Cain is Cain: Is this Lorenzo's ceiling?

It's not if, but how many times you heard someone make a gauche Old Testament pun in reference to Lorenzo Cain's last name during the Royals incredible postseason run.

He was so awesome it was hard not to blurt out the first thing that came to mind. For some people, actually it seemed like a lot people, "Cain is able" was that first thing. Whatever. Kinda low-hanging fruit, but some people like that sort of thing. No harm done. Dads and grandpas across the midwest had a great time with it.

But perhaps a useful statement can come from it, now that we've had time to process how incredibly Cain played throughout the 2014 season and especially in the postseason.

Cain is Cain.

It's tempting to start thinking about how the AL-champion Royals' number three hitter might develop power or a knack for talking walks. Maybe you started seeing vintage Torii Hunter or Andruw Jones, or maybe a Posnanski-inspired Devon White comparison popped into your head via Twitter. To be fair to Poz, he was only comparing defensive range, but further comparisons seemed to come naturally watching the late-blooming Cain this October.

Maybe he will develop some power or a better eye at the plate, but even if he doesn't, Lorenzo Cain doesn't need to improve to be one of the best outfielders in baseball. At their peaks, Hunter and White were five- to six-win players. Cain put up a 4.9 fWAR in 2014. He just needs to keep doing what he did in 2014, which might be enough to ask already without adding improved power and plate discipline to his offseason workload.

That's not to say that he can't repeat his .301/.339/.412 batting line, excellent baserunning, and notoriously good defense in 2015. He can. It'll be hard since he benefitted from a career-high -- and league-leading (minimum of 500 plate appearances) --.380 BABIP, but he could do it again. He's always been a high BABIP guy (.345 career average), but it seems as though he's probably due for a regression to the mean as far as his batting average is concerned. Of course, his on-base percentage will follow suit if he gets fewer hits as well. Maybe it'd be safer to expect a mashup of Cain's numbers from 2013 and 2014 for next year. Even if you mix in a healthy dose of regression, Cain is still right around a three-win player ... IF he stays healthy for 130-ish games again.

That will probably be the determining factor in how well Cain's follow up performance goes. Defense and speed don't go into slumps -- but they can go on the disabled list.

It's fun to daydream about Cain turning into an even better player, but if he's able to stay healthy next year, he'll probably be one of the top 20 outfielders in the game.