac flies and hits) back in 2006 to adding nearly two runs (1.87, to be exact, again) to the team’s ledger in 2009. That’s a 3.54 run swing, which more than a third of a win. Considering how something so simple and easy to overlook as advancing on a wild pitch or going from first-to-third on a single can be, it’s quite an improvement. I’m not going to attempt to figure out what brought about this improvement, but I think we have to acknowledge that spending so much time around smart and veteran baserunners like Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon, and Alex Rodriguez has probably helped.
Whether or not this improvement continues or plateaus or even regresses remains to be seen, but right now the data is encouraging. And by no means am I making Cano out to be some great baserunner. In fact, the +0.4 runs his baserunning was worth last year is pretty negligible, he’s basically par for the course. That, however, is much better than costing the team runs on the bases, like he had been doing in years past. All I really want to do was point out that there’s been a definite improvement in his non-stolen base baserunning ability, and as far as I know, it’s going completely under-the-radar.
Obviously, pure speed is a big help when it comes to baserunning, but instincts and the ability to read pitchers also play a big part in running the bases. Cano’s not a burner, he never has been, but the data suggests that as he’s gained experience in the big leagues, he’s gotten better at taking the extra base on sac flies and base hits. It’s definitely something to keep an eye on as he enters his prime.
Now, if they could only get him to stop trying to steal bases…
Photo Credit: Reuters
What Went Right: Injury Bouncebacks
Posted by: | CommentsOver the next week or so, we’ll again break down what went wrong and what went right for the 2009 Yankees. The series this year will be much more enjoyable than the last.
At this time last year, the Yankees roster was anything but set. They had a huge offer out to CC Sabathia, and planned to pursue at least one other starting pitcher. That would help shore up the rotation, but clearly there were no guarantees. On top of that, the Yankees powerhouse offense went out with a whimper in 2008. Not only did the Yankees need another bat to enhance the offense, but they’d need contributions from players who underperformed in 2008.
With the acquisition of Nick Swisher, the Yankees had four players who underperformed in 2008. Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui missed much of the season with injuries, and Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher had poor seasons at the plate. Even with the potential addition of Mark Teixeira, the Yankees had a lot to worry about. Without contributions from at least two of those four, the Yankees offense wouldn’t have been nearly as formidable.
Two of four didn’t seem like asking a lot. Two of the players in question were proven veterans coming off injuries, and other two were players in their primes who each had a bad season. But as it turned out, all four bounced back. That turned out to be a key to the 2009 season. It meant the Yankees had above average contributors in eight out of nine lineup slots, with the final filled by an average player. How many other teams can boast of such a powerhouse?
Here’s how the Yankees in question performed in 2008, and how they bounced back in 2009. All stats are from FanGraphs, at risk of Jeremy Greenhouse calling me out.
| Player | 08 wOBA | 08 WAR | 09 wOBA | 09 WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jorge Posada | .340 | 0.8 | .378 | 4.0 |
| Hideki Matsui | .348 | 0.8 | .378 | 2.4 |
| Nick Swisher | .325 | 1.0 | .375 | 3.5 |
| Robinson Cano | .307 | 0.5 | .370 | 4.4 |
Both Swisher and Cano both returned to their pre-2008 forms, which brought a huge boost to the offense. As you can see from the table, these were not insignificant improvements. Not only did they increase rate production over 2008, but they stayed healthy and therefore added that value over the course of the season. WAR favors Cano over Swisher by almost a full run, but that’s mostly because of the positional adjustment. Both had phenomenal seasons, especially compared to 2008.
Posada and Matsui contributed in two ways. First, they improved their net production over 2008. Even when healthy, Posada and Matsui weren’t quite where they had been in years past. Their wOBA numbers weren’t bad in 2008, but the Yankees have seen them perform much better. There was certainly fear that age had caught up with them, but they answered that charge by coming back to produce in 2009. That leads to the second part of their improvement, remaining healthy. Even with their production in 2008, they didn’t help the team as much because they were hurt for much of the season. In 2008 both stayed healthy enough to add a ton of value to the team, as evidenced by their WAR figures.
All four players certainly had the potential to bounce back after poor 2008 campaigns. Cano and Swisher were guys in their primes who had bad years, and Matsui and Posada were two veterans who faced injury struggles. During the 2008-2009 off-season, it would have been wildly optimistic to predict that all four would bounce back. The Yankees got lucky in that regard. All four contributed to the 103-win season, which set up the team’s run through the playoffs. The 2009 Yankees might have made the playoffs if only two of those four bounced back, but they wouldn’t have been nearly as dominant. While the improved pitching staff was a big part of the story this season, we shouldn’t overlook Posada, Matsui, Cano, and Swisher. Their contribution was a big part of making this season as special as it was.
What Went Wrong: Robbie Cano with RISP
Posted by: | CommentsOver the next week or so, we’ll again break down what went wrong and what went right for the 2009 Yankees. The series this year will be much more enjoyable than the last.
In many ways, Robinson Cano’s 2009 season was the finest of his career. He rebounded from a substandard 2008 campaign to hit .320-.352-.520, setting career highs in games played (161), hits (204), runs scored (103), doubles (48), homers (25), and OPS+ (129). His 331 total bases were fourth most in the league, just 13 behind right-side-of-the-infieldmate and league leader Mark Teixeira. Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news for Cano in 2009, as he struggled immensely when runners were in scoring position.
Robbie hit just .207-.242-.332 in those spots this season, easily the worst performance with RISP of his career. There were 247 individual runners in scoring position for Cano in 2009, yet he drove in just 55 of them (not including himself four times on homeruns), or 22.3%. For comparison’s sake, Teixeira drove in 70 of 257 runners in scoring position, or 27.2%. It’s only a 4.9% difference and that might not seem like much, but with 250+ chances, that’s more than a twelve run swing.
Ironically enough, Cano has all the tools you’d want to see in a guy batting in RBI situations. He’s got a gorgeous swing and makes contact so easily that he rarely strikes out (he struck out in just 9.9% of his plate appearances last year, ninth best in baseball). He hits the ball to all fields with authority, and he straight up murders fastballs (.328 AVG off them in 2009, 1.59 fastball runs above average per 100 pitches according to FanGraphs). Sure, you would like him to work the count a little better, but we saw earlier this morning that Cano excels at swinging early in the count. It’s in his DNA, he’s just not ever going to be a very patient hitter.
If there’s any good news in all of this, it’s that Cano had an unsustainably low .210 BABIP with RISP in 2009. His career BABIP is .324, so we’re talking about a huge difference here. Working backwards, Cano “unlucked” out of 17 hits with RISP this year because of his abnormally low BABIP (assuming he would have had his career BABIP in those spots), and those 17 extra hits would have pushed his batting line to a much more respectable .299-.328-.434 (assuming they all would have been singles) with men on second and/or third.
Cano admitted during the season that his struggles with RISP got to him, and you could clearly see that he was pressing in those spots as the season wore on. He’s human, it happens. The offseason is probably the best thing for him, because he gets to go home and clear his head, then come into camp with a fresh start next spring. His performance with runners in scoring position has nowhere to go but up, and that’s exciting.
Photo Credit: Jim McIsaac, Getty Images
Why does Robinson Cano passively watch the first pitch?
Posted by: | CommentsBefore he digs into the batter’s box for the first time, Robinson Cano playfully taps the opposing catcher’s shin guards with his bat. He then starts to settle in, adjusting his uniform and waving his bat in front of him like a pendulum. Then, as the pitcher readies, Cano gets into his stance, slightly open. The bat waggling behind his head seemingly dictates the movement of the rest of his body. It’s as if he and the bat are one, rocking back and forth in unison, waiting for the perfect moment to turn loose and strike the pitched ball.
If the ball is near the strike zone, I expect Robbie to swing. He’s never been known as a disciplined hitter — he’s been in the bottom five in the AL in pitches per plate appearances four out of five seasons, and in the other, 2007, he was in the bottom 10. Yet even though I understand the virtue of seeing more pitches, I want Robbie to swing. Not at a pitch in the dirt or at his eyes, of course, but if it’s reasonably close to the zone I think swinging is probably the proper decision. (Cano, for his part, made contact with 77.5 percent of pitches outside the strike zone in 2009, and 75.3 percent in 2008.)
This season, I noticed many times that Cano would stand and passively watch the first pitch go by, no matter its type or location. Unfortunately, a statistic does not exist which can quantify this situation. All we have is the number of times he swung at the first pitch, 230 out of his 674 plate appearances, or 34 percent overall. That is actually up from 2008, when he swung at the first pitch 32 percent of the time. In previous years, Cano swung at the first pitch more often. But while we know that Cano swings at the first pitch often enough, we don’t know how many of those first pitch situations he’s eschewing because of this passive tactic.
Presumably, this is to help correct for his poor discipline. Again, Cano routinely sees among the fewest pitches per plate appearance in the league, so the idea might be that if he takes the first pitch, he might get a better read on the pitcher. I’m not sure if this first-pitch passive approach is an instruction from Kevin Long, or an initiative of Cano’s own undertaking. What I do know is that while that tactic can sometimes lead to a 1-0 count, oftentimes Cano watches a perfectly good pitch go right by, a pitch that he can put in play. That’s Cano’s strength, putting balls in play, and I don’t like seeing him take good pitches — or even close pitches — without even thinking about swinging.
Just how good is Cano when he swings at the first pitch? He did it 118 times in 2009, and he picked up 51 hits, good for a .432 batting average. Of those 51 hits, seven were home runs, 11 were doubles, and one was a triple, for a .720 slugging percentage. He also picked up 21 of his 85 RBI by first-pitch swinging. Though his 2009 performance on the first pitch probably isn’t repeatable, Cano has fared well throughout his career in that situation, posting a .374 batting average and .578 slugging percentage over 544 plate appearances.
Hitters who see a lot of pitches provide value to the team. Nick Swisher makes fewer outs than other players because he’s willing to wait for the pitch he wants. If the pitcher doesn’t give him something he can hit, he’ll take his walk (or, as the case may be, he’ll strike out looking). The Yankees have always coveted patience at the plate, and it seems like they sometimes go out of their way to acquire this type of player. It stands in contrast to Cano, a free swinger. Even as he watched balls pass by, having no intention of swinging, he still ranked fourth to last in the AL in pitches per plate appearance in 2009.
Cano saw an 0-1 count 303 times in 2009. We might not learn from his numbers in that situation, because we don’t know how he got the strike. It could have been a passive look, an active look, a foul ball, or a swing and miss (though that only happened about 230 times all season). In any case, he hit .288/.294/.482 over 303 plate appearances. That’s pretty close to his career mark of .285/.299/.422 over 1,334 plate appearances. He is much better with a 1-0 count, .305/.383/.464 over 253 PA in 2009 and .298/.368/.476 over 1,158 PA in his career. Still, not as good as his first pitch numbers.
This is not to say that Cano should swing at every first pitch. That would be preposterous. It is to say that he’s not doing himself any favors by passively resting the bat on his shoulders. Maybe I’m falling victim to an observation bias and he doesn’t do this nearly as frequently as I think. I wish I had a way to measure it, other than watching the archive of all his 674 plate appearances. But that would just annoy me. That’s why I wrote this post, really. Because Robinson Cano annoys me when he nonchalantly watches a good pitch go by.
Yanks offense goes from powerhouse to porous in ALCS
Posted by: | CommentsWe’ve all seen this before: Yankees offense scores 900 runs in the regular season, goes to sleep in the playoffs. The difference this year is that some guys are still hitting. That, and the superb pitching allowed even a porous offense to come out ahead in the first five postseason contests. But, as we saw yesterday, the holes in the lineup can be killers. The Yanks could have scored eight, 10 runs yesterday if they hit with runners in scoring position. Instead, they relied on the solo homer. That won’t always work.
That the bottom of the order isn’t hitting is one thing. That Mark Teixeira isn’t hitting is another. He’s had a pretty bad playoffs overall, notching just two hits in the ALDS. Of course, those two hits were as big as they get: a single prior to a game-tying homer, and a walk-off shot in the same game. Since then, in four games, Teixeira has just one hit. He is 1 for 13 in the ALDS with a lone single, walking three times to five strikeouts. It hurts so much more because he’s batting in the three hole.
It’s April all over again for Tex. It appears the long breaks have disrupted his rhythm. That’s anecdotal, of course, but it matches with what we’ve heard about Teixeira from day one. He starts slow every year because he needs to get into a rhythm from both sides of the plate. Joe Morgan (of all people) explained it on a Sunday Night Baseball broadcast, noting that while most hitters transfer their weight from their back foot to their front, Teixeira stays on his back foot for his whole swing. I wonder how much Tex would benefit from having a non-roster pitcher, like Brian Bruney, throw him live BP, at game speeds.
Robinson Cano came to the plate twice yesterday with runners on first and second with none out, and twice bounced into a fielder’s choice. In fact, he doesn’t have a hit with runners in scoring position all series. His only RBI came on a triple with a man on first. He’s just 3 for 13 in the series with a GIDP. The Yankees certainly need the guy who hit .320 this season.
Batting after Cano is Nick Swisher, who has been equally as bad if not worse. After going 1 for 12 in the ALDS, Swisher is 2 for 10 in the ALCS with five strikeouts. A few of those have been costly, coming with a runner on third and less than two outs. Swisher’s woes at the plate are amplified when A.J. Burnett starts. Because Jose Molina bats ninth and Jorge Posada is out of the lineup, Swisher hits sixth. Unless he does something tonight, putting him in that spot isn’t the best idea.
Rounding out the order is Melky Cabrera who, after a good Game 1, has slowed down considerably. He went 1 for 2 with two walks in the opening match, but since has gone 2 for 11 with no walks and four strikeouts. He’s the No. 9 hitter, so it’s tough to expect the world from him. Still, Melky has stumbled in the playoffs. He’s just 5 for 25 this postseason, which is bad even for the last hitter in the lineup.
So far the Yankees have gotten by with timely (i.e., late) hitting and solid pitching. But the home runs won’t come against everyone. The Yankees have to start taking advantage of their opportunities earlier in the game, and that means Teixeira, Cano, Swisher, and Melky have to produce. After yesterday’s loss, the Yankees could use it tonight more than ever.
Robinson Cano doesn’t like it when you call him lazy
Posted by: | CommentsRobinson Cano’s resurgence is one of many reasons the Yankees are on their way to the best record in baseball. His hot bat (except with RISP) and slick fielding have made him one of the more valuable second basemen in the league. This wasn’t the case last year, when Cano struggled with the bat in the first half, and had troubles on defense most of the year. It led to a reputation among opposing players that he was lazy. Cano worked to buck that perception over the off-season — he was not motivated only by improving himself, but also by sticking it to the nonbelievers. Jim Baumbach of Newsday writes about Cano in his latest column. It’s a nice, short read on a rainy Sunday.
