Cano Can Still Rake

Cano collapsed in the first half last year (Fox Sports)

Apparently, Robinson Cano isn't happy in Seattle. Good thing he only has eight years to go on his current contract, which he signed prior to the 2014 season. Last time I checked, the Mariners were giving him 240 million reasons to be very, very happy.

Maybe it's because they haven't made the playoffs since he got there (they recently fired their GM, so there's a lot of uncertainty around the team right now, too). Maybe the weather's getting him down. Maybe he hates Starbucks.

I don't know. All I know is, happy or not, he's continued to produce. Even when he has one of the worst first halves I've ever seen.

Somehow, he still ended up with tremendous numbers. Somehow, he righted the ship after taking on water for three months. Cano has always been a better second-half hitter, but he'd never had a first half as ugly as this.

It all began innocently enough, with a tough opening week for the All-Star second baseman. Seeing as how plenty of players start slow--they're still getting their timing back and adjusting to better quality pitching than they faced in spring training--nobody noticed. They certainly couldn't have known it was the start of a three-month malaise.

That bad first week quickly snowballed into a bad first month, which saw Cano hit just .253/.292/.374 with one home run and six RBI in April. It was his worst April since 2008--his worst season--so that should have been a sign that his struggles were far from over.

At the time, though, it seemed to be nothing more than a slow start. Cano had been so consistently good for so long, enjoying a decade of uninterrupted brilliance (excluding '08), that his poor April barely registered. Anyone can have a bad month--it just so happened that Cano's was the first one, when there are no other stats to mask it. Besides, his month wasn't even that bad. Sandwiched in between a pair of sluggish weeks was an 11-game hit streak, over which he batted .409. He'd be fine. Did I mention that Cano usually starts slow?

His May was even worse. After starting to pull out of his funk in early May, Cano went ice-cold, batting his weight with just two extra base hits over the month's final three weeks. When the calendar flipped to June, Cano's slash stats were even worse than when May began. A third of the season had passed, and he had two home runs and 16 RBI to show for it.

By this point the fans and media were growing restless. "What was wrong with Cano?" they asked. "Where had his power gone?" "Am I crazy to drop him like a hot potato from my fantasy team?"

Historically, April and May have been the worst months of Cano's career, so there was hope that he'd get back to his old self in June, especially as the weather warmed. At the very least, positive regression to the mean would give him a boost. He couldn't possibly be any worse.

Except that he was. Cano had almost as many hitless games (11) as games with hits (14), which dragged his average down below .240. He struck out 22 times against a mere four walks. And his once prodigious power? Nowhere to be found.

It was incomprehensible that a perfectly healthy Cano could enter July hitting just .238/.277/.344 with four home runs and 24 RBI. Alarm bells were going off everywhere. His power had evaporated, he was striking out more than ever before, and his walks were down. This wasn't just a slump--this was a 32 year-old second baseman falling off a cliff. Dave Cameron said as much when he wrote Cano had the lowest trade value in baseball.

Cano flipped a switch in July and was fine the rest of the way (NY Post)

Yet, even in the midst of that deep-freeze, there were still signs that Cano would turn it around. Grantland's Jonah Keri noted that Cano was flashing one of the 20 best exit velocities in baseball. He was still hitting the ball as hard as ever--those rockets just weren't translating into hits. His BABiP was .277, nearly 50 points below his career average and almost 60 points off his 2014 mark. As long as Cano kept smoking line drives, it was only a matter of time before they began to fall.

And fall they did. Cano kicked off July with a 4-for-5 day--his first four-hit effort of the season--which included a double and a homer. Two days later, he rapped out three more hits, lifting his average up to .250. With nine hits in the week leading up to the All-Star Game, including three of the the extra base variety, he'd suddenly caught fire.

Without a Midsummer Classic or home run derby to compete in, Cano was able to get some much-needed rest and clear his head for a few days. It seemed to do him some good, for when the second half began he looked like the Cano of old. After swatting two home runs his second game back, against his former team in his old home park, he was off and running. He clubbed three more dingers before the month was out. When July ended, his OPS was 100 points higher than when it began.

Cano was just getting warmed up. After batting .337/.398/.622 in July, he raked at a .351/.403/.491 clip in August. He hit safely in 22 of 28 games that month, compiling a dozen multi-hit performances along the way. One of those was a five-hit day at Fenway Park; another was a four-knock night in Chicago. His OPS rose another 40 points in August as his batting line swelled to a respectable .283/.330/.416.

With Seattle playing out the string in September, Cano continued to mash. Saving his best for last, he recorded at least one hit in all but four of his final 42 games, blazing to the finish line on a 16-game hit streak. He also kicked his power up a notch, blasting seven home runs over the season's final month.

When the dust settled, Cano had batted .330/.383/.536 over his final 82 games, with 17 homers and 55 RBI. With even a normal first half, he would have finished with MVP-caliber numbers instead of the very good ones (.287/.334/.446--21--79) he wound up with.

Cano's remarkable turnaround was largely fueled by a bounce back in BABiP, which was .351 from July 1st onward. It's also possible that he benefited from a lineup change. After batting Cano third and occasionally second throughout the first half, Lloyd McClendon started hitting him cleanup after the All-Star Break and left him there. Cano had been hitting .252/.291/.384 before the switch but immediately went on an eight-game hitting streak, batting .333/.389/.528 the rest of the way.

So when baseball resumes in a few months, the Mariners would be wise to bat their best player fourth. He's far from done, and he's still worth every penny.

What Happened to Cano's Power?

Cano's having another excellent season despite middling power numbers

Robinson Cano went yard in Seattle's 5-0 win over the Texas Rangers last night, crushing a solo homer off Rangers starter Nick Martinez in his first at-bat of the game. The long ball, Cano's only hit of the game, was just his 12th of the year. That puts him on pace to finish the season with 15, his fewest since 2008 and a far cry from the 28 he averaged over his last five seasons in New York. His .143 ISo would be the second-lowest of his career, ahead of only 2008's .139 mark.

Obviously the Mariners were hoping for a bit more pop when they signed him to that crazy 10-year, $240 million contract last winter. Cano has shown some lately with five home runs since the start of August, but it's too little, too late for someone who managed only two through his team's first 64 games of the season.

So what's going on with Cano? The natural inclination is to blame his power drop-off on the switch from Yankee Stadium, a park perfectly suited for his pull-power stroke, to the offense-depressing wasteland known as Safeco Field. But Cano actually has more dingers at home (7) than he does on the road (5), so that's not it.

Rather, what appears to have happened is that Cano altered his swing, focusing on hitting to all fields as opposed to hammering everything to right field. This shift is evident in his splits, which reveal that Cano has become a phenomenal opposite-field hitter this year, but at the expense of success on balls he hits to other parts of the park.

2013 Pull .385/.385/.754
2014 Pull .313/.313/.646

2013 Middle .351/.347/.554
2014 Middle .360/.357/.434

2013 Oppo .387/.379/.548
2014 Oppo .459/.453/.682

So as you can see, what Cano's essentially done is reverse his strengths. In 2013, playing half his games at a park that rewarded lefthanded fly ball hitters, he was lethal when he used right field. Now, playing in a park with fences that are extremely difficult to clear, he's become more of a line drive spray-hitter. Rather than try to make his strengths work in his new digs, he's adjusted to his surroundings and become a different, albeit still great, hitter.

This modification is reflected in Cano's batted ball distribution, which shows a career-low fly ball rate and his highest ground ball rate since 2007. For the first time in his career he's hitting more than twice as many ground balls as fly balls, and when you do that it's very difficult to hit home runs.

The trade-off has resulted in more base hits for Cano, who's sporting his lowest strikeout rate in five years and batting .326, which if he sustains it will be his highest average since he hit .342 in 2006. Those extra hits, combined with his solid walk rate, are fueling his .394 OBP--a career-best and the third-best mark in the American League.

So while Cano's days of threatening 30 homers appear to be over, he's still every bit as effective at the dish as he was in 2012 and 2013--when he slugged 33 and 27 home runs--after adjustments for league and park. His 147 OPS+ this year is almost identical to the 148 mark he posted in both those seasons. He's still the best second baseman in baseball, an elite hitter, obvious All-Star, and intriguing MVP candidate.

Considering Cano hit only one home run each in April, May, and July, that's pretty freaking impressive.

Where Does Cano Rank Among Yankee Second Baseman?

Now that Cano's tenure with the Yankees is over, is he their best 2B ever? 

I'm still getting used to the idea that Robinson Cano is a Seattle Mariner. But now that he is one and his days in Pinstripes are most likely over, I wondered where he rates among the Yankees' best second basemen in franchise history. Here's my top-five list:

5. Gil McDougald (.276/.356/.410, 111 OPS+, 40.7 bWAR
Though the native Californian actually played more games at other positions (shortstop and third) than he did at second, of the positions he did play he logged the most time at the keystone. The 1951 AL Rookie of the Year (an honor Minnie Minoso deserved) was the first Yankee to win the award and first rookie to hit a grand slam in the World Series, though he's probably best remembered for how he altered the career of another Rookie of the Year, Cleveland flamethrower Herb Score, with a line drive that struck Score in the right eye and effectively finished his career at age 23. History seems to have forgotten that McDougald was exceptionally consistent throughout his ten-year career, worth at least 2.5 bWAR every year as he helped Casey Stengel's Yankees capture eight pennants and five World Series. A five-time All-Star with a trio of top-ten MVP finishes, McDougald could be counted on for between 10-14 home runs per year (something he achieved in all but his two final seasons) and a good OBP, usually around .360. The versatile teammate of Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford could bat almost anywhere in the lineup and play three difficult infield positions well, making him a valuable asset during the New York dynasty days of the 1950s.

4. Willie Randolph (.275/.374/.357, 104 OPS+, 53.7 bWAR)
The Pirates traded him (along with Dock Ellis and George Brett's older brother Ken Brett) to New York for pitcher Doc Medich when Randolph was just 21, with only 70 major league plate appearances to his name. While Medich lasted only one season in Pittsburgh Randolph went on to make a name for himself in the Big Apple, manning the keystone position for the next 13 seasons and playing more games at second base than any Yankee who has ever lived. Batting first or second for many of the great Yankee teams of the late 1970s and early '80s, Randolph was an on-base machine (.373 career OBP while walking nearly twice as often as he struck out) with a good deal of speed, swiping at least ten bases in all but his final season in pinstripes and topping 30 four times. The sparkplug second baseman made five All-Star teams with the Bombers and though he never won a Gold Glove award, he was a great defensive second baseman on par with contemporaries Frank White, Lou Whitaker and Ryne Sandberg. Randolph was as steady as they come and could be counted on to hit around .280 with a very good OBP, usually around .370, and great glovework every year. With more than 60 career WAR according to both Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs, Randolph has a compelling case for the Hall of Fame.

3. Tony Lazzeri (.293/.379/.467, 120 OPS+,  48.3 bWAR)
"Poosh 'Em Up Tony" was the first great Yankees second baseman and a key contributor for Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig's great Yankee squads, playing on six pennant winners. A mainstay at the keystone position for a dozen years from 1926 through 1937, Lazzeri held the record for most games played by a Yankees second baseman for nearly 50 years, until Randolph passed him late in the 1986 season. Lazzeri's numbers were never spectacular but consistently great. He hit between eight and 18 home runs every year, had ten seasons with at least 80 RBI, and registered an OPS+ below 100 only once, in his final year with the Yankees. He also played decent defense and could run a bit as well, exceeding ten stolen bases eight times and nabbing as many as 22 in 1927. Lazzeri was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veteran's Committe in 1991, 45 years after his death.

The top two: Robinson Cano and Joe Gordon

This is a very tough comparison for many reasons. Gordon debuted nearly 70 years before Cano did and the game played today is very different from the one played during the Great Depression. Gordon was also a righthanaded hitter who had to contend with the Old Yankee Stadium's Death Valley, whereas Cano was able to take advantage of the short porch in right. Gordon also missed two prime years to war. Who knows what would have happened during those years? (I have to think he would have continued to play well, and consequently would have been inducted into Cooperstown much earlier than 2009).

The best way to compare them, then, is to see how well they played compared to their peers while simultaneously comparing them to each other. Here goes:

Hitting
Cano was clearly the better hitter, but not by much. Though Cano's batting average and slugging percentage were nearly 40 points higher than Gordon's, Gordon walked much more actually got on base at a slightly better clip, and because he played in a much more difficult ballpark their Adjusted OPS figures are almost identical. Their power numbers are also very close, as Gordon averaged 22 home runs and 88 RBI per season while Cano averaged 23 and 91. That said, Cano produced almost twice as many runs with the bat as Gordon did (180 to 97) during their respective Yankee careers, so I feel pretty comfortable saying Cano was a better hitter.

Fielding
Cano's a good defensive second baseman, but Gordon was great and one of the best to ever play the position. Cano saved 23 runs with his glove in his nine seasons with New York, winning two Gold Gloves, but Gordon saved 103 in seven years and probably would have won the Gold Glove every year had the award existed back then. To put Gordon's greatness in perspective, he saved 21 runs defensively in one season--1939.

Baserunning
Both players were slightly below average baserunners. Cano was a touch better, but not enough to swing the argument. Any advantage you give Cano for baserunning, however small, would just be canceled out by Gordon's superiority in the postseason anyways.

Cano was a better hitter, but Gordon was nearly as good and more than made up for the difference with his glove. Gordon was the more valuable player on a per season basis. The numbers bear this out, as Cano averaged five bWAR per season with New York, while Gordon averaged 5.4. Gordon was also the only Yankee second baseman to ever win an MVP award, though Cano (and Bobby Richardson) came close. Thus, the choice is clear. Joe Gordon is the best second baseman the Yankees have ever had, but there's certainly an argument to be made for Cano, especially if you're skeptical of defensive metrics and/or give more weight to hitting.

2. Robinson Cano (.309/.355/.504, 125 OPS+, 45.1 bWAR)
Cano's Yankee career can essentially be split into two halves. For the first four years of his career, Cano was a good-not-great hitter (109 OPS+) who hardly ever walked and was still searching for his home run power. He showed flashes of brilliance, nearly beating out Joe Mauer for the batting title as a sophomore, but went through growing pains and had trouble remaining conistent under Joe Torre. His defense was also erratic, characterized by smooth glovework and lapses in focus. In the second half, Cano matured into a superstar under Joe Girardi. With his Ken Griffey Jr.-sweet swing, Cano blossomed from a frustrating, but clearly talented young player into a perennial All-Star and MVP candidate. After exceeding 15 home runs just once in his first four seasons, Cano hit no less than 25 in each of his next five seasons in addition to clubbing at least 41 doubles and batting well over .300 every year, ranking as baseball's fourth-most valuable player during that span (tied with Joe Votto behind Miguel Cabrera, Evan Longoria and Ben Zobrist). He exhibited more patience and became the biggest bat on teams that included greats such as Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, and Mark Teixeira. He also emerged as one of the best defensive second baseman in the game. Had he stayed with New York, he surely would have retired as the best 2B in franchise history. But that would have meant turning down a contract that will pay him nearly one quarter of a billion dollars over the next decade, and who in their right mind would do that?

1. Joe Gordon (.271/.358/.467, 120 OPS+, 37.5 bWAR)
Like Lazzeri, Gordon shined bright but not for very long, and as a result he was not inducted into Cooperstown until decades after his death. A 23 year-old rookie in 1938, Gordon succeeded Lazzeri as New York's everyday second baseman and immediately proved himself to be just as good as his predecessor. His 25 home runs broke Charlie Gehringer's record for a rookie second baseman, a record that stood until Dan Uggla parked 27 in 2006. With his marriage of elite power and terrific defense, Gordon was named to the All-Star team in each of his next nine seasons, taking MVP honors in 1942 over Triple Crown winner Ted Williams (not to mention teammate Joe DiMaggio) and finishing in the top-ten four other times. Gordon lost two prime seasons, 1944 and 1945, to World War II and was not the same when he returned, as a combination of rustiness and injuries caused him to endure the worst season of his career in 1946. That fall, Larry MacPhail dealt him to the Cleveland Indians for Allie Reynolds, a swap that worked out wonderfully for both sides. Gordon revived his career in Cleveland, helping the Tribe win the pennant in 1948 with arguably his finest season, while Reynolds helped pitch New York to six World Series titles, including five straight from 1949-'53. Gordon finished his Yankee career with exactly 1,000 games played and 1,000 hits, the only player in history to do so.

Honorable Mentions: Alfonso Soriano, Bobby Richardson, Horace Clarke

M's Marry Cano

The Mariners were stupid to break the bank for Cano

A dizzying week of Hot Stove action concluded yesterday with the stunning announcement that the Seattle Mariners had signed Robinson Cano--easily this offseason's best free agent--to a jaw-dropping ten-year, $240 million contract that ties Albert Pujols' current deal for the third largest in baseball history (behind the two signed by Cano's now-former teammate, Alex Rodriguez, who interestingly enough spent his first seven seasons wuth Seattle).

Obviously this deal is amazing for Cano, who was able to settle for something right in the middle of the $310 million he was reportedly asking for and the $175 million New York was willing to give him. Some called him crazy for leaving the Yankees, perennial contenders as well as the sport's most famous franchise, for a team in the Pacific Northwest that's enjoyed only two winning seasons in the past ten and hasn't reached the postseason since winning 116 games in 2001. But the Mariners simply blew away New York's seven-year offer. If somebody's giving you three extra years of job security and 37 percent more money (which is really almost 50 percent when you take into account Washington's lack of a state income tax), you take that deal every time, no questions asked, and hope you're not somehow selling your soul in the process.

On the other hand, this deal is absolutely terrible for the Mariners for various reasons, none of which have much to do with Cano, who has been baseball's second most valuable player behind Miguel Cabrera over the past four years (according to FanGraphs). To the Mariners' credit, they did spend on their money on a really really good player and not, you know, Ricky Nolasco. That Cano is 31 and plays second base, a position that doesn't age particularly well, doesn't matter as much. It's impossible to know what the next ten years hold for Cano, who could age gracefully like Joe Morgan and Jeff Kent or could fall off a cliff like Ryne Sandberg and Roberto Alomar. With the way Safeco suppresses offense I don't think he's going to be the monster MVP candidate he was in New York, but I also don't think he's going to pull an Adrian Beltre on them, either. Like any marriage, this one is going to have its ups and downs.

The first and most obvious reason Seattle shouldn't have made this deal is the money. $240 million doesn't buy what it used to, but with that amount of dough Seattle easily could have added four or five midlevel free agents, or even two really good free agents (as the Yankees just did with Jacoby Ellsbury and Brian McCann). Lord knows they have plenty of holes to fill, and t's always better to spread the money around and improve multiple positions when you can because it reduces the risk. You're pretty much guaranteed to get some bang for buck.  Blowing your wad on Cano is incredibly risky, because he's just one man who might walk out his front door and get hit by a bus tomorrow.

Think of it in terms of stocks. Sure, if you pour all your money into one Google you might strike gold, but you could just as easily lose everything if the company goes belly-up next month. Investing in multiple stocks means you'll probably turn a profit on some and take a hit on others. The upside is reduced but there's also less risk. That's why smart investors typically have diverse portfolios.

The second reason I hate this deal, not far behind the money, is the length. Ten years is an absurd amount of time to commit to a 31 year-old ballplayer who's best days are probably already behind him. What the Mariners just did is lock up Cano's decline years, and they'll be lucky if he has any use at all at the back-end. Joe Posnanski often writes about how poor the track record is for long-term contracts given to players in their 30s, and I'm sure someday Cano will be at the center of such conversations. But that's just how these deals work. Teams accept the deadweight at the end of the contract to get the value from the first few years. It's trading the not-so-distant future for the present and very near future.

There's more wrong with this deal than the Mariners 's signing Cano for a decade, dropping more money on him than they committed to their entire payroll in the past three seasons combined (which is really quite stammering when you think about it). Players like Cano, Pujols, and Price Fielder, you see, are luxuries that only rich teams can afford. Bad teams are usually bad because they have multiple glaring weaknesses, usually some combination of a thin starting rotation, shaky bullpen, and weak lineup. Even though the Mariners had two of the best arms in baseball last year with Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma, they were so poor everywhere else that they finished 20 games below .500. Cano makes their weak offense significantly better, but even if he plays like Mike Trout, he's not going to turn the Mariners into contenders overnight.

Which brings me to my next point: bad teams shouldn't make these kinds of moves in general. A superstar baseball player is just one man on a roster of 25, so without the right talent around him he's not going to be much use. The perfect example of this is what happened during A-Rod's stint with the Rangers. The year before Rodriguez signed with Texas, the Rangers finished last in their division and were 71-91, which coincidentally matches Seattle's 2013 record. Texas did improve the year after signing Rodriguez..to 73-89. They were 72-90 the year after that, then went 71-91 when Rodriguez won his first MVP award in 2003. Rodriguez was as good as any baseball player can possibly be during those three years, and it didn't make a lick of difference. The Rangers had so much money devoted to him that they couldn't afford to address their other needs, mainly a dearth of quality starting pitching, so they finished last every year. It wasn''t until they traded Rodriguez to New York in exchange for Alfonso Soriano and salary relief that they were able to get out of the basement and begin putting the pieces in place for what materialized into back-to-back American League pennants in 2010 and '11.

With Texas, A-Rod's numbers were off-the-chart, but the Rangers still sucked

Of course, Rodriguez is a cautionary tale in another way. He was 32 when he signed his second ten-year deal, just one year older than Cano is now, and he hasn't been anything close to the player he was before. Age and injuries have reduced him to a shadow of the player who won three MVPs in five years, so his contract is routinely mocked and one has to imagine the Yankees would do anything short of murder to get out from under the four years and $86 million they still owe Rodriguez, not including the $30 million he could potentially earn by vaulting to the top of baseball's all-time home run list.

Cano won't cause as many headaches as Rodriguez (no one else on this earth is capable of that), but it's likely that his contract will be regarded as an albatross before long, possibly as soon as next year based on what just happened with Josh Hamilton. Time is not on Cano's side, but it is on the side of the man he's replacing in Seattle. And that's what makes this move even more puzzling: Seattle seemed to have a decent second baseman already in Nick Franklin. Franklin isn't Cano and probably never will be, but he's a former first round draft pick who showed a good deal of promise as a 22 year-old rookie last season. He didn't set the world on fire in his first 102 games, but proved he could hit for some power (12 dingers and 20 doubles), work the count (10.2% walk rate) and run the bases capably, which translated to 2.3 bWAR. Still several years away from entering his prime, the switch-hitting youngster has plenty of room to grow. Cano doesn't. Now, Franklin's only use to Seattle is as a trade chip, but almost certainly not in the trade rumors that would make David Price a Mariner (seeing as how Tampa Bay already has an All-Star second baseman in Ben Zobrist).

Meanwhile in the Big Apple, it looks like the Yankees will have to settle for Kelly Johnson at second base, at least for the time being (why not move Jeter?). It's hard to feel bad for them, though, given that they just landed Ellsbury on Tuesday with a seven-year, $153 million mega-contract and secured McCann with a five-year, $85 million deal last month. Cano's departure coincided with Curtis Granderson's, who simultaneously  defected to the Yankees' crosstown rivals for four years and $60 million. Yesterday wasn't a total loss for the Bombers, though, as they still managed to woo Carlos Beltran with a three-year, $45 million pact and convinced Hiroki Kuroda to return for another year (more on those moves to come).

Losing out on Cano was one of the rare times were the Yankees didn't just fail to get their man, but were unable to retain one of their own. From A-Rod to Derek Jeter and CC Sabathia, the Yankees never seem to have trouble keeping their best players in pinstripes. Those days, it seems, might be coming to an end. New York's bloated payroll is burdened by massive commitments to washed up stars like Rodriguez, Sabathia, and Mark Teixeira. With Cano, they drew a line at seven years and refused to budge. Perhaps they've learned some sort of lesson after all.

It's a lesson the Mariners are going to learn soon enough.

Cano's Crazy Contract

How valuable is Cano? We're about to find out (NBC)

Robinson Cano is going to be a free agent this winter--the free agent--and reportedly wants a contract just north of $300 million.

He's ridiculous, right? Nobody, except maybe Mike Trout, is worth that kind of investment. He wants more money than Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols, who signed their record-deals at roughly the same age and were already much more accomplished. By the time they turned 30 they were slam-dunk Hall of Famers, two of the greatest players of all-time. Cano, who has zero Hall of Famers among his ten most similar batters, still has quite a ways to go.

First on that list is Chase Utley, who dropped off significantly after turning 31--the same age Robinson Cano will be on October 22nd. Cano's second closest comp is David Wright, who signed a lengthy contract extension with the other New York team just last winter. Wright received an eight year deal worth $138 million that made him the highest paid player in franchise history.

$138 million is a lot of money. It's also a long way from $305 million.

But Cano's been better than Wright, and just about every other ballplayer, for that matter, over the past four years. Since Opening Day 2010 only Miguel Cabrera has been more valuable per FanGraphs WAR and only by about half a win per season. Only Prince Fielder has played more games. Only Cabrera has more RBI. Nobody has more doubles. Cano has emerged as the best player on a team loaded with All-Stars and future Hall of Famers. He is a superstar in every sense of the word.

But Cano will be 31 when his next contract begins, and aging curves for second basemen in their thirties are pretty scary. He may have a few more big seasons, but his best years are probably already behind him. With so much money tied up to Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, and CC Sabathia, the last thing New York needs is another albatross contract weighing down its payroll. Even though they have the money they can't afford to break the bank for Cano, not if they want to get under the laxary tax threshold any time this decade.

It's obvious the Yankees need to keep Cano, but at what cost? His market value will be determined by the level of interest he draws from other teams. If nobody makes Cano a serious offer, New York will have all the power at the bargaining table. But if someone like the Dodgers gets involved in a bidding war, then the Yankees will have a tough decision to make.

Will they do what they've always done: open up their checkbooks and pay top-dollar to secure elite talent? Or will they change course by tightening their belt and letting their most indispensable player walk?

I'm pretty sure New York will pay almost any price to keep Cano in pinstripes. I have no idea how high they're willing to go, but I'm willing to bet it's a good deal short of $300 mil.