that was defintley his problem, keeping the ball down in the zone. also his walks and home runs killed him too.
Yeah, I agree. It won't take more than the first two innings to know whether he's back with the pros, or is just a waste of $40M. What I'm hoping for is that he's good enough to be the middle man in the pen. What I'd like to see is Joba join the rotation, and the pen to be: 5-6: Igawa (based on need) 7: Ohlendorf 8: Farnsworth 9: Mo That would be pretty formidable, with a rotation of Wang, Pettitte, Moose, Chamberlain, and hopefully Kennedy (Rasner if not). Hughes would get some extra time to recover under this scenario, and maybe pitch out of the pen in spot work later in the year. So our staff would be: Pen: Albaladejo Hawkins (Or we could just dump him) Hughes Rasner Igawa Ohlendorf Farnsworth Rivera Rotation: Wang Pettitte Mussina Chamberlain Kennedy I think that's the kind of staff you can take into October. Granted, it hinges on things like Igawa pitching well, Hughes recovering well, and Kennedy continuing to bounce back, but I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility. ----------------------- BTW: Farnsworth is out for tonight. His suspension was dropped from 3 games to 1, which he'll serve tonight.
Yeah, it does include foul balls, but his total contact rate and foul contact rate aren't any higher than previous years. And his line drive percentage is up (by a significant amount). It's been his BABIP keeping him down. That's been ridiculously low. And you have to figure with a LD% that high, those balls put in play will start to find spots to land. I DO think that in the past couple of weeks, the lack of results started to bother him, but aside from that (and it happens to all slumping players) I don't see anything to worry about with him.
Wow, are there enough acronyms in that post? :wink: Seriously though, I never said he wouldn't break out of his slump. Far from it. As I made the point regarding pitching, natural talent doesn't simply evaporate. He'll eventually get back on track, hit over .300 and drive in a lot of runs. My only point with Cano is that he is not as good as he's been made out to be. I'm not saying you are a culprit. The loudest voices I've heard are Kay, Singleton, and O'Neil, with a smatering of Flaherty. Granted, the only one of the group I have any respect for is O'Neil, but still, I can't see Cano ever being the #3 hitter they hyped him to be, and I never could. As I've said, I see him as a fixture hitting behind ARod for most of his career. As for the past couple weeks, I don't really blame him. He's trigger happy when he's hitting well. There's no doubt he's only going to be even moreso when he's struggling.
Not to belabor the point, but I noticed fangraphs.com has a nice new addition to their metrics. You were talking about Cano's swinging at pitches out of the strike zone and all that... look at this site: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=3269&position=2B Specifically, look at the bottom of that page, with the swing percentages. It breaks down swings outside of the zone, swings in the zone, contact rate in the zone, contact rate out of the zone, etc. And - like I had mentioned in previous posts - Cano is actually doing much BETTER this year than in years past. I really do believe he's just been a culprit of bad luck more than anything else. Aw heck, I'll just post the info here... but you all should check out the site... it's pretty damn cool. * O-Swing%: The percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone. * Z-Swing%: The percentage of pitches a batter swings at inside the strike zone. * Swing%: The overall percentage of pitches a batter swings at. * O-Contact%: The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with outside the strike zone when swinging the bat. * Z-Contact%: The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with inside the strike zone when swinging the bat. * Contact%: The overall percentage of a batter makes contact with when swinging the bat. * Zone%: The overall percentage of pitches a batter sees inside the strike zone. What you’ll want to know is the major league averages for each stat... these are the averages: HTML: Season O-Swing Z-Swing Swing O-Contact Z-Contact Contact Zone 2005 20.3% 68.0% 46.0% 51.8% 88.3% 80.8% 53.8% 2006 23.5% 66.6% 46.1% 57.4% 88.5% 81.0% 52.6% 2007 25.0% 66.6% 45.9% 60.8% 88.2% 80.8% 50.3% And here is how Cano has done. HTML: Season Team O-Swing% Z-Swing% Swing% O-Contact% Z-Contact% Contact% Zone% Pitches 2005 Yankees 25.64 % 69.94 % 51.04 % 60.89 % 94.66 % 87.43 % 57.33 % 1681 2006 Yankees 30.77 % 73.77 % 54.08 % 63.16 % 95.52 % 87.09 % 54.20 % 1636 2007 Yankees 34.43 % 72.54 % 52.95 % 69.17 % 95.22 % 86.52 % 48.60 % 2287 2008 Yankees 28.13 % 73.12 % 51.99 % 82.54 % 91.89 % 89.52 % 53.04 % 493 As you can see, Cano is swinging less often this year at pitches out of the zone, and more often at pitches in the zone. His contact rate on pitches out of the zone is much higher, and his overall contact percentage is significantly higher than the league average. ETA: Of course, it should also be noted that the higher contact rate on pitches outside of the zone might have something to do with the lower average, as well. If he's not getting good wood on those balls, he's better off missing them completely (assuming it's not strike three) and getting another hack at a different pitch.
The other thing is, just because a pitch is technically in the strike zone it doesn't mean it should be swung at. For example, a 2-1 pitch at the knees on the outside corner is better off taken for a strike than grounded to second, which is usually what would happen.
