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ANALYSIS: Matt Cain has not been overly impressive in his return from injury earlier in the season. He has a pedestrian 4.09 ERA that is really harmed by his alarming 1.64 HR/9 this season. Granted, he has pitched in only a small sample size of 22.0 innings this season, but fantasy owners are right to be skeptical of the right-hander.
There is a lot of reason to be optimistic on Cain bouncing back and being a potentially strong fantasy player this season. For one thing, he has a 14.3% HR/FB rate which would be the highest in his career. It is very unlikely that he will continue at this pace given his career track record of limiting the long ball (0.83 HR/9 and 7.5% HR/FB rate in career). He also pitches in what was considered last season to be the toughest ball park to hit home runs in based on park factors. The home runs will definitely go down as he throws more innings. His SIERA (Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average is an run estimator based on batted ball statistics) this season of 3.86 indicates that he should be much better than his current 4.09 ERA would have you believe.
The biggest risk that fantasy owners take on at this point with Matt Cain is the possibility that he will be injured again during this season. But taking the risk and adding Cain could provide fantasy owners with a potential plus arm.
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