Robinson Cano's struggles

[Anointed One]

So Lloyd had a doghouse for mistakes from him but nobody else?

He plays favoritism is the problem, imo... He obviously likes Ackley & Weeks... Rugg's had obviously done something for him to fall out of favor imo... He hardly played much...

 

[Banned 10x]

I kind of am too. I still think he will turn it around this year. A few things that I have noticed with him at the plate are timing and lack of "pop" off the bat. You notice that he will hit the weak grounders to second all the time or hit a high foul pop down third base line. He seems almost too relaxed at the plate.

This is obviously Ackley's fault

 

[NWinAZ]

Is Robinson Cano on the decline, or is this just a temporary blip? (ESPN)

In the eyes of the Seattle Mariners, inking Robinson Cano to a 10-year, $240 million contract marked a bold entry into an extended period of contention, and a potential changing of the guard in the American League. Out would go the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, A's and Rangers, and in would come the Mariners to take charge of a soft, muddled American League.

Here in Year 2 of Cano's 10-year pact, it hasn't exactly worked out that way. The AL is still soft and muddled, but the Mariners reside near its bottom, with Cano posting an awful .240-.281-.328 line. The Astros have jumped into the AL West void the Mariners were hoping to fill, and only the AL's general mediocrity precludes a Seattle fire sale, at least for now.

As for Cano, is his 2015 nightmare real, or just a mere blip on the radar in an otherwise Hall of Fame career? Let's take a look.

Cano has represented the gold standard among second basemen since the turn of the century, combining offensive and defensive excellence. Over the past 50 seasons, he stands among an elite group of players at his position -- Joe Morgan, Bobby Grich, Chase Utley, Craig Biggio, Ryne Sandberg and Roberto Alomar -- who have sustained such performance for more than a decade without needing to be shifted out of the position.

Still, as good as those other second basemen were, would you have extended them a 10-year contract at premium dollars coming off their age-30 season? That was the conundrum faced by the Mariners; to get him, they had to overpay in terms of both dollars and years. Winning a championship or two in the first third to half of his contract, before his inevitable decline, would justify the premium, so the thinking went.

The timing of that decline would be the key. Even the most pessimistic of prognosticators wouldn't have pegged Cano for such a steep Year 2 decline, however. But maybe this isn't a true decline, but rather just a slow start?

BIP-data frequency, 2014
Result % REL PCT
K 10.2 55 6
BB 9.2 118 75
POP 3.8 48 9
FLY 23.2 81 11
LD 24.0 114 87
GB 49.0 116 87
First let's take an in-depth look at his Year 1 frequency and production by ball-in-play (BIP) data -- K's, walks, popups, fly balls, line drives (LD), ground balls (GB) -- to see if there were any warning flags that could have alerted us to his current predicament. We look at the frequency data first (in the accompanying table). The "REL" column stands for "relative" and presents his plate-appearance frequencies on a scale, with 100 representing the MLB average. The "PCT" column represents this data in percentile rank form, so for example, Cano's K rate in 2014 was in just the 6th percentile of major league regulars, or higher than 5 percent of his peers. Just this one small table indicates why Cano succeeded for those many years: Don't strike out, don't pop up, hit a ton of line drives, and you too can bat .300 in the major leagues. Cano's extremely low 2014 K rate was nothing new; it matched a career low set in 2009, and since 2008, his highest K rate percentile rank was 32.

After posting below-average walk rates in the early stages of his career, Cano nudged to above-average in 2012 and continued to trend upward to his 2014 career-high percentile rank of 75. Cano's popup rate has been well below-average throughout his career, but again, 2014 marked a career best.

Line-drive rates are the most variable of all BIP types, but there is a small circle of hitters who generate tons of liners every year. Cano is among that select group; since 2010, his liner-rate percentile has fit snugly into a narrow band between 86 and 92.

Cano has always tended to be a ground ball hitter, but that trait has intensified in recent seasons. His 2014 grounder percentile marked a career high, and he has posted exceedingly low fly ball percentile ranks between 9 and 11 in three of the past four seasons.

Let's complete our picture of the "pre-2015" Cano by examining his production by BIP type data for last season, which will give us a better feel for his BIP authority. For the purposes of this exercise, all SH and SF are counted as outs, so his overall seasonal rate stats don't exactly match up. The Relative Production column (REL Prod.) compares Cano's actual production on each BIP type to the MLB average of 100. The Adjusted Production column (ADJ Prod.) adjusts that figure for context; it measures how he would have performed if each of his balls in play were hit in a neutral park. (ADJ Prod. runs closely in line with the OPS+ stat.)

Paul Goldschmidt (see my column on him here), Cano's BIP authority really isn't all that special. He hit .313 with a .722 slugging percentage on fly balls last season, and gets a small contextual bump upward from 115 actual to 132 adjusted production on fly balls. By comparison, Goldschmidt had a 395 adjusted contact score on fly balls in 2014. And after adjustment for context, Cano's 106 liner and 92 grounder contact scores were decent, but not exceptional.

Cano's high line-drive rate drives his overall adjusted contact score up a bit to 109, which is, again, good but not great. Where the greatness creeps in is when the Ks and BBs are added back; his overall 137 adjusted production is exceptional for a middle infielder.

Adjusted production, 2012-14
Result 2012 2013 2014
FLY 233 126 132
LD 123 116 106
GB 132 137 92
ALL 159 135 109
With K/BB 169 155 137
So the bottom line is Cano really didn't create thunderous contact last season; he just upped his walk rate and maintained a good K rate. Let's see (in the accompanying table) how his context-adjusted contact scores compared to 2012-13 to create some context, and a trend line.

As you can see, his contact authority has clearly trended downward in all BIP types. The only thing keeping him at a truly elite level was his very low K and above-average walk rates, which added 28 points to his adjusted production in 2014.

So coming into 2015, here was Cano's statistical profile:

1. Low-K, low-popup, high-liner guy who projected to continue to hit for average.
2. Declining batted-ball authority across all BIP types.
3. An extreme ground ball tendency, which leaves little room for power upside, especially considering his (non-homer-friendly) home park.
4. Maintenance of historical K and BB rates would be needed to keep him at an elite level of offensive production.

 

[NWinAZ]

(CONTINUED)

On to 2015
So what has happened? Well, his popup and liner rates are similar compared with recent seasons, so that's not the problem. His fly and grounder rates, and their percentile ranks, have not changed materially. That leaves three problem areas: K rate, BB rate and fly ball production.

Robinson Cano is hitting just .240 this season, with a .609 OPS. AP Photo/Elaine Thompson
Let's tackle the first two together by going back to that group of seven modern elite second basemen again. All had well above-average K/BB profiles, like Cano, in their prime. In 2013-14, Cano's BB rate was over a half standard deviation above the AL average. This year, it's over a half standard deviation belowaverage. This is a very significant one-year shift.

Biggio's BB rate was more than a full standard deviation above league average in his age-34 season, then it plunged into the average range at age 35 and continued to trend downward from there. Biggio had a 149 OPS + at age 32, and never exceeded 111 again. Meanwhile, Sandberg's BB rate was more than a full standard deviation above league average at age 31, a half above at age 32, and in the average range at age 33. It also continued to trend downward from there. He posted a 152 OPS+ at age 32, and plunged to 114 and 107 in his last two seasons. The other four elite players never experienced a late-career K/BB breakdown.

It should be noted that Cano's 2015 BB rate plunge is steeper than those of either of those players, and has been accompanied by a K-rate spike. This one-season K/BB breakdown is unprecedented among second basemen of his pedigree. With his current 2015 K and BB rates, Cano's 2014 ADJ PRD/OPS+ figure would drop 30 basis points, to 107.

Then you have all the fly ball production. I've written about the fly ball "donut hole" in the past. In 2014, MLB hitters batted .560 with a 1.884 slugging percentage on fly balls hit at 92.5 mph or harder, but only .077 with a .148 slugging percentage on fly balls hit between 75 and 90 mph. These readings were based on the pre-StatCast system, which ran a bit "slower" than the current one. That's a staggering difference, considering the lower bound of the harder-hit group sits only 2.5 mph higher than the upper bound of the lesser-hit group.

A number of Cano's fly balls appear to be sliding down into the donut hole. So far this season, he's batting .437 with a .621 slugging percentage on his fly balls and liners combined; assuming that his liner contact score is unchanged from last season, Cano's fly ball contact score has plunged into the 50-55 range. No contextual adjustment is going to make that figure above average. Losing just a little bit of juice on balls in the air turns a homer into a double or a flyout.

What do have moving forward?
Well, the 20-plus-homer seasons are gone, unless he pulls a Raul Ibanez and totally sells out to hit for power, undermining the core of his offensive game and ultimately shortening his career. Cano could stand to selectively pull the ball in the air a bit more, but needs to be careful not to overdo it. He can still be a 100-110 OPS+ guy in the near future, with a potential spike above that in a "lucky" year, if he keeps that low popup/high liner rate in place, and ratchets the K and BB rates closer to historical norms. At his position, with his name recognition, that might even get him into another All Star game or two.

That said, a 100-110 OPS+ upside is not what the Mariners were paying for. His decline is ongoing, and when you look it, it actually began in his last season in New York. He's not this bad, but he compares more closely to the likes of Jose Vidro, Omar Infante and Marco Scutaro than guys like Biggio and Sandberg moving forward.

 

[cezero]

that last sentence, if true, will make for 8.5 more fun-filled years

 

[cezero]

wow

 

[NWinAZ]

Refund!!!

 

[seahawksfan234]

That article is quite interesting. Certainly paints a dimmer picture than some of the others I've read.

Perhaps I'm wrong and all ya'll are right, that this is the next 8 years of Robinson Cano at $24m a year. I just don't think I could accept that, the consequences for the franchise would be incredibly terrible to say the least.