In the year of thirteen after twenty in the land bestowed to us by Disney and Guiliani called the City of York, Jay-Z removed his Brooklyn Nets leather cap, raspberried his lips and scratched his head. He buzzed his assistant’s intercom and said, “Solange,when you get a second, the spreadsheets you brought me are wrong. I want WAR.” Solange thought he wanted to war with her, and that led to the infamous encounter where she thrashed him in an elevator on the way home from an EPA fundraiser. What Jay-Z wanted to do was research Robinson Cano‘s value for his upcoming contract negotiations. Little did Hova know, but that research was unnecessary. Seattle was looking to double their city’s Dominican-American population and sign Cano. Coming off the $240 million signing, Cano could do no right last year, but was it expectations set by that contract, or was it simply he could do no right? Like a dwarf getting down cereal from a cabinet, I’m gonna go with the latter. Cano eventually hit his usual .310+, but with only fourteen homers, ten steals and yawnstipating runs and RBIs. Some of that can be blamed on the M’s. Shoot, we can blame the whole lot on the M’s if we want, they did sign him for an astronomical sum, after all. The reason why I go back to the contract is because I think that affects people’s perception of Cano. They expect Cano will be better in 2015. They don’t think a guy who is making gazillions (I’m rounding) could be bad. They, of course, would be wrong. Cano’s admirers suffer from a psychological disease I’ve touched on before. It’s called Poseyitis. Poseyitis is when a player’s real-life hype creeps its way into the discussion about a player’s fantasy value. You need to separate the two. So, why is Robinson Cano overrated for 2015 fantasy baseball?
I gave Cano the projections of 82/19/92/.305/7 in 601 ABs. That means I expect him to get more runs, RBIs, homers and ABs in 2015 than he did last year. If we want to take me out of the equation (how rude!), Steamer’s projections for Cano are 78/18/80/.293/6. Steamer is clearly further down on Cano than me, in the non-sexual way. For Rudy’s rankings, Cano is ranked 50th overall for 12-team leagues. I’m more generous with my ranking at 29 overall. You know who’s way more generous? Everyone else. Right now, Cano’s ranked on average thirteenth overall, barely out of the first round for a 12-team league. I could only find one ‘pert, besides Rudy, who ranked him below me at 30 overall. For everyone who has ranked him in the top 15, I have one question, “What the hell are you expecting from him?” 30 HRs? Cause he’s done that once in his career, and hitters don’t tend to get better as they move into their thirties. Cano is a 32-year-old All-Star. Would he be the first 32-year-old All-Star to start to lose some of his luster? Utley went from a perennial 30-homer guy (not 20 like Cano) and now Utley’s lucky to hit 15 homers. According to Baseball-Reference, one of the players most similar to Cano is George Brett. Brett hit 30 homers at 32 years old and then never topped 25 homers again. Ryne Sandberg is also a comparison. He hit 26 homers at the age of 32, then never topped ten homers again. Furthermore (damn, I’m serious when I bring out the furthermore), Safeco isn’t as good a place to hit for Cano as Yankee Stadium, and Cano only hit 6 homers in the 2nd half of 2013 when he was still in New York. Yes, Cano’s decline didn’t start last year, it started the year before. If Cano hits 22 homers this year, I wouldn’t be shocked. If he hits 12, it wouldn’t shock me either. Furtherfurthermore (okay, now I’m really serious), this offseason he broke his toe in Japan, which he says has completely healed. I’m sure it has, but I wouldn’t completely discount that a broken toe this offseason may force him to go a bit slower on the steals, and he was already just a five to seven steal guy. Furthestmore (watch out!), there’s his average, which has been his bread and butter pickles. He’s a lock for .310, right? Well, last year his batted ball profile flipped the switch on most that had come before. He hit more ground balls and less fly balls than he ever has in a full season. If that trend continues and grounders are caught, Cano might not break .300. Cano feels like a guy that will hit around 18 homers, plus or minus 2 homers, and fall to around 60th overall next year. At his current price tag, stamp him schmohawk and don’t touch him.
