Leading OFF
Mariners expecting Cano to regain .300 batting stroke
How do you react when a metronome stops?
This is the fundamental question facing the Seattle Mariners and Robinson Cano right now and likely for years to come.
The Mariners signed Cano to a 10-year, $240 million contract, betting that a large payout like that cemented an offensive centerpiece in their lineup for the next decade. Never mind that Cano’s first game as a Mariner came at age 31, when peaks are generally winding down, or that the final game of the 10-year deal would come well into Cano’s 40s, when players are generally retired.
But this is the game of free agency in Major League Baseball, where the most valuable years of a player’s aging curve are generally eaten up through pre-arbitration and arbitration salaries and players get rewarded for what they’ve done on that second-generation contract.
Cano’s is a different story, though. He plays second base, and plays it well, and those skills combined with the hitting are hard to come by. And then there’s the consistency.
Cano hit .297 as a rookie for the New York Yankees in 2005. And it feels almost like a typo, like the official scorers missed the two hits that would have lifted his rookie average to .300, because it’s where he has been virtually ever since. .342; .306; .320; .319; .302; .313; .314; .314. Year after year.
“He hit the ball hard almost every at-bat the last few weeks,” Nelson Cruz says as part of the chorus of Mariners voices utterly unconcerned about with Cano’s forgettable season season so far. “The last few weeks, he’s finding holes. His track record is that he hits .300, and that’s what we’re expecting, that he’ll find a way to get it done.”
He’s not crazy to think so. Even the lone blemish on Cano’s career, a .271/.305/.410 slash line (batting average/on-base percentage/ slugging percentage) in 2008, is a tale of two halves. First half in 2008? .246/.285/.358, essentially a replica of this season’s first-half slash line of .251/.290/.370. Second half in 2008? .307/.333/.482, or vintage Cano.
Put it another way: The only previous time Cano struggled like he has in 2015, 61⁄ years of utterly consistent production followed.
“A lot’s been made of Robbie’s struggles,” says his manager, Lloyd McClendon. “And one of the things I told Robbie is, ‘I just need Robbie to be Robbie. Be a part of this club.’ But we’ve got a lot of guys I can say that about. Just contribute. Just be a part. I don’t need you to carry a club.”
But McClendon also points out this is an easier thing to say than for the $240 million man to do.
“Sure, he’s no different than any other player,” McClendon says. “Hell, I was a lousy player, and I tried to do too much.”
McClendon’s jokes aside, though, the Mariners are built around Cano. Their payroll of $123 million is 11th in baseball, and that makes Cano roughly 20% of it. Moreover, he is the kind of offensive player who can carry a club — not by himself, as no one can, with Cruz’s 21 home runs and the Mariners still hovering below .500 as strong proof — but he can be a big part of the answer.
But that’s a bigger question than just as it relates to the 2015 Mariners. If Cano is simply moving past another half-season dip, and there are more years that start with threes on his future baseball cards, the Mariners can plan around him.
But that 2008 resurgence came when he was 25. This slump is happening at 32. The odds and calculations change accordingly.
Cano realizes all this. He has played through an underreported stomach ailment. He has seen his numbers improve dramatically since early June, though when you start off as slowly as he did in April and May, the ballpark scoreboards are unkind to you every time you step to the plate long after you’ve solved your slump.
And Cano says there’s nothing he has changed, nothing in approach, and no eureka moment that will allow him to declare, publicly or to himself, that he’s over this challenge.
“I know I haven’t been doing good, but I’m human,” Cano told reporters in New York last weekend. “I’m going to go through all these kinds of things. But I’m the kind of guy that I’m always positive. And we’ve been playing better lately. It’s not only about myself, it’s about the whole team.
“Some people are acting like the season is over.”
Cano went out and faced the familiar fans, thousands booing him in the Bronx for the somehow unpardonable sin of taking $65 million more from the Mariners than he was offered by the Yankees, a team that never hesitates to reward players long into their post-prime careers (CC Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez and many others).
Cano showed the fans that familiar home run swing twice Saturday. It’s the ultimate in small sample, still too soon to know if Cano has returned, if the metronome has started ticking again.
Cano said after the explosion of offense that he heard the boos.
“Oh, you are going to hear them. You hear it, but I don’t pay attention. I’m not going to be the first or the last one (to get booed). Honestly, I don’t really care.”
There’s no concern. Not from Cano, who can close his eyes and rely on the muscle memory of nearly 2,000 big-league hits. The Mariners need there to be many more. And Cano has to hear his teammates, has to hear McClendon, who reiterates his feelings about his most important hitter.
“At the end of the day, Robbie’s numbers are going to be where they are supposed to be,” McClendon says, his answers like Cano .300 seasons regardless of whether Cano is 0-for-4 or 2-for-4. “The guy is going to hit.”