I feel like I’m becoming the resident Cano reporter here at BronxPinstripes, but the stories just keep coming. Last week ex-Mariner’s coach ripped Cano in an interview, saying that last season he was the worst third place hitter he had ever seen. Now another ex-Mariners coach is talking about Cano.
Former M’s third base coach, Rich Donnelly, said he was shocked to hear about Van Slyke’s damming comments on Cano, and that he generally did not agree with them. You can read the full story here, but buried in John Harper’s story is this nugget:
So maybe Van Slyke is just so bitter about being fired that he needed someone to blame. But even if Cano has had the best intentions as a Mariner, one long-time friend who spoke to him recently says the second baseman is not happy in Seattle, especially with a new regime in charge there now, and that he’d love to somehow find his way back to New York.
First, let’s get it out of the way that Cano did not directly say that he is unhappy in Seattle or that he wants to go back to New York. This is based purely on a “friend” of Cano’s that Harper spoke to, so take that with a grain of salt. But if you’re a Seattle Mariners fan this cannot make you happy. The first few years of a mega contract are supposed to be the good ones, but clearly Cano has gotten off to a rough start with the M’s. Players (usually) don’t become more productive at 33, so it is likely to go down hill from here. Cano has not lived up to the $240M he was signed to; so now the question becomes: why?
If you want to attribute Robbie’s down season last year to health issues, I’ll buy that. According to Donnelly, Cano was not fully healthy and could only run at about 70-80%. For him to put up respectable numbers was impressive, considering the issues he was dealing with. The Mariners organization can write off Cano’s season to those issues and those issues alone, and hope for a bounce-back year in 2016. But I prefer to look at it a little deeper.
There is no doubt in my mind that he is less happy in Seattle than he was in New York and that may be a reason for his down production. I would imagine for a player like Cano, who grew up in the Yankees organization and was a beloved home grown player, that moving 3,000 miles across the country to a new team was difficult. His slow-ish start in Seattle has probably caused more angst because the fans are not 100% behind him. I’m sure he would like to be the player they signed him to, but the reality is he is not. This might cause him to reminisce about the good times he had with the Yankees. That, combined with injuries, is probably the reason for his struggles.
Before Yankees fans get excited about the possibility of Cano back in pinstripes, stop and take a look at the contract. Cano is owed $192M over 8 years. The chances of the Yankees, or any other team, taking that off Seattle’s hands is slim… unless of course Seattle eats some of that money. The way this is trending, I might have to change my prediction that Cano will be traded at the 2020 mid-season deadline to something sooner.
