KC Royals: Is Lorenzo Cain Really A Star

Kansas City Royals center-fielder Lorenzo Cain enjoyed a coming-out party during the 2014 playoffs and World Series. Is he really a star, or a one-year wonder?

The 29-year-old Lorenzo Cain made spectacular catch after catch in the outfield, hit .333/.388/.417 during the post-season, won the American League Championship Series MVP award, and was welcomed to stardom by Fangraphs.com.

More from Kansas City Royals

It was the type of season little boys dream about in their backyards.

The question is: was 2014 a real breakthrough for Lorenzo Cain? Can we expect more seasons like 2014 from Cain in the future?

Lorenzo Cain did enjoy a terrific season in 2014:

He hit .301/.339/.412 for a career-high OPS+ of 108 (8% better than a league average hitter).
He stole a career high 28 bases while getting caught only 5 times, which made him disruptive on the base paths.
Most of all, Lorenzo Cain was spectacular in both center and right field, finishing 6th among MLB outfielders with an Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) of 17.6.

Overall, Lorenzo Cain was worth 4.9 Wins Above Replacement (fWAR) in 2014—which was the 29th best among MLB position players.

It was the season that the KC Royals hoped he could have one day when they made him part of the Zack Greinke trade after the 2010 season.

Yet, digging into his numbers makes you wonder if he can sustain his 2014 performance. What really jumps out is Cain’s .380 Batting Average Balls in Play (BABIP). That’s outrageously high compared to the league average of .300.

Lorenzo Cain is certainly a player that you can expect to enjoy a higher-than-average BABIP. He’s blessed with good speed, makes contact, and smacks a lot of ground balls (48.8% career ground ball rate). However, .380 is way above his career BABIP of .345.

Meanwhile, Cain’s line drive (LD%), fly ball (FB%), and ground ball (GB%) rates were all within a few percentage point of his career norms. He did see a sharp drop in his pop-up rates, reducing his IFFB% to 6.3% from 15.4% in 2013.

The pop-up decline is significant, since his IFFB% was 11.6% in 2010, (with the Brewers), 11.3% in 2012, and 15.4% in 2013.

Here we find hope that Cain enjoyed a career breakthrough in 2014. If he adjusted his swing to hit less infield pop-ups, that’s about 6-7% fewer sure outs on batted balls vs. his earlier career norm.

The projection system Steamer doesn’t see it that way.

It predicts that Cain’s BABIP will regress to .330 (below his previous career norm) for a .267 average and a 95 wRC+ (adjusted runs created, which suggests an offensive value 5% lower than the league average player).

Along with a decline in his defensive value (DEF) to 8.4 from 16.8, Steamer sees Cain as a mere 2.7 WAR player in 2015, which is good but not really star level.

The fans(10) system, which is based on fan expectations, has a much more positive outlook for Lorenzo Cain. The fans expect his DEF to improve to 18.1, with a wRC+ of 106 (6% above league average) and a much healthier BABIP of .357.

The fans were apparently impressed by Cain’s playoff display and expect him to remain a 4.9 WAR player.

Whether or not the fans are right will go a long way toward determining if the Kansas City Royals can follow their 2014 A.L. pennant with another strong year in 2015.

Next: KC Royals: Bring on 2015

More from KC Kingdom

Home/Kansas City Royals