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"Suspect what it is?  How can it not know what it IS?!" - Harrison Ford, Blade Runner, after interviewing a Replicant

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Once the ESPN New York Network began to fear that Cano might actually leave ... one of the talking heads said something that stopped me short.  It suddenly seemed possible.

Verducci, was it?  In a resigned, somber tone, he admitted that when he watched Robinson Cano at the WBC --- > "I saw a completely different player there." 

Cano didn't say much about it, but he (evidently) disliked being in Derek Jeter's shadow, disliked being an afterthought with the Yankees.  I mean, you remember how Shaq and Kobe never got along in LA; truly great athletes come with self-images to match.  You don't get to be as good as Michael Jordan, and not know how good you are.

When a player is [by far the best player in a locker room], he is seldom comfortable with being viewed as anything other than [the best player in the locker room].  

Have you seen the Yankee WAR leaders from 2013?!  Cano has like 6+ and then everybody else has 1+.  I think Gardner slid in with 2-something, but, Brett Gardner.

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You remember Ichiro at the WBC, playing joyfully and playing aggressively.  For many men, it is just flat "more fun" to be the team captain.

Robinson Cano not only "enjoyed the stuffing" out of leading the Dominican Republic .. he hit .469 / .514 / .781 with strikeouts way up.  In other words, he was taking huge rips at the ball.

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Sabermetrics has not begun to address the problem of, "What makes a player have a good year or a bad year?"  By "hasn't begun" I mean that --- > it hasn't done a single thing towards understanding the issue.

If Cano blossoms with the change of scenery, sabes will attribute it to something other than positive frame of mind.  Good sports coaches won't.

It was axiomatic, in Soviet-era chess, that the happier and more optimistic a man is, the better chess he plays.  It's all about having positive automatic thoughts.  A slightly stronger visualization of good things happening.

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Robinson Cano is a very Zen ballplayer.  Dr. D compares his swing to Edgar Martinez', in the sense that he's always within himself.  Never shrill, never greedy.  Always calm and intelligent, in Ichiro fashion.

Combine [Zen] with [passionate] and you've something really cool.  That's any area of life.

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Did you know that, in 1925 at age 30, Babe Ruth had a terrible off season, and people were saying that he was over the hill?  As he stood on the precipice of his age-31 season, people figured they would never see another really great season from him.

From 1926 to 1931, as he aged from 31 to 36 years, Babe Ruth never posted a SLG under .697, an OPS+ under 193, or hit fewer than 46 homers.  You might not have realized that Babe Ruth wrote baseball history in his 30's.

Baseball players, as a general population, perform worse in their 30's than in their 20's.  Other players have their greatest seasons between ages 32 and 38, like Edgar Martinez did.  Of course, you've got to be pretty good to have a chance of doing that.

BABVA,

Dr D