"Cy Young candidate". I haven't gone as far as to say that, partly because I've been accused of being too Pollyanna-ish, but given how well he pitched in the second half, after the all-star game, I don't see how that is being so outlandish: 3.26 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 2.48 K/BB, 9.0 K/9, 3.6 BB/9.He's 22 and one of the most valuable commodities in baseball - a young pitcher with years of cheap service time ahead of him. The San Francisco Giants, and in particular their General Manager Brian Sabean, may have a reputation for assembling old teams but Cain is one of the best young players, position or hurlers, in all of baseball. I look for Cain to be a Cy Young candidate in 2007.
That ERA would have ranked him 4th in the NL last season and the key thing was that his BB/9 was so low, relatively, for him. Ideally, you want it under 3.0, but when you are striking out 9 batters per 9 IP, getting under 4.0 is perfectly good as well, particularly when he can get hitters to get less hits overall, as his H/9 was only 7.0, when most pitchers struggle to get it to 9.0.
However, I must note that I used Baseball Musing's Day by Day Database and calculated the leaderboard for ERA for the second half of 2006 and Matt was much further down the list: he was 10th with his 3.26 ERA. Still, that's not too shabby a spot to be in, as a starting pitcher. And an even greater place to be when you are only 21 years old. He will be 22 for the 2007 season.
And we got him for another 5 seasons, at the minimum, yippee! Unless, that is, the Giants took my advice in my prior post and offer him a 7 year contract (looking back at that contract I proposed, the Giants probably should make at least one team-option for the final year of the contract, and perhaps the last two years, but you don't want to insult him either).
And as I noted in that same post, hopefully the Giants will be announcing a nice, long (and cheap) contract with Cain sometime in spring training. Go Giants!
Forgot to note that the Top 10 was based on pitching at least 90 innings (most starters had 14-15 starts, so 14 starts at 6.5 IP is about 90 IP).
ReplyDeleteI did one for the period after his skipped start, and for pitchers with over 130 IP (most top pitchers had 22-25 starts, so I set the minimum at 20 starts at 6.5 IP average or 130 IP), he again was 10th, with a 3.47 ERA, 9.0 K/9, 4.3 BB/9, 2.1 K/BB, 1.23 WHIP, in 24 starts. Pitchers ahead of him: Santana, Oswalt, Halladay, Carpenter, Willis, Jason Jennings, Webb, Carlos Zambrano, Scott Olsen. Only Santana had a higher K/9 rate.
That is a similar group for the second half leaders: Clemens, Sanchez, Suppan, Santana, Oswalt, Pettitte, Sabathia, Carpenter, Chien-Ming Wang. Again, only Santana had a higher K/9.