What this Means for Cano, Granderson, and Their New and Old Teams

Robinson Cano is a Mariner. Tied with the second largest contract in MLB history, Cano signs a 10-year, $240 million deal with Seattle, bringing a huge bat to a team that finished batting .237 on the year (28^th in the MLB). He also brings power to a team that might lose Raul Ibanez and Kendrys Morales (unless they both resign).

The Mets have also struck big, landing crosstown rival Curtis Granderson to a 4-year, $60 million deal.

So what does this mean for both teams? Let’s start with the Mariners. In his entire nine-year career with the Yankees, Cano batted .309/.355/.504 with 204 home runs, 822 RBI’s, and a combined 45.2 WAR. The last time a Mariner player could hit that many home runs and have a strong WAR was arguably Ken Griffey Jr.

So are they back to the golden 90’s years, where they had Griffey, Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, and Edgar Martinez? It’s tough to say. All four of those players are some of the greatest players in their position that baseball has ever seen. But are they out of their losing slump, and will they finally have a winning season?

I’d say yes. Not just because of Cano, but because of their pitching as well. What Cano will do is bring an offense that is young but very inexperienced (besides Morales and Ibanez) with hitting, and hopefully he can bring up those bats. 

But the Mariners have some of the best starting pitchers in baseball. They had King Felix and Hisashi Iwakuma, who combined gave the Mariners 12.2 Wins Above Replacement last season, but unfortunately that was it when it came to pitching. Tom Wilhelmsen blew a boatload of saves, and they didn’t have much else in the bullpen.

 

But now they have Taijuan Walker and Danny Hultzen in their farm system that most likely will have a full Major League season in 2014. Walker is ranked as the 4^th overall prospect and number 1 right hander, while Hultzen is the number 1 left hander and the number 2 Mariner prospect, according to MLB.com.

So they have much better pitching now, despite having a high team ERA, WHIP, and BAA in the 2013 season.

Now will the win the division? No. That’s mostly because the Athletics, Rangers, and Angels are all really good teams. I think for the 2014 season, they can finish third in the race with an above .500 record.

Is it an overall good move to get Cano? Yeah, I'd say so. Cano looks more and more like a future hall of famer, putting up some of the greatest offensive numbers for a second baseman in history. Despite being such a large contract, I think they can still get their money’s worth. Also, I doubt Cano will be a Mariner for all that time. He will get traded, but that’s a talk for a few years from now.

On to the Mets. Curtis Granderson brings a few elements to the table that the Mets organization desperately needed.

1. Power. The Mets finished 29^th in slugging with .366. David Wright cannot be their only source of power.

2. OBP. Granderson does not hit for contact, or at least he doesn’t anymore. However, he has a career .340 OBP, a stat that the Mets finished 25^th in at .306. However, they did also finish 29^th in batting average at .237, so it’ll be interesting to see how Granderson affects that.

3. Money. What do I mean by money? Not by how much he costs ($15 million per year is still a lot), but by how much revenue they can get from fans with the acquisition of Granderson. The Mets have not been a contending team since Johan Santana was in his prime, and don’t look like they can be a contending team in the future. However, Granderson does bring in fans, especially a guy that has already been in the New York area. 

Here’s why I don’t like the acquisition, and it refers to the money reason. Teams like the Mets, the Chicago Cubs, the Houston Astros, among others, won’t be contending teams until about 2015, 2016, or even further. I’d say that, pending how healthy the team stays, and how well Matt Harvey can recover, they’re not contending teams until 2016.

This means that when they are a contending team, Granderson is 35 years old, and their star player, David Wright, is 33. The only reason why I see them making this deal is because of revenue from fans, and a hope that Matt Harvey can come back in gear for a potential playoff run. Remember, they are in a division with the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals, two teams that are very talented, and will continue to be talented in future years.

Finally, what does this mean for the Yankees? It first means that they’ve officially lost their star hitter in Cano. It also means that they lost great power with Granderson. They’ve replaced them with Jacoby Ellsbury and Brian McCann, a combined $230 million between those two. But can Ellsbury and McCann replace those two?

Yes and no. What I mean is that they can replace those two players, but that doesn’t mean that the Yankees are automatically playoff contenders. They still have the World-Champion Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays in the division too.

Cano had 7.6 Wins Above Replacement in 2013, Ellsbury 5.8, and McCann 2.2. It’s tough to add in Granderson because he was injured, but he had a 1.1 WAR in 2013. Combining Ellsbury and McCann’s WAR is still less than combining Cano and Granderson (8.7 to 8.0). Yes, this isn’t such a sharp change, but a healthy Granderson might be a very different factor.

Also remember that the Yankees still have not found an answer to their pitching, and that’s going to kill them. They also have the issue with Alex Rodriguez and whether he is going to be suspended (note: it looks like A-Rod, or A-Roid, will get suspended, meaning that the Yankees will have some salary cap to clear up with. A LOT of salary cap, in fact).

Overall, I’d say that they stay almost exactly where they were before, finishing well under the division champs but still almost being a contender. Out of these three teams, I think the only team that is much better off is the Seattle Mariners, and, like I mentioned before, that’s partly because of their new pitching as well.

In other news, Scott Feldman has signed a 3-year, $30 million deal with the Houston Astros. Houston is really starting to splash things up in the free agency.

Email me at statsbuddy42@gmail.com for any questions/comments/concerns.

-Evan Boyd