Fantasy Baseball: 6 Players Who Have Completely Erased Their Fast Starts
Matt Cain, SP, San Francisco Giants
The Fast Start
San Francisco Giants hurler Matt Cain hasn't been good for quite some time -- he hasn't posted a SIERA under 4.00 since 2013. However, good results in April may have had some people hopeful he'd be at least a little productive for the duration of his disastrous five-year, $112.5 million contract, which concludes at the end of this season.
Through his first 27.1 innings of work, things were looking up since he was the proud owner of a 2.30 ERA while allowing just a .279 wOBA. The warning signs were there, though, evidenced by his 4.33 SIERA. Cain was limiting hard contact (26.8% rate), but his 89.9% strand rate also seemed a little high.
And from what we can see since this quick start, the bottom fell out rather quickly.
The Cold Streak
His SIERA since May 1st (5.84) is much worse than it was in April, but that looks light when seeing that his ERA has jumped nearly five full runs to 7.13.
Cain wasn't striking out a ton of people to begin with (19.5% in April), but it's gotten much worse since his strikeout rate and walk rate sit at an identical 10.6% over his most recent 41.2 innings. Judging from the 3.7% swinging-strike rate and 22.9% chase rate he's produced during this time, it's not like he's running into bad luck on that front, either.
Some batted-ball numbers have gone in encouraging directions, but the rest of his numbers have doused any sort of optimism there could possibly be. The below table compares his ground-ball rate (GB%), fly-ball rate (FB%), BABIP and hard-hit rate (Hard%) during these two periods.
| Month | IP | LD% | GB% | FB% | Hard% | BABIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April | 27.1 | 17.3% | 43.2% | 39.5% | 26.8% | .253 |
| Since May 1st | 41.2 | 24.0% | 46.1% | 29.9% | 37.2% | .367 |
The ground-ball rate and fly-ball rate are both going in the right direction, but it's hard to feel all warm and fuzzy about those numbers when the line-drive rate and hard-hit rate have spiked so much.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the good version of Cain is going to be back any time soon. But if you were keeping an eye on his peripherals, that shouldn't be breaking news. It's just sad considering how dominant he was during the earlier part of his career.
