N.Y. Sun: Goldman: Yankees Must Be Patient With Problematic Cano

Or as Cano the Elder once said..."Patience is the greatest of all virtuoso-so.”

In some weird inversion of Mae West’s “When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad I’m better,” when Cano is very good he isn’t really all that good, and when he’s bad he’s terrible. Cano’s utter lack of interest in working the count or taking ball four, when combined with his streaky results, so-so power, and lack of speed, means that even at his best he makes a ton of outs and doesn’t get on base all that often compared to the average player. The results are still above average, especially when compared with your typical second baseman, but the results are also deceptive and prone to being overrated. When Cano slumps, he’s worse than a cup of hot hemlock for the offense. Compare him to a Yankee at the opposite extreme of the patience spectrum, Jason Giambi. Giambi might slump and bat .200 for a few weeks, but due to his walks he’ll still reach base in more than a third of his plate appearances, and one of those two hits in 10 that he gets will be a home run. When Cano slumps, as he has unfortunately shown for the whole season, he has no redeeming features at bat. With .238/.264/.327 rates with runners on base, Cano has killed more rallies than a Brezhnev-era Warsaw Pact tank crew on a Saturday night in downtown Prague. Though Cano will likely rebound from this season and hit .300 again, there will always be a hard ceiling on his offensive abilities.