The big righty from Cuba got an All-Star nod in his rookie season as part of the best late-inning tandem in baseball. In a new look bullpen, can he find the same success in 2024?
Without a doubt, Yennier Cano was one of the players in 2023 who made the biggest difference when it came to the Orioles overperforming expectations. The big Cuban righty went from a throw-in player in the Jorge López trade, to not making the team out of spring, to being a 2023 All-Star and integral part of the AL East champions.
The last several seasons, the Orioles have excelled at taking unheralded pitchers and turning them into difference makers at the back of the bullpen. In 2022 the breakout stars were López in the first half and Félix Bautista in the second half. Last season it was all Cano. The 29-year-old started the season in Norfolk, but got the call up to Baltimore on April 14 after injuries forced the Orioles to shuffle their bullpen.
That began a dominant stretch that absolutely no one in baseball could have predicted. Starting with a five-out appearance against the White Sox on the 14th, Cano went on a run that saw him rack up 21.2 scoreless innings to begin 2023. Over those 17 outings, the rookie right-hander allowed only four hits, didn’t walk a single batter and struck out 25.
The fact that Bautista turned his promising showing in 2022 into a dominant start to 2023 was hardly surprising. The fact that Cano went from allowing nine runs in three Orioles appearances in 2022 to tossing 17 consecutive scoreless outings in 2023—that was a revelation. Early on his sinker-changeup combo befuddled hitters and made him one of the best relievers in the first half of the season.
However, as the season wore on, hitters started to catch up with Cano and tee off on his sinker in particular. After holding hitters to a .173 average against his sinker across April and May, that number ballooned to .345 in June. Cano still put up a respectable 1.14 ERA after three months, but the signs of a slump were there. That slump finally reared its ugly head in July, when batters put up a .327 average and .957 OPS, leading to a 4.50 ERA for the newly minted All-Star.
Lesser relievers would have continued that downward trend through the end of the season, but Cano was able to do something that often eludes pitchers: make a successful in-season adjustment. After barely using his slider in the first half of the season, the Orioles set-up man started to use the breaking ball as his preferred secondary offering to right handers. This change led to another scoreless month in August as he and Bautista formed the best back end of a bullpen in all of baseball.
Bautista’s injury thrust him into the closing role throughout September. Whether he struggled adjusting to the new role or just wore out as he surpassed his career high for innings in a season, September was rough for Cano. A 5.79 ERA in 12 outings marked his worth month of the season. Cano made two appearances in the postseason, allowing a run over one inning in Game 2 and getting the final out in the eighth of Game 3.
The soon to be 30-year-old finished last season with a 65 Ks over 72.2 innings, a 2.11 ERA, .226 BAA and a 196 ERA+. Cano enters 2024 looking to prove he can carry over the success from last season, as well as potentially take on a bigger role in the Orioles pen. While the O’s signed Craig Kimbrel to take over for the injured Bautista as closer, successfully replacing the best closer in baseball will mean getting contributions from the other bullpen standouts. After Kimbrel, Cano is surely the pitcher Brandon Hyde will rely on to get the biggest outs late in games.
ZiPS Projections:
FanGraphs’ models skew toward regression across the board for the Orioles pitching staff and Cano is no exception. They expect Cano’s walk rate to jump from 1.61 BB/9 last year to 2.88 in 2024. They also expect him to regress when it comes to his home run rate, as they project a jump from 0.5 HR/9 in 2023 to 1.05 in 2024. The projections paint a picture of a much more hittable Cano that sees his ERA balloon from 2.11 last year to 3.67 in the coming season.
The case for the under
When it comes to relievers, the Orioles pitching coaches preach a philosophy of finding your two best pitches and throwing them as often as possible. Cano was the poster child for how successful this philosophy can be, while also still showing the ability to throw his slider effectively when the need arose. Cano’s greatest strengths last season were his ability to limit walks and induce ground balls. Even when he went through his struggles in July and September, his walk and ground ball rates remained elite.
Oftentimes, a pitcher may experience regression if his ERA and BAA greatly outpace his FIP and xBAA. That was not the case with Cano in 2023, as the gap between his expected numbers and actual numbers were relatively small. While he may not have multiple months again where he completely shutouts, all signs point to Cano being able to repeat last season’s success as he settles back in the set up role. While his ERA may go up a little bit, a jump of over 1.5 runs seems far fetched.
The case for the over
Bullpen arms are the most volatile players in all of baseball. We saw proof of that last year with Cionel Pérez, and only the most elite relievers are truly immune to this volatility. Even a stellar rookie season like Cano had in 2023 can turn into a career as a mediocre reliever rather quickly. Unlike Bautista, Cano is not an elite strikeout pitcher and more so relies on opposing hitters making poor contact against his sinker/changeup/slider arsenal. Batted ball luck is even more fickle than your average reliever, and because of that we often see sinker-ballers’ production effectiveness take a nosedive from one season to the next.
After being the best reliever in baseball across 2015 and 2016, Zack Britton was notably more hittable in 2017 and 2018 before his trade to New York. Jim Johnson went from an All-Star level reliever in 2012 and 2013 to completely unreliable in 2014. With a track record only one season long, it’s easy to imagine that Cano might fall victim to the same dropoff seen in other Orioles sinkerballers. If that happens, the Cuban eclipsing his projected ERA would not come as a huge surprise.
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