On Tuesday Night Robinson Cano was the center of attention as he delivered three home runs which accounted for all of the Mets’ scoring in their 5-2 win over the Padres. With the Mets making a nasty habit of losing games late into them, it was refreshing to see them not blow this one away and instead hold on to win.
There was a particular moment where I was about to leave the room but saw Cano coming up and instead stayed. “Perhaps he could do it?” I pondered with excitement, and for the first time in a long time I was truly excited by the Mets. When he launched that first pitch fastball down the middle to the right field upper deck, dropping the bat, it gave us all something to cheer about.
Now critics will be quick to point out that those three home runs still did not get him above single digits for the season, but the broadcast booth was also quick to point out that they had been seeing a different Cano since the All Star break, and the statistics back it up.
In 11 games since the break Cano has slugged .714 with five home runs and an isolated power of .405, albeit with a limited sample size. In the larger sample size of the first half he only slugged .360 with an ISO of .120, a far cry from his steady career rates of .491 and .188 respectively.
Now these rates are certainly not going to last, but there is reason to believe we will see Cano closer to his career averages despite his age and first half. This season even through the struggles he still has managed to have an average exit velocity of 90.4 which is very close to his Statcast era average of 90.8 and noticeably above the MLB average of 87.5. In fact, just last year he was in the top 2% of the league in hard hit percentage.
As a player ages their contact skills will decrease, and this is true for Cano, but he still possesses the power to hit in the middle of a major league lineup.
A big reason for his first half struggles may have been this decrease in contact skills combined with a worse approach at the plate. Cano seemed to have been going after more pitches than he usually does, and the stats do indeed back this up as well. He struck out nearly 20% of the time which was higher than any other first half of his career. This change in approach may be attributed to the pressure to perform on a new team, and with every whiff the pressure only grew and he chased even more.
Another factor to consider was a hand injury that could have altered his abilities at the plate. A pitch hit his right-hand which just last season had to be surgically repaired due to a pitch hitting it. While the X-rays were negative, that does not mean he was not fighting any pain up there at the plate.
Going forward hopefully his hand remains healed, he can feel more comfortable at the plate and in a Mets uniform, and he can continue to demonstrate the power abilities that landed him this massive contract in the first place. That’s a lot of hoping, but at least it is statistically backed-up hope.