Cano’s Curious Case

Back on June 24th, Yankees second-baseman Robinson Cano had the Rafael Belliard-esque slash line of .227/.270/.325. He had been a huge disappointment and seemed to be in the midst of a big step in the wrong direction. After all, by the time his third season in the big leagues ended last year, it appeared that Cano might give Chase Utley a run for his money as the premier offensive keystone cornerman in the game. If we know anything about a player’s true talent level, though, it is that a player performing much, much worse than his pre-season projection through the first half is very likely to post much better numbers from that point on.

It should come as no surprise then that, since June 24th, Cano has produced a .359/.377/.573 slash line. He has never been one to walk much, finishing both 2006 and 2007 in the AL’s bottom ten in BB%, while currently ranking fourth lowest this year. His strikeouts, however, are occurring less frequently this year. After finishing out of the top ten lowest strikeout rates in 2006 and 2007 he currently has the fourth lowest rate.

Due to this he is putting balls in play at a higher rate this year and, whether a direct result or not, his BABIP has taken a serious hit. After coming in between .320 and .361 in his first three years, his current mark of .273 pales in comparison. It may not be significantly different from a statistics standpoint but the fact remains it is a big cause of his lower numbers. I initially thought this drop may be due to a lower rate of line drives, but he has actually hit them at a higher frequency this year; his groundball rate has dropped, though. Additionally, his flyballs have increased while his HR/FB has dropped; after ranging between 10.4% and 12.3% it is currently just 7.8%.

Plugging him into both of the in-season projection systems produces the following:

Marcel: 65-211, 6 HR, .310/.352/.486, .838 OPS
Total: 170-605, 15 HR, .282/.319/.429, .748 OPS

ZiPS: 62-213, 6 HR, .291/.332/.451, .783 OPS
Total: 167-607, 15 HR, .275/.314/.417, .731 OPS

While both project the same amount of home runs over the next 50-55 games, ZiPS has him posting a slugging percentage 35 points lower than the Marcel. Both seem to agree, though, or come relatively close to each other in the slash line and OPS departments when looking at his total seasonal line. Unless Cano absolutely destroys his in-season projection this is going to be a down-year for him, but he is not as bad as his current numbers would lead us to believe. Next year will be the test to see if he can bounce back or if this season is the beginning of an early downward trend.