Robinson Canó has been one of baseball’s best hitters so far in 2020

Coming off a 2019 season that saw him hit just .256/.307/.428, Robinson Canó has rebounded incredibly well with his performance at the plate early in the shortened 2020 season. Despite having spent ten days on the injured list during this season, Canó has been one of the best hitters in baseball.

Last year’s line at the plate was good for just a 93 wRC+, the first time Canó dipped below 100 since his 2008 season—the only other season in which he didn’t clear 100. Considering he had a career .304/.355/.493 line going into that season, it was a pretty significant step down, even for his age-36 season. He might have fared better if the Mets had simply let a quad injury early in the 2019 season fully heal before sending him right back into game action only to see him leave after a few innings with the same injury.

This year, though, Canó has been locked in aside from the 1-for-12 stretch through his first four games of the season. In the eleven games since that start—seven of which came right before his stint on the injured list and four of which have come since he returned—Canó has hit .513/.535/.897 with all four of his home runs. That gives him a .412/.446/.706 line with a 211 wRC+ that ranks third in all of baseball among hitters who have made at least 50 plate appearances this year.

Fifteen games is hardly a large sample size, but given the brevity of the 2020 season, it’s a season defined by small sample size. But his swing looks great, the results have been there, and the fact that the National League has the designated hitter this year helps significantly for a player coming off an injury, especially one in his late-30s.

If the Mets are going to bounce back from their slow start to this season to eventually make the playoffs, they’d benefit greatly from Canó producing like his pre-2019 self for the remainder of the season. And while he doesn’t have to be the best hitter on the team, he has been exactly that thus far.