Aramis and the Composition of Cano

Over the past few weeks, a bunch of stuff has been on my mind, and occasionally I'll try to document it somewhere, so that I won't forget it. Sometimes, it's a solitary tweet, like my shout out to Aramis Ramirez on Sunday morning.

Aramis Ramirez had such a great 2012. Batting .300/.360/.540 with 80 extra-base hits should earn some MVP votes.
— Bobby Aguilera (@BobbyAguilera) November 11, 2012

Instead of testing the patience of our twitter followers, let's jot a few more ideas down here...


Aramis Ramirez hit 50 doubles in 2012, the most in baseball. In fact, he lead the league in percentage of plate apperances that result in an Extra-base hit.

Rk		Age	Tm	XBH% ▾
1	Aramis Ramirez	34	MIL	12.7%
2	Miguel Cabrera	29	DET	12.1%
3	Josh Hamilton*	31	TEX	12.0%
4	Albert Pujols	32	LAA	11.9%
5	Ryan Braun	28	MIL	11.8%
6	Robinson Cano*	29	NYY	11.8%
7	Jay Bruce*	25	CIN	11.7%
8	Aaron Hill	30	ARI	11.4%
9	Garrett Jones*	31	PIT	11.3%
10	Jason Kubel*	30	ARI	11.2%
11	Allen Craig	27	STL	11.1%
12	Corey Hart	30	MIL	11.1%
13	Ian Desmond	26	WSN	11.0%
14	Adrian Beltre	33	TEX	10.9%
15	Paul Goldschmidt	24	ARI	10.9%
16	Alex Rios	31	CHW	10.9%
17	Alfonso Soriano	36	CHC	10.9%
18	Nelson Cruz	31	TEX	10.8%
19	Cody Ross	31	BOS	10.8%
20	Adam LaRoche*	32	WSN	10.7%
21	Josh Willingham	33	MIN	10.7%
22	Adam Jones	26	BAL	10.6%
23	Buster Posey	25	SFG	10.5%
24	Edwin Encarnacion	29	TOR	10.3%
25	Mike Trout	20	LAA	10.2%

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/11/2012.

Aramis Ramirez has noticeably improved his D

***
Cubs fans silver lining: Alfonso Soriano was 17th in XBH%.
***

The Robinson Cano situation continues to fascinate. The cautionary tale is that Cano turned 30 last month and could see his skills precipitously decline in the way Chase Utley and billions of other human beings have before him. Taking a look at comparable players to Robinson Cano shows how vastly the opinions can vary.

The Chase Utley comparison portends to an injury-plagued future of diminishing slugging percentages. Optimistic comparisons to fellow Panamanian, left-handed, line-drive machine, Rod Carew are about as good as it gets. On his way to 3,053 career hits, Carew hit 1,458 before and 1,595 hits after his 30th birthday. His .328 career batting average, which ranks 34th all time, between Wade Boggs and Rogers Hornsby, remained constant pre/post the big 3-O, while he increased his on-base percentage. Carew's slash lines were Under 30: .328/.383/.430 and Age 30+: .328/.402/.429

Unfortunately, the similarities between Cano and Carew are more circumstantial and superficial than statistical. As we can see from Cano's career slash lines: .308/.351/.503, he has a higher slugging percentage. Unfortunately, for Cano fans, his OBP trails Carew's because his BB% has only recently begin to approach Carew's level.

Aside from their aesthetic similarities, their smooth swings, good faces, and nationalities, according to Baseball-Reference, Rod Carew has not ranked in the top 10 of any of Robinson Cano similarity scores.

According to B-R, here are CAno's Top 10 most similar players...

Similar Batters

Wright and Cano have
many similar traits.

Chase Utley (912)
David Wright (882)
Jose Vidro (872)
Carlos Guillen (864)
Rich Aurilia (856)
Hanley Ramirez (851)
Brandon Phillips (849)
Chick Hafey (849)*
Nomar Garciaparra (848)
Victor Martinez (848)

* - Signifies Hall of Famer

Similar Batters through 29
David Wright (882)

George Brett had a good
2nd half of his career

Carlos Baerga (874)
Joe Torre (872)
Travis Fryman (871)
Bobby Doerr (870)*
George Brett (867)*
Tony Lazzeri (865)*
Ryne Sandberg (850)*
Nomar Garciaparra (847)
Aramis Ramirez (845)

* - Signifies Hall of Famer

The most ominous comparison in Cano's groups is that of Carlos Baerga. More than a drop of power/production in his 30's, Baerga's skills completely went away after his Age 26 season.

Carlos Baerga was not a good Met

Let's put it this way, from the start of their careers through the Age-26 season, Robinson Cano accumulated 13.6 rWAR, compared with Carlos Baerga's 19.4 rWAR. From Age 27 through last year, Cano has gone on to accumulate another 21.2 rWAR, while Baerga's rest of his career was good for -2.2 rWAR. Yes, that's a negative number.

Cano has already surpased the age of Baerga's meltdown, which is a good thing. Some of the names on his list were good older players, while others were not.

Carlos Guillen improved his OPS+, from a respectable 106 in his 20's, to 116 after his 30th birthday.

Jose Vidro had a .304 lifetime batting average and 113 OPS+ on his 30th birthday, only to see those numbers fall to .284 and 96 afterwards.

Rich Aurilia's OPS was 108 in his 20's and 91 in his 30's.

Robinson Cano's agent should look to draw comparisons between his client and Hall of Famer, George Brett. While Brett's batting average fell 21 points, from .316 in his 20's to .295 in his 30's, his on-base percentage stayed constant, and his OPS+ only went down from 139 to 132.

After turning 30, Nomar Garciaparra's batting average and slugging percentage fell 32 and 109 points, respectively.

Chick Hafey could hit.

Another Hall of Famer, Chick Hafey, had impressive rate stats throughout his career, but after turning 30, he only played in 388 games after turning 30.

In a total doomsday scenario for Robinson Cano's next team, one-hundred million dollars divided by 400 games players would come out to $250K/game.

Personally, I'm leaning towards a productive handful of seasons in Robinson Cano's future. To bring this full circle, one of the more optimistic comparison's is the #10 most similar player at Age 29: Aramis Ramirez. While A-Ram is a classic power hitter who's skills could have fallen off drastically after 30, but he just turned in one of the best seasons of his career at 34.