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Player Breakdown : Matt Cain
by Gil W.
Published: May 31, 2009, 10:20 am
Matt Cain
 Cain has been a wildly successful pitcher over his Major League career spanning over 5 seasons. Before the season, he seemed like a great bet to post a 3.50-3.75 ERA over 200 solid IP. So far, he's been surpassing everyone's preseason expectations of him. So the obvious questions to ask are how has he done this and will he keep it up?
2009 stats
6 Wins
2.31 ERA
46 Strikeouts
1.31 WHIP
On the surface, his stats look pretty great. 6 wins and a 2.31 ERA are great for a pitcher who is nearly through 1/3 of the season. It almost looks too good to be true. As with a lot of things, it is. Here are some peripheral stats of Cain's this season:
6.24 Strikeouts per 9 innings
3.66 Walks per 9 innings
1.70 Strikeout to Walk ratio
.81 Home runs per 9 innings
.89 GB/FB ratio
4.16 FIP
What this shows is that Cain has been not been pitching that well. The strikeouts aren't bad, but significantly down from what he has done in the past and they also aren't good enough to make up for his high walk total. His HRs aren't that bad thanks to a very low HR/FB ratio (7.1%) which has been the story for his entire career. His flyball tendencies though don't help that out. His FIP is at 4.16 which shows that he has been pitching the worst he has as a Major League pitcher, even slightly worse than his brief stint in 2005 (which also saw a flukey high ERA).
So how has he pitched poorly yet has seen an amazingly low ERA on the season? Part of it is that he has had a slightly lower than expected BABIP. Right now, he has a BABIP of .277. Average is usually around .300 and tends to be within 10 points of that. The BABIP isn't the only reason he has a 2.31 ERA on the season. Cain also strands 87.8% of the baserunners he lets on base. That is a ridiculously high number for a stat that is highly dependent on luck. As I wrote in my Greinke article, it is possible to have a higher than average LOB% if you are that good of a pitcher. Cain is obviously not anywhere near the pitcher that Greinke has been this year. He's got a slightly above average WHIP on the season so its pretty much just been luck that he's been able to avoid having hitters group their hits and walks together in the same inning. Don't expect that to last throughout the season.
There are some other interesting tidbits about Cain this season. For one, his fastball velocity is down. He hasn't been able to break that 95 mph mark and has been working under 92 mph. He is usually working around 93 mph and is able to bring some mid-high 90s heat. His slider's also lost significant break this season and has seen terrible results this season. Over the past few years, his slider was an above average pitch for him. Not great, but definitely not a terrible one unlike this year. This season, his slider is worth 4.01 runs below average per 100 pitches. He really isn't working with a breaking pitch that is effective this season which is worrisome for any pitcher. I'm not a fan of young pitchers working with such a large workload like Cain has since he was drafted. It often leads to injuries early in their careers. Signs pointing to an injury like a noticeable decrease in velocity or losing the touch of a breaking ball are something to keep an eye on with Cain. Probably nothing comes out of it this year (if anything ever does), but it might be best to sell high in a keeper league and avoid the potential headaches in the future.
The Bottom Line: I'm just not a fan of Cain right now. He's done great and he could very well continue getting great results for a while longer. Cain is consistently overrated and talked about as a top pitcher in baseball, but he has been far from that despite an attractive ERA. Sell high on him if you can because he won't keep that LOB% anywhere near that high. He's given fantasy teams the best he can, but that is going to come to an end soon.
See how Cain compares to the top drafted SP :
http://www.fantasyplaymakers.com/baseball_comparisons.php?compare_id=5116
And see how Cain compares to the currently top ranked SP :
http://www.fantasyplaymakers.com/baseball_comparisons.php?compare_id=5117
All stats updated through 5/31/09 and courtesy of Fangraphs, Baseball-Reference, and of course Fantasy Playmakers. |
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