Profile: Matt Cain

These profiles will theoretically run every Monday, on a player whose talents are overlooked. If you have a suggestion for a profile, please e-mail me at VegasWatch@gmail.com.

There are two “problems” with Matt Cain.

The first is that he has a record of 6-13 this year.

The other is when you think of the Giants (which is not often, as they’re in last place), you think of Bonds. When you think of a Giants pitcher, Barry Zito comes to mind. When you think “young Giants pitcher”, Tim Lincecum fills that void. Because of this, Cain goes largely unnoticed.

Quite obviously, none of these things are Matt Cain’s fault. Among things he can control, he’s doing pretty well for himself- he’s actually younger than Lincecum (he doesn’t turn 23 until October!), and his 3.67 ERA is lower than the ERAs of both Carlos Zambrano and Daisuke Matsuzaka.

People paid attention in 2005, when Cain was called up in late August and went had a 2.33 ERA in seven starts at the age of 20. But, as often happens (Felix Hernandez has flown under the radar since this game; Scott Kazmir is pretty quietly having fantastic year), people find the next phenom, are briefly excited, and then move on. Despite this, Matt Cain has improved each year since ’05 and remains on the short list of the best young pitchers in baseball.

As a senior at Houston High School in Germantown, TN in 2002, Matt Cain struck out 83 and allowed only 28 hits in 62 innings, winning Tennessee’s Gatorate High School Player of the Year award. That summer, the San Francisco Giants used the 25^th pick in the amateur draft to take 17-year old Cain, and gave him a $1.375M signing bonus.

Minors

The Giants sent Cain to the Arizona league for the rest of ’02, where they were very cautions with him. He made seven starts, but pitched at total of just 19.1 innings. As one would expect of a top pick straight out of HS, he both walked a lot of guys (11), and had his share of strikeouts (20). He ended up 0-1 with a 3.72 ERA, which is pretty impressive considering his age.

Cain spent the 2003 season at Hagerstown (A). In 74 innings (14 starts), he was brilliant, with 90 Ks, only 24 BBs, and a 2.55 ERA. He allowed only 57 hits and five home runs, and was probably on track to get promoted. But his season was cut short with a stress fracture in his elbow. Despite missing so much time, Baseball America listed Cain as the 91^st best prospect in baseball prior to the ’04 season.

He returned from the injury the following year and didn’t miss a beat. Still just 19, he was brilliant with San Jose (high A). The most impressive part was his improved control. It’s not like Cain had been wild previously- his 2.9 BB/9 with Hagerstown was impressive. But he lowered that substantially, walking only 17 batters in 72.2 innings (2.1 BB/9). He kept the home runs down (0.62 HR/9), and the strikeouts up (11.0 K/9). After going 7-2 with a 1.86 ERA with San Jose he was promoted.

Moving from A to AA is a big jump, especially for a 19 year old, and it showed in Cain’s performance. It’s not like he was bad- he went 6-4 with a 3.35 ERA in 15 starts with Norwich. Over 86 innings, he only allowed 73 hits and seven home runs. What was disappointing about his stint with Norwich was that his K/BB ratio went from 5.2 to 1.8. This was a product partially of his K rate decreasing (he struck out 72), but mostly caused by the fact that his walk rate doubled, from 2.1 to 4.2 BB/9. This is a trend that would continue as he ascended up to the big club.

On the strength of his dominance at San Jose, and the fact that he pitched very effectively in AA at the age of 19, Cain started to get some serious acclaim prior to the start of the 2005 season. Baseball America moved him all the way up to 13^th on their Top 100, and #1 in the Giants’ organization. His curve was rated as the best in the Giants’ system. From the 2005 edition of Baseball Prospectus:

“His fastball blazes at 95 and moves to both sides of the plate, and he can throw his huge, sweeping curve for knee-buckling strikes in any count. His circle-change needs work, and we'll want to see the Giants monitor his workload after an elbow stress fracture cost him half of '03. Still, Cain's developed a more fluid delivery that has observers bullish about him staying healthy.”

Cain pitched at Fresno (AAA) to begin the ’05 season, which is a tough environment for pitchers. He did allow a lot of homers (22 in 145.2 innings), but also had an incredible 176 strikeouts. Cain had his highest walk rate (4.5 BB/9) since he was 17. Still, he went 10-5 with a 4.39 ERA in AAA at the age of 20. And on August 29, the Giants decided he was ready.

Majors

As you may remember, Matt Cain was fantastic after getting called up, going 2-1 with a 2.33 ERA in seven starts. Which is great, except he wasn’t really that good. First of all, he a psychotically low .166 BABiP, which is well over 100 points below the league average. Beyond that, he stranded 83% of runners on base, which is about 10% above his current career average. Nothing against Cain- he was getting major league hitters out at the age of 20- but his ERA should have been about two runs higher. It should be noted that the Giants were very careful with him, never allowing him to throw more than 107 pitches.

For what it’s worth, Cain was still considered a “prospect” after the ’05 season, and moved up to 11^th on BA’s Top 100, while still ranking as #1 in the Giants’ system (amazingly, the Giants’ top prospect has been a RHP every year since 1997).

Last season was when Cain stopped getting a lot of attention. I don’t know that people fully appreciate how impressive it is when a 21 year old throws 190.2 innings at the major league level. Since 1901, a pitcher of that age or younger has thrown 190 innings with an ERA better than league average only 89 times. In the last ten years, only Cain and C.C. Sabathia have done this.

Also impressive is that Cain struck out 179 hitters in 2006, the 25^th most ever for a pitcher 21 or under (#20 on that list is even more striking). He finished the year 13-12, and received only one second place and one third place vote for Rookie of the Year, as Hanley Ramirez edged out Ryan Zimmerman for the award.

In March, the Giants rewarded Cain with a 4 year, $9MM extension, with a $6.25MM club option for 2011.

This year, Cain has once again been impressive. Unfortunately, he’s 6-13, because the Giants haven’t scored for him. Of 98 pitchers who have thrown 120 innings this year, Cain is 96^th in run support.

Baseball Prospectus has a stat called “Luck”. It measures the difference what a pitchers W-L record should be, given their ERA and number of innings pitched, and what it actually is. Here are this year’s unluckiest pitchers (min. 120 IP):

Cain has been the unluckiest pitcher in baseball this year, and it isn’t close. Rather than 6-13, he should be about 11-8 if the Giants offense wasn’t so pathetic. (Side note: The luckiest pitcher this year has been Seattle's Horacio Ramirez, who is 8-4 with a 7.15 ERA. That is absolutely amazing.)

Ignoring Brian Sabean’s incompetence, Cain has made some important strides forward this year. He has gone from allowing 0.84 HR/9 in his first two years to 0.55 this year. This is no accident, as Cain is allowing less fly balls. Here are his FB (in blue), GB (in green), and LD (in red) rates over his three-year career:

All very promising trends. He has also cut his walk rate, from 4.1 BB/9 to 3.9, while going deeper into games- he averaged 6.15 IP last year, this year that number is up to 6.57. These improvements have helped offset Cain’s decreased K rate (8.4 K/9 last year, 7.0 this year), and allow his FIP (Fielding Independent ERA) to decrease for the second straight year:

Not bad.

What Cain has done by the age of 22 is not something that happens very often. Since 1901, only six pitchers have had a K/9 of over 7.5 while making at least 70 starts by the age of 22. If he makes six more starts this year, Matt Cain will add himself to the following list.

I put the average in bold because it’s completely insane. Frank Tanana had the highest career ERA of these guys, at 3.66. Dwight Gooden’s 194 career wins comes in 5^th out of 6. What Matt Cain has done by the age of 22 is truly remarkable, and he looks like he’ll be a frontline starter for years to come.

Last week's profile: Erik Bedard
Profile Archive

Thanks to Baseball Musings, We Rite Goode, Bugs & Cranks, THT, Larry Brown Sports, WL, AA, and Deadspin for the links to the Bedard profile last week.

Pictures taken from the Giants website, Yardbarker, the Las Vegas Sun, here, and Minor League News. Stats taken from The Baseball Cube, Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, and the BR Play Index.

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Matt Cain's Career Statistics