Players · C · Pitcher · 2017 regular season

Matt Cain

San Francisco Giants National League West

Age: 33
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 3"
Weight: 230 lb
Number: #18

Born: October 1, 1984 in Dothan, AL, United States
MLB debut: August 29, 2005

dbWAR: 28.6
IP: 124.1
ERA: 5.43
FIP: 5.06
K/9: 5.4
FIP−: 116

Matt Cain was a starting pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. In 2017 he struck out 75 batters over 124.1 innings across 27 appearances, 23 of them starts, going 3-11. His ERA of 5.43 was 24.6% higher than the league average of 4.36 — 13th of 18 on his team, and 419th of 527 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 5.06 FIP suggests he pitched better than his ERA shows. He missed bats on 12.5% of swings (5.4% of every pitch he threw), walked 8.6% of the batters he faced and struck out 13.2%. His 0.3 dbWAR is built from that FIP rather than runs allowed, so it credits him for what he controls and not for the defence behind him.

League context

Percentile among qualified pitchers, 2017 regular season.

FIP5.06

K/95.4

WHIP1.66

WAR.3

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2017	SF	27	23	124.1	3	11	157	75	75	49	5.43	5.06	1.66	5.4	3.5	125	116	0.3
2016	SF	21	17	89.1	4	8	103	56	72	32	5.64	5.14	1.51	7.3	3.2	135	123	-0.0
2015	SF	13	11	60.2	2	4	71	39	41	20	5.79	5.54	1.50	6.1	3.0	146	140	-0.6
2014	SF	15	15	90.1	2	7	81	42	70	32	4.18	4.58	1.25	7.0	3.2	112	122	0.1
2013	SF	30	30	184.1	8	10	158	82	158	55	4.00	3.93	1.16	7.7	2.7	104	102	1.8
2012	SF	32	32	219.1	16	5	177	68	193	51	2.79	3.40	1.04	7.9	2.1	70	85	3.7
2011	SF	33	33	221.2	12	11	177	71	179	63	2.88	2.91	1.08	7.3	2.6	73	74	4.9
2010	SF	33	33	223.1	13	11	181	78	177	61	3.14	3.65	1.08	7.1	2.5	77	89	3.6
2009	SF	33	33	217.2	14	8	184	70	171	73	2.89	3.89	1.18	7.1	3.0	67	90	3.7
2008	SF	34	34	217.2	8	14	206	91	186	91	3.76	3.91	1.36	7.7	3.8	87	90	3.6
2007	SF	32	32	200.0	7	16	173	81	163	79	3.65	3.78	1.26	7.3	3.6	81	84	3.9
2006	SF	32	31	190.2	13	12	157	88	179	87	4.15	3.96	1.28	8.4	4.1	92	87	3.4
2005	SF	7	7	46.1	2	1	24	12	30	19	2.33	4.08	0.93	5.8	3.7	54	95	0.6

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2017	SF	20	34	5	0	2	0	20	.156	.156	.219	.063	.417	0.0%	58.8%	.161	-4.6	-12	0.1
2016	SF	15	28	2	1	5	0	17	.074	.074	.222	.148	.111	0.0%	60.7%	.124	-4.4	-34	-0.0
2015	SF	11	20	0	0	1	0	9	.000	.000	.000	.000	.000	0.0%	45.0%	.000	-5.0	-129	-0.3
2014	SF	14	30	4	0	0	2	13	.148	.233	.148	.000	.286	6.7%	43.3%	.191	-2.8	13	0.1
2013	SF	29	64	5	0	2	2	22	.096	.130	.096	.000	.167	3.1%	34.4%	.109	-10.2	-48	-0.2
2012	SF	33	84	13	1	6	2	33	.176	.197	.243	.068	.300	2.4%	39.3%	.197	-8.1	17	0.3
2011	SF	33	78	9	1	6	3	30	.136	.171	.197	.061	.222	3.8%	38.5%	.169	-9.1	-5	0.0
2010	SF	33	77	7	0	1	1	33	.106	.119	.121	.015	.212	1.3%	42.9%	.110	-13.1	-49	-0.3
2009	SF	31	73	9	0	3	4	31	.150	.203	.217	.067	.310	5.5%	42.5%	.194	-8.2	6	0.2
2008	SF	32	72	7	2	3	4	34	.113	.167	.226	.113	.192	5.6%	47.2%	.181	-9.0	-4	0.1
2007	SF	30	66	4	2	4	2	32	.070	.102	.175	.105	.087	3.0%	48.5%	.124	-11.7	-44	-0.2
2006	SF	30	66	8	0	1	1	28	.140	.155	.175	.035	.276	1.5%	42.4%	.149	-10.4	-26	-0.1
2005	SF	7	16	1	0	0	0	6	.067	.067	.133	.067	.111	0.0%	37.5%	.085	-3.2	-68	-0.1

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason pitching

Postseason Matt Cain's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	GS	IP	W	L	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2012 Post	SF	Postseason total	5	5	30.0	2	2	27	12	6	7	20	3.60	1.13	6.0
		NLDS	2	2	10.2	1	1	11	6	3	3	9	5.06	1.31	7.6
		NLCS	2	2	12.1	1	1	11	3	1	2	6	2.19	1.05	4.4
		World Series	1	1	7.0	0	0	5	3	2	2	5	3.86	1.00	6.4
2010 Post	SF	Postseason total	3	3	21.1	2	0	13	0	0	7	13	0.00	0.94	5.5
		NLDS	1	1	6.2	0	0	7	0	0	2	6	0.00	1.35	8.1
		NLCS	1	1	7.0	1	0	2	0	0	3	5	0.00	0.71	6.4
		World Series	1	1	7.2	1	0	4	0	0	2	2	0.00	0.78	2.3
Career		Postseason total · 2 Octobers	8	8	51.1	4	2	40	12	6	14	33	2.10	1.05	5.8

Postseason batting

Postseason Matt Cain's postseason batting, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	PA	AB	H	RBI	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2012 Post	SF	Postseason total	4	10	9	2	1	5	.222	.222	.222	.444
		NLDS	2	4	4	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000
		NLCS	2	6	5	2	1	3	.400	.400	.400	.800
2010 Post	SF	Postseason total	3	7	7	2	1	4	.286	.286	.286	.571
		NLDS	1	2	2	1	1	1	.500	.500	.500	1.000
		NLCS	1	2	2	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000
		World Series	1	3	3	1	0	1	.333	.333	.333	.667
Career		Postseason total · 2 Octobers	7	17	16	4	2	9	.250	.250	.250	.500

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How left- and right-handed hitters fare against him.

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2017. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHB	252	218	68	6	29	32	.312	.390	.459	.366	12.7%
vs RHB	316	289	89	12	20	43	.308	.351	.491	.357	13.6%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2017.

Loading 14 batted balls…

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2017.

Below averageLeague averageAbove average

Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .254.

Pitch sequencing

What Matt Cain throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

Four-seamCurveballSinkerChangeupSliderUnknown

Select a count to see exactly what Matt Cain throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.

Season


Four-Seam Fastball	34.9%	728	89.3	2,402	44.1%	11.4%	162	.340	.961
Curveball	22.9%	477	74.5	2,657	40.3%	16.9%	127	.228	.648
Sinker	19.7%	411	89.0	2,369	44.3%	10.4%	108	.370	.962
Changeup	10.8%	225	83.0	1,589	33.8%	9.7%	56	.268	.686
Slider	10.6%	220	83.1	2,432	37.7%	13.0%	53	.340	.853
Unknown	0.9%	18	42.4	1,105	38.9%	12.5%	3	—	—

Matt Cain's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters. BAA and OPS are what hitters did against each pitch, credited to the one that ended the plate appearance, and are left blank under 15 at-bats.

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Matt Cain

Similar players

Nearest 2017 seasons by command, run prevention and role, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Robert GsellmanNYM

ERA: 5.19
FIP: 4.89
SO: 82
WAR: 0.5

Very close

Martín PérezTEX

ERA: 4.82
FIP: 4.65
SO: 115
WAR: 1.9

Very close

Kyle GibsonMIN

ERA: 5.07
FIP: 4.85
SO: 121
WAR: 1.1

Lucas SimsATL

ERA: 5.62
FIP: 5.07
SO: 44
WAR: 0.1

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.