Kansas City Royals Lorenzo Cain Looks Like Torii Hunter

When the Kansas City Royals traded Zack Greinke to the Brewers in exchange for Alcides Escobar, Jake Odorizzi, Jeremy Jeffress, and Lorenzo Cain, Baseball Prospectus analyst Christina Kahrl believed Cain was the worst player of the lot.

Back in those long-ago days of December, 2010, analysts considered Cain a soon-to-be 25-year-old player that was unlikely to unlock his significant upside. Former Kansas City Star columnist Joe Posnanski did concede that many people around baseball compared Cain’s athletic upside to Torii Hunter.

However, most analysts huffed that Lorenzo Cain was unlikely to ever become a star.

Today, Kansas City Royals fans can look back on the “wisdom” of yesteryear and laugh. Lorenzo Cain became THE breakout star of the 2014 playoffs.

Even so, Kansas City Royals star Lorenzo Cain still fell short of the Torii Hunter standard. Cain certainly looked like the nine-time Gold Glove defender in center field, but he simply lacked Hunter’s pop at the plate.

While Lorenzo Cain hit a solid .301/.339/.412 for an adjusted on base plus slugging (OPS+) of 110 (10% better than a league average hitter, which almost exactly matched Hunter’s career OPS+ of 111), he lacked the home run power that Torii Hunter displayed in his prime. According to Baseball Reference, Hunter’s averaged 24 home runs over a typical 162 game span in his career. At age 28, Cain had never hit more than seven in a season.

Heck, as of 2014, Cain had hit a grand total of 17 home runs in his career.

So while Lorenzo Cain had an undeniably fine 2014 season for the Kansas City Royals, many analysts expected his offensive value to “regress to the mean” in 2015 due to his unusually-high batting average balls in play (BABIP) of .380. They regarded Cain as something of a one-year wonder .

Instead, Lorenzo Cain decided to do the one thing that separated him from becoming a later-day Torii Hunter clone: add some pop to his bat.

KC Royals manager Ned Yost believed he could do it. Yost took a leap of faith in Lorenzo Cain’s progress by installing him as the KC Royals number three hitter to open the season.

Lorenzo Cain has rewarded his manager’s faith.

After a three game outburst against Milwaukee in which Cain has hit two home runs, one triple, and one double, he’s boosted his 2015 triple slash to .291/.344/.444 with 12 doubles, 2 triples, and 6 home runs. Lorenzo Cain projects to produce 16 home runs and 76 RBI’s on the season. Cain has done all of this despite his BABIP sliding to .337, which is slightly below his career average of .344.

Now, at age 29, Kansas City Royals center fielder Lorenzo Cain looks like a veritable clone of Torii Hunter in his prime.

Lorenzo Cain still has a little less pop, but he also plays in a post-steroid era with dominant pitching. But, Cain also has more a little more speed than Torii Hunter. For the last year and half, the comparison looks very close.

Take a look at Torii Hunter’s career stats:

Year	Age	Tm	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
1998	22	MIN	17	0	4	1	0	0	2	0	1	2	6	.235	.316	.294	.610	60
1999	23	MIN	384	52	98	17	2	9	35	10	6	26	72	.255	.309	.380	.689	73
2000	24	MIN	336	44	94	14	7	5	44	4	3	18	68	.280	.318	.408	.726	80
2001	25	MIN	564	82	147	32	5	27	92	9	6	29	125	.261	.306	.479	.784	102
2002 ★	26	MIN	561	89	162	37	4	29	94	23	8	35	118	.289	.334	.524	.859	124
2003	27	MIN	581	83	145	31	4	26	102	6	7	50	106	.250	.312	.451	.762	98
2004	28	MIN	520	79	141	37	0	23	81	21	7	40	101	.271	.330	.475	.805	105
2005	29	MIN	372	63	100	24	1	14	56	23	7	34	65	.269	.337	.452	.788	106
2006	30	MIN	557	86	155	21	2	31	98	12	6	45	108	.278	.336	.490	.826	112
2007 ★	31	MIN	600	94	172	45	1	28	107	18	9	40	101	.287	.334	.505	.839	123
2008	32	LAA	551	85	153	37	2	21	78	19	5	50	108	.278	.344	.466	.810	111
2009 ★	33	LAA	451	74	135	26	1	22	90	18	4	47	92	.299	.366	.508	.873	128
2010 ★	34	LAA	573	76	161	36	0	23	90	9	12	61	106	.281	.354	.464	.819	126
2011	35	LAA	580	80	152	24	2	23	82	5	7	62	125	.262	.336	.429	.765	116
2012	36	LAA	534	81	167	24	1	16	92	9	1	38	133	.313	.365	.451	.817	129
2013 ★	37	DET	606	90	184	37	5	17	84	3	2	26	113	.304	.334	.465	.800	115
2014	38	DET	549	71	157	33	2	17	83	4	3	23	89	.286	.319	.446	.765	111
2015	39	MIN	224	30	58	10	0	8	36	1	2	19	40	.259	.317	.411	.728	101
19 Yrs	8560	1259	2385	486	39	339	1346	194	96	645	1676	.279	.333	.463	.797	111
162 Game Avg.	605	89	169	34	3	24	95	14	7	46	119	.279	.333	.463	.797	111
	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
MIN (12 yrs)	4716	702	1276	269	26	200	747	127	62	338	910	.271	.324	.466	.790	104
LAA (5 yrs)	2689	396	768	147	6	105	432	60	29	258	564	.286	.352	.462	.814	122
DET (2 yrs)	1155	161	341	70	7	34	167	7	5	49	202	.295	.327	.456	.783	113

Torii Hunter came into his power at age 25, while Cain appears to be getting his at age 29. However, that delay isn’t surprising when you remember that Lorenzo Cain only began playing baseball after getting cut from his high school basketball team at age 15. His late start on the diamond has slowed Cain’s development ever since.

Given that the similarly athletic Hunter continued to perform at the plate well into his 30’s, Kansas City Royals fans can hope Lorenzo Cain will age similarly.

If he continues to add power as he ages, Lorenzo Cain will live up to those Torii Hunter comparisons.

Next: Five Reasons Chris Young Can Continue To Dominate

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