Thus, I decided to apply my amateur eye—along with publicly-available analytical tools—to see if I could understand a bit about what’s happening to him at the plate.
Since Cain finished third in the 2015 American League MVP vote, opposing pitching staffs likely put some extra effort into adjusting their approach to him this season. Consequently, I decided to look at his heat map on Brooks Baseball to see if pitchers had changed their pitch location against him.
Bingo!
Here we see our first clue. Below are Cain’s 2015 heat map alongside his April 2016 map, which show the location of the pitches Cain faced each season (courtesy of Brooks Baseball):
[Note: These charts are from the catcher’s POV, so a right-handed hitter like Lorenzo Cain would bat from the left side of these charts.