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— ANAHEIM, Calif, - Ask a New York Yankees All-Star (and there are a bunch of them) about Robinson Cano, and each has a different way of saying pretty much the same thing.
"It's so funny," Nick Swisher says. "It's almost like Robinson Cano isn't as big a name as it should be. It should be well-, well-known. A guy like that, having such a tremendous year... I've seen it first-hand. For the first month, month-and-a-half, I was hitting right behind him. To see the things that he's done...it's been impressive. He's a machine."
"He makes the game look easy," says Andy Pettitte. "He really does. He's just a great player. He brings a lot of energy to the park every day; he's always smiling. There's no doubt; He's got it all. He hits for average. He's got a lot of power. He plays great defense. He's got great range. He's not quite as fast as some players, but other than that, he's a complete player.''
"His best skill," says Derek Jeter, "is he has fun. He enjoys himself; that's why he plays so well. He plays it like a game, like how you're supposed to play. He plays hard, but he always has fun. No question, that helps when you're playing in New York. If you're not enjoying yourself, it's impossible to play well."
And from Alex Rodriguez: "Robinson Cano is a fantastic player. He has to be in the MVP talks for me. It's unfortunate that some of you (media members) aren't in New York, and you don't get to see how great this kid is. What most people talk about is his hitting skill, his power. But his work ethic is off the charts. He is an incredible defensive player. Most people don't know that. He's as good as it gets.
"He's a Gold Glove winner for me. He has the most accurate arm I've ever seen. I'm the biggest Roberto Alomar fan you'll ever find. I think Robbie Alomar is the best second baseman of all time. But (Cano's) arm is so accurate and so strong. The sky is the limit for him."
The rest of the players' fraternity agrees with Cano's teammates. In the players' All-Star voting, Cano received exactly 700 votes — 401 more than runner-up Dustin Pedroia.
Yes, you probably knew Cano was really good before, but now you know better. There's nothing at all wrong with what Cano did in 2009 — a true breakout year in every sense of the word, complete with .320 batting average 25 homers and 85 RBI. But at 27, and in his sixth full big-league season, he has taken it to another level.
Cano arrives here in the Top 10 in the American League in six vital offensive categories — hits (third), batting average (fifth), runs (5th), OPS (7th) slugging percentage (8th), RBI (10th). And he's leading the first-place Yankees — the team with the best record in baseball — in four of those categories, a couple by wide margins.
His .336 batting average is 27 points higher than anybody else in the Yankees lineup. His .944 OPS (on-base + slugging percentages) is 43 points better than any teammate. He's slugging .556, leads the team with 23 doubles, and he's second in runs (61), home runs (16) and on-base percentage (.389).
You can make a case for Detroit's Miguel Cabrera, Texas' Josh Hamilton and Minnesota's Justin Morneau (though he's idled by concussion issues), but that's about the extent of Cano's AL MVP competition at this point.
In fact, Cano has been so valuable to the Yankees' cause, they strongly encouraged him not to participate in Monday's Home Run Derby because of what manager Joe Girardi called 'back issues'.
"From a health standpoint, our feelings were, we didn't think it would be beneficial for him to participate," Girardi said. "He sat (out) a game last week. I thought his back needed a rest."
Rodriguez has a far-better way of expressing Cano's importance:
"Ten years ago, I was probably front-and-center here (at the All-Star Game), but the game is changing,'' Rodriguez said. "You have players like Joe Mauer, Evan Longoria, Robinson Cano, Dustin Pedroia ... they're the face of our game now. I'm going to be a fan of the game forever, and when you have our game in the hands of guys like these, I think it's in good hands.''
But even as that changing of the guard occurs, Cano still talks as if he's the pupil, not the mentor.
Ask him who his favorite player is to watch, and he'll smile and say, "me." Then just as quickly, he says through a smile, "no, I'm just kidding."
Ask him what it's been like to develop amid Hall of Fame teammates, he says: "I love to be here. I always say, thank God I came to the Yankees. If you look around the whole lineup, everybody is a superstar. You can follow any one of them — how they do it, how they stay so consistent through the years, with great numbers. They've made me a better player."
On Tuesday night, Cano will hit eighth in a very-deep American League lineup — so deep that the 7-8-9 combination of Mauer, Cano and Carl Crawford could be hitting at the top of the lineup instead. But when announcing his lineup, Girardi said he felt Jeter has earned the right to hit second as he approaches 3,000 hits in a Hall of Fame career.
No problem, Cano says — even as his stature in the game never has been bigger.
"It's a great lineup," Cano said. "When you look around, you say, 'I want to be like them'. Everybody would like to do what these guys have done."
