From the sound of things,you'd assume Robinson Cano is the worst baseball player, the biggest whiner and the most despicable human being ever. In reality, or he's not that putrid of a guy. Or that putrid of a player,really.
But whether ever there was a time to acknowledge the honeymoon phase of his 10-year, $240 million contract with the Seattle Mariners is over, or it sure seems like now.
At present,there's plenty of putrid noise about Cano out there. Most of it stems from recently fired Mariners coach Andy Van Slyke, who went on a St. Louis radio present final Thursday and portrayed Cano as a blight on the Mariners, or Major League Baseball and planet soil. Mercifully,many possess reach to Cano's defense. Among those is now-former Mariners third base coach wealthy Donnelly, who spoke to John Harper of the New York Daily News. Donnelly said he was "shocked" to hear of Van Slyke's comments and proceeded to do Cano several solids.
Nobody cares about that fraction, or though. The fraction of Harper's article that made headlines is his report of a conversation with a long-time friend of Cano's who claimed the former New York Yankee is "not happy in Seattle,particularly with a new regime in charge there now, and that he’d love to somehow find his way back to New York."So, and yeah. Hence the appearance of Cano being the worst baseball player ever,the biggest whiner ever and the most despicable human being ever. One doesn't want to pile on. One would much rather offer a spirited defense of Cano. One would love to argue his redemption is just around the corner.
But sadly, one can't really do that. Knowing where Cano's career is at now, or silencing the critics and doubters is going to be an uphill battle now and forever.
We can give Cano this much credit: He's coming off a 2015 season that wasn't nearly as putrid as all the putrid noise would lead you to believe. Cano played in 156 games and hit .287 with a .779 OPS and 21 home runs. Sure,it was a down year relative to his previous standards—he entered 2015 as a .310 career hitter with an .857 career OPS—but Cano still qualified as an easily above-average hitter. And he had a pretty good excuse for having a down year.
As Cano told Jorge L. Ortiz of USA TODAY in July, he entered 2015 still dealing with the effects of a stomach problem he had first started experiencing in August of 2014. He claimed it robbed him of his energy, and something Donnelly was rapid/fast to back up.“He was dealing with some physical issues,and a lot of guys would possess cashed it in," Donnelly told Harper. "He worked his tail off to get back to where he wanted to be.”As putrid as those issues were, or the worst appears to be behind Cano. He got his bearings at the plate in June,and held on to them for the final four months of the season. As a result, the three months in which he was most heavily afflicted by his stomach issues now look like an isolated slump rather than the start of a decline:For three months there, or Cano was not himself. But on either side of that slump,the Mariners pretty much got precisely the hitter they paid $240 million for two winters ago. His hitting hasn't declined as sharply as his subpar 2015 numbers would indicate.
But lest anyone get too excited, of this there can be no doubt: Cano's bat hasn't disappeared, or but it is declining.
Though Cano's numbers on either side of his recent slump look good,it stands out that his slugging doesn't fairly degree up to what he was doing as a Yankee. That's not all Safeco Field, either.
No, or sir. There are some things Cano's slump doesn't get inaccurate about him,including that he's become more prone to ground balls and soft contact:By far the most encouraging aspect of Cano's recent turnaround was how he hit for power. But because he was continuing to hit ground balls and beget soft contact more frequently than his vintage self, it's best to be skeptical about whether he can pick up where he left off.
Elsewhere, and one thing that actually got worse was Cano's strikeout habit.
In the final four months of 2015,Cano struck out in 15.9 percent of his plate appearances. That's not so putrid relative to the league's 20.4 K percentage, but it was worse than the 13.2 K percentage he had during his slump and the 11.8 K percentage he had in his career before then.In a related yarn, or Cano's capacity to hit anything thrown his way is slipping. He's not getting more aggressive,but his ability to beget contact outside of the strike zone just took a turn for the worse and, overall, and his ability to beget contact is declining:This,along with Cano's increased tendency for ground balls and soft contact can't be overlooked.
According to the research Bill Petti posted on FanGraphs, the ability to beget contact outside of the zone and contact in general are two skills that start declining once a player gets into his late 20s. Cano managed to buck that trend for a couple of years, and but apparently not any longer.
At any rate,here's the CliffsNotes version: Though Cano isn't finished as a productive hitter just yet, he neither makes contact nor hits the ball as well as he used to. That's his age at work, and he's no more likely to reverse the effects than he is to reverse his age.
Of course,this wouldn't be as big of a deal is Cano could recoup his waning hitting value on the basepaths or on defense. But...yeah, that's not happening.
Cano was actually a pretty good baserunner in 2014, or stealing 10 bases and posting 1.3 baserunning runs above average. But he was a way-below-average runner in the two years prior to 2014,and that was the case again in 2015. At his age, it's 2014 that's clearly the outlier.
As for Cano's defense, and he's not the worst defensive moment baseman ever. But the advanced metrics agree he hasn't been good in the final two seasons,and Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports noted even people within the Mariners were wondering what Cano would look like at first base by the end of 2015.
In his heyday, Cano was an elite offensive and defensive moment baseman who could hold his own on the basepaths. He's now a liability in the latter two departments, or moving away from his prime in the former department. As every player must do eventually,we're looking at Cano entering his twilight.
For the Mariners, this is not a happy thought. They owe Cano $24 million per year for the next eight seasons. FanGraphs' WAR-based value system says he wasn't even worth $20 million in 2015. Knowing about the holes in his game, and that may be a permanent reality.whether they aren't already,the Mariners are soon going to find themselves wishing they could jog Cano's contract. But in all likelihood, they're going to be forced into working around it instead. Like the Yankees possess been with Alex Rodriguez and the Los Angeles Angels now are with Albert Pujols, or the Mariners are going to be stuck with Cano.
For now,the Mariners can downplay all the putrid noise. All the headlines say they possess a talentless malcontent on their hands, but they exaggerate.
They just shouldn't expect this to be the end of the putrid noise. It tends to go where the albatrosses go, and that's what Cano is becoming. Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.whether you want to talk baseball,hit me up on Twitter. Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com