Is there reason to be optimistic about Robinson Cano? (USATSI)
Is there reason to be optimistic about Robinson Cano? (USATSI)

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All things considered, Robinson Cano had a very solid year yet again in 2014, his first in a Mariners uniform. His batting average remained near the top of the league-wide leaderboards, he posted an OPS+ of 143 (the third straight season he has topped 140), and finished in the top five in MVP voting for the third straight season and fourth in five years.

However, he was a slight disappointment from a Fantasy perspective, it is fair to say. Cano slugged 27 home runs in 2013, his fifth season in a row with at least 25, so it seemed safe to assume he was a lock for 20 homers. When he finished with just 14 in his first year outside of Yankee Stadium, it was a disappointment, sure, but possibly just an anomaly.

Fast forward to May 18, 2015, and it no longer looks like his power drought from last season is an aberration. Cano has just one home run through 37 games, with a .100 ISO that would stand as the worst mark of his career by a massive margin. Considering Cano was still a first-round pick this year despite taking a step back, it is fair to wonder if it's time to panic about him.

However, his power falling off shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Baseball doesn't take the same physical toll as football or basketball, but aging curves for baseball players are still overwhelmingly shifted toward the young. Since 2000, 46 players have hit 27 home runs in their age-30 season, the total Cano hit in 2013, and they collectively saw their power production slip, just like Cano.

The average player saw his home run total drop from 34.7 at 30 to 27.9 at 31, a 20-percent drop; that's more than Cano's fell, but you also have to account for the fact that Cano made a move from a very good HR park to a less ideal locale. In their collective age-32 seasons, those players saw their home run totals dip even further, to 22.2.

So, it shouldn't be a surprise Cano's power has fallen off, though admittedly, the dropoff has been more severe than usual. Cano hit just 51.8 percent as many home runs in his age-31 season as at 30; all but eight of the 46 players saw less of a dropoff. Still, at least he was hitting for average and producing in spite of the lack of home runs last season; in 2015, he isn't even doing that so far.

Cano is hitting just .253 through 37 games, by far the worst mark of his career. In fact, he has only hit below .300 once since his rookie season, a .271 mark in 2008 that featured a career-low .283 BABIP. This season, he doesn't even have the BABIP Gods to blame, as Cano's mark is .301 -- not close to his career mark, but hardly indicative of poor luck.

Cano is striking out in 16.8 percent of his trips to the plate so far, also the worst mark of his career by a solid margin, unsurprisingly. Between a microscopic 3.3 HR/FB percentage and his rising strikeout rate, it's not a surprise that Cano's average is on the way down.

However, you can make a case that he actually has had quite a bit of bad luck so far, if you look at his batted ball profile. Cano's flyball rate has tumbled to 24.2 percent, so it might be fair to say the power isn't coming back. However, he has so far traded those flyballs for line drives, which is usually a good tradeoff when it comes to batting average. Line drives go for hits more often than ground balls, which go for hits more often than fly balls, after all. If Cano is going to remain an elite Fantasy player deep into his 30's, trading power for average is one way to do it.

Moreover, Cano is absolutely stinging the ball right now; 37.1 percent of his batted balls have been classified as hard-hit, per FanGraphs.com. That is an improvement of nearly 10 percent over last season, and right in line with the best of his Yankees years. You would expect hard-hit line drives and ground balls to go for hits more often, and you would expect hard-hit fly balls to soar over the fence more often.

In fact, Cano leads the majors in batted balls hit at least 100 MPH with 38, per BaseballSavant.com. The league on the whole is hitting .613 on balls hit at least 100 MPH; Cano is at just .529 on those batted balls. There appears to be at least some bad luck involved there, especially when you take into account slugging; the league as a whole has slugged 1.224 on 100 MPH batted balls, while Cano is at just .765.

Part of that comes back to Cano hitting a lot of groundballs, which will obviously go for extra-base hits less often than other types of batted balls. However, Cano is slugging just 1.14 on line drives and fly balls hit at least 100 MPH, compared to 1.696 for the league as a whole. Even accepting that his batted-ball profile is no longer that of an elite power hitter, Cano is underperforming expectations.

There is good news and bad news with Cano this season, so it depends on how optimistic you want to be. Knowing how good he was just last season, I tend to take an optimistic view, focusing on the fact that he is hitting the ball hard more often than anyone in baseball, and assuming that the process will eventually lead to better results.

However, the sheer number of groundballs Cano is hitting makes it unlikely he'll ever top the 20-homer mark, let alone the lofty heights he once occupied. Still, he looks to be doing a lot right, so a bounceback to last season's numbers seems reasonable, though his struggles with left-handed pitchers are a concern as he gets older. 

Even if he can turn things around, Cano probably isn't in the discussion for No. 1 second baseman anymore -- Jose Altuve is lapping the pack at this point. At the pace Dee Gordon is at, Cano probably won't finish second either. Second base is a deeper position right now than in the past, but there's no reason Cano can't beat out the likes of Jason Kipnis or Marcus Semien, and that's where I would have him ranked, even during this slow start. 

If you're looking for a buy-low candidate, Cano is a good one, though he's a bit riskier than his brand name price tag might indicate.