Cano’s Improved Plate Discipline

Robinson Cano is a spectacular hitter. He rarely strikes out, he makes great contact, and he has a ton of power, which would be more apparent in his homerun count if he didn’t hit so many screaming line drives. But there is one part of his game that has always been subpar: his patience at the plate. Cano loves to swing, and it shows, as Cano has a meager 5.2% walk rate in his career. This has never been too much of a problem for him, as the other aspects of his game (barring defense, perhaps) more than make up for his lack of free passes. But if Cano could learn to be patient while maintaining those other skills, he could jump from being one of the best players in the game to the best player in the game.

Well, thus far in 2012, Cano has shown amazing plate discipline, despite his disappointing surface numbers (.242 BA, 1 HR, 3 RBI). Cano’s walk rate so far is 11.4%, more than twice the number from last year. Not only that, but his strikeout rate is a meager 5.7% compared to his career 11.4%. I’ve always thought that K-rate and BB-rate are two of the most important indicators of a good hitter (not the only two of course, but important ones nonetheless) and Cano’s numbers in those categories indicate a huge improvement in plate discipline. That being said, those come with a very small sample size, so let’s look at some of the other more technical plate discipline numbers.

According to FanGraphs (where all these number are coming from, by the way), the only statistic that is reliable given Cano’s meager 70 PAs is Swing%, which is quite simply the percentage of pitches that Cano swings at. Throughout his career, Cano has swung at 52.8% of pitches, and last year he swung at 55.8% (by comparison, the average Swing% for all hitters last year was 46.2%). This year, however, his Swing% has dropped all the way down to 45.6%! Not only that, but Cano is swinging at pitches outside of the zone at about a league average rate (30%) despite the fact that last year he swung at balls over 40% of the time. If pitchers continue to throw him fewer strikes than league average, as they did last year, then Cano’s improved walk and strikeout rates this year may not be flukes.

On the other hand, one might point to that improved plate discipline as the reason for Cano’s bad batting average and power so far this year. However, Cano’s BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) is a meager .246 compared to his career  .320 BABIP. And I see no reason for this low number, as Cano’s line drive rate is 20.7%, a tick higher than what he has done in his career. This indicates that he has had some bad luck getting balls to fall in for hits, but once they do, we should see his batting average go back up. His decreased power numbers are a bit more of a mystery, but they may be explained by the fact that Cano is making so much contact on pitches outside the strike zone. On pitches that he swings at outside the zone, he is making contact an absurd 83% of the time, compared to a league average 66%. This has led to an extremely low strikeout rate, but may mean that he is not getting as many good pitches to hit out of the park. If he starts missing more on these pitches, he may strikeout more, but we should also see his power numbers improve.

I’ve thrown a lot of numbers at you, but the gist of it is this: Cano has shown greatly improved walk and strikeout rates, which are backed up by the underlying numbers. Once Cano’s balls start falling in for hits, as they should, his batting average will come back up to his previous years’ numbers, or even greater given his low strikeout rate. This, along with more walks and more flyballs turning into homeruns, may catapult Cano into an MVP season.