I’m not sure how it is that I stumbled into the role of designated Joba Chamberlain defender, but yet again I feel compelled to note that, contrary to popular belief, the guy is not some titanic bust or having another failure of a season post-2007, but that he’s actually doing pretty well. Again.

Sports Illustrated released their another part of their annual player poll yesterday, the most overrated players, and amongst three Yankees in the top 5 (four if you count Nick Swisher, who tied for fifth place), Joba comes in at number two. A lot of people have focused on Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter being on the list, but frankly it’s Joba’s inclusion that, in my opinion, completely invalidates the exercise. Sure, Joba was hyped to heaven in 2007, but he was also a pretty phenomenal pitcher at that point. Since 2009, Joba has been unequivocally underrated by the media and (based on my unscientific research) most Yankee fans. That that many players think he’s overrated tells me that either a) coaches, scouts, executives or whomever inside the game think quite highly of him or b) baseball players just spend very much time keeping up with media narratives around the league.

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In my first post for IIATMS, I suggested that Cano’s plate discipline gains from 2010 were merely the product of less aggressive pitching. What I did not expect was for Cano’s discipline to decline. And decline it has. Were the season to end today, Cano would finish with a walk rate less than half of his 2010 figure. As with all statistics, we need to consider how much this really tells us. Thankfully, we are approaching a point in the season when these numbers actually mean something. According to Pizza Cutter’s research, strikeout rate stabilizes at 150 plate appearances and walk rate stabilizes at 200 plate appearances. And would you look at that? As of a few days ago, Cano has recently crossed the 200 PA threshold.

Has Cano’s plate discipline gotten worse?

Plate discipline is an amorphous term. Is it merely a batter’s ability to lay off bad pitches? If so, how do we define a “bad” pitch? Is it possible for a batter to have good pitch recognition, but bad plate discipline? Despite the vague nature of the term, we do have some reasonable proxies for measuring this skill. One such method is to determine how often a batter swings at balls (O-swing%). Using pitch f/x data (not the BIS data at Fangraphs), we can see that Cano has progressively swung at more balls in the past three years:  35.9% in 2009, 36.3% in 2010, and 41% in 2011. But how much does this really tell us? Simply looking at  O-swing% makes the assumption that swinging at balls is always worse than swinging at a strike, which is an oversimplification. Thankfully, we can explore the data graphically in an attempt to get a better grasp at where Cano is swinging:

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The Bombers improved their win streak to three Tuesday night, as they hit early and often while Freddy Garcia gave the Yankees another strong start.  New York pounced on many defensive miscues from the Oakland Athletics and came away with a 10-3 victory.

Derek Jeter knocked a grounder to second, which deflected off Mark Ellis’ glove for a (generous) leadoff single. New York slugger, Curtis Granderson, then drove his seventeenth homer out of the park for a 2-0 Yankee lead.

Jeter reached on another hit to second, when Ellis made an errant throw, allowing the Yankees’ shortstop to reach first safely.  With two outs, Alex Rodriguez hit a bloop single to center, plating Jeter and giving the Yankees another run.

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