All the makings of journalism at its best: Making a crisis out of a small period of time; envy over a big contract; and of course, the unnamed scout.

Please.

The numbers support the bad luck theory. Check out Cano’s yearly babip numbers:

2005: .320
2006: .363
2007: .334
2008: .183

And it’s not like his LD% is way down either. In 2006, it was 20%. In 2007, it was 19%. So far this year, it is 16%. (By contrast, Giambi’s LD% so far this year is only 5%!)

As a rule of thumb, you can expect a player’s babip to be roughly LD% + .120. We would expect, on average, Cano’s babip to be about .280 given his LD%. It’s about .100 lower than that – almost certainly a matter of bad luck and small sample size.

Cano has been prone to going into huge slumps and is usually a slow starter and gets hot in the second half, so I’m not worried about him at all.

I’m sure he’ll have month where he hits close to .400 and torches everything that crosses the plate.

Cano’s AVG by month for his career:

April: .253
May: .264
June: .324
July: .351
August: .283
Sept/Oct: .365

Ah yes, the old ”Lets judge a player in April” Chesnut.

Let Robby be Robby and enjoy the hitting spree this summer.

Damon’s useless to a tune of 123 OPS+

Cano leads the team in line drives. he’s getting robbed at a unbelievable pace.

this article will look retarded come June

“Cano suffers from Manny Ramirez fan syndrome, in that because he has an easy swing and looks effortless in what he does, despite playing excellent defense, fans immediately assume he’s lazy and doesn’t care. But there is no way, none, zero, you get as good as Manny or Cano without trying and caring.”

I completely agree with this statement.

I think his strike outs are down which is a good sign. He seems to still be hitting the ball pretty hard and I’ve seen some good defensive plays made against him.

Yeah, he may have had a decent April, but those have been followed by atrocious Mays. So maybe he’s just getting it out of the way early. Sure, he sucks right now, but he’s hardly alone.

But to blame that suckitude on missing Larry Bowa? Thats just plain ridiculous speculation. What, because Bowa was “old school” and “in your face” it somehow made Cano try harder? Isn’t that exactly what Joe Girardi is?

Cano suffers from Manny Ramirez fan syndrome, in that because he has an easy swing and looks effortless in what he does, despite playing excellent defense, fans immediately assume he’s lazy and doesn’t care. But there is no way, none, zero, you get as good as Manny or Cano without trying and caring.

Cano’s problem isn’t “lack of focus,’ it’s that he’s in a funk. He’ll snap out of it. Maybe he won’t. But it would have nothing to do with Larry Bowa…

It’s a slow start, it happens. Jeter had one a few years ago, and posted numbers in line with his career.

I agree that Larry Bowa was a fantastic influence on Robinson Cano and that it would be only natural for the pupil to miss the teacher. But I don’t think Bowa was the motivating force behind Cano’s ascension as a great hitter. If anything, Bowa was the guy that turned Robbie from a lousy 2B into a pretty darn good one.

Cano’s hitting is horrendous right now and there’s no doubt he’s been a drain on the team. But I wouldn’t say it’s because Bowa’s gone. Who knows what the problem is but I’m sure if Klapisch actually knew what it was, he’d be in baseball instead of just writing about it.