Kevin Long Has Big Plans For Robbie Cano

Yankee hitting instructor extraordinaire, Kevin Long, is either quite full of himself or delusional in his optimism for Robinson Cano. Or he's a super genius. Cano is coming off of his best season in 2010 finishing third in the AL MVP voting. It was a monster season by all accounts for a second baseman as he hit 29 home runs and put up a .320/.381/.534 line. But Long apparently thinks Cano is capable of 40 jacks...

"I wouldn't be surprised if Cano hit 40 home runs," Long said. "He hit 29; could he hit 40? Why not? It's a big number - and not something that's a goal - but could he do it? I don't think there's anybody standing here that thinks he can't."

Asked if he thought he could go deep 40 times this season, Cano laughed and answered quickly.

"No chance; maybe if you put an extra half-season," Cano said. "To be honest, that's not in my mind. I don't think I'm a home run hitter; most of my home runs are line drives. I don't want that kind of thing in my mind. If I hit it, thank God, but it's not on my mind."

Well, PECOTA is more inclined to believe Cano than Long projecting a bit of a regression for the second bagger. It has Cano coming back to Earth a little bit hitting a mere 20 homers and a .300/.346/.476 line which would still make many teams jealous. But if Cano hits 40 bombs, Long needs a raise.

If you're wondering why I'm writing a post about a hitting coach, it's because I now have a horse in this race. Brandon Wood reached out to Kevin Long for hitting advice this off season and I recently flushed some cash down a toilet to sponsor his Baseball-Reference page.

Casey Kotchman's Golden Sombrero

A golden sombrero is awarded to a player who manages to strike out four times in a single game (real golden sombrero not included). It's quite the feat unless you're Ryan Howard or Mark Reynolds. Unfortunately, cycles and no-hitters are all the rage nowadays. Not for me, though. I will pour over the box scores to bring you the finest at swinging and missing.

I always had high hopes for Casey Kotchman but that was back when I thought the Angels could develop prospects. I was adorably delusional back then. Since Kotchman was flipped to the Braves for two months of Mark Teixeira, he has also played for the Red Sox and now the Mariners. If you go by UZR/150, Kotchman is the third best fielding first baseman in all of baseball. So he's got that going for him.

What he didn't have going for him today was making contact. Kotchman went 0-4 with 4 strikeouts and regressed to a .219/.293/.359 slash line. *shudders* Let's break out the cheap tequila and hope Kotchman didn't embarrass himself too bad while earning that hat...

Top 2nd: Kotchman struck out looking against Francisco Liriano. Well there's the problem. Liriano was pitching. Liriano is a left handed strikeout pitcher and Kotchman is left handed and terrible at hitting.

Top 4th: Kotchman struck out swinging against Liriano. 3 pitches. Damn lefty-lefty match up.

Top 7th: Kotchman struck out swinging against Liriano again. Liriano did strike out 11 in 7 innings so Casey wasn't the only one flailing away at the plate.

Top 9th: Kotchman struck out swinging against Matt Guerrier to end the game.

It was not a good day at the plate for the Mighty Casey. Ugh, I'm not proud of that sentence.