Celebrating Carlos Santana’s Season
In one of the most disappointing stories of the MLB season to date, Cleveland Indians’ catching phenom was put on the 15-day DL with a hyperextended knee and a high-grade LCL sprain. Santana will almost certainly miss a significant amount of time, if not the rest of the season, as high-grade LCL sprains can take up to 12 weeks to heal, and the Indians have no reason to rush Santana back to action given their spot in the cellar of the AL Central.
Even though it has been shortened or even prematurely ended, Carlos Santana’s 2010 season deserves celebration. Santana has been everything we though Matt Wieters would be, producing at a high level both at the plate and behind it. His .383 wOBA leads all AL catchers with at least 150 plate appearances. Putting up that kind of production at catcher is quite remarkable; in under 200 plate appearances prior to his injury, Santana managed 2.0 WAR. He has thrown out 12 of 34 (35%) of baserunners, too. Santana has brought the total package this season.
Of course, crazy things can happen in short samples. What Santana has shown so far, however, has been mastery of the game of strike zone and solid power. Santana’s 19.3% walk rate is easily tops in the majors amongst players with at least 150 PAs, 1.7 points above second place Jason Giambi. His 19.3% strikeout rate is below the league average. That means Santana makes a good amount of contact, and when he does make contact, he makes things happen. His .207 ISO (13 2B, 6 HR) is 141% of league average. The only thing preventing Santana’s wOBA from topping the .400 mark is a .277 BABIP. If that goes up and the peripheral stats remain – certainly not a lock, given the small sample, but a possibility given Santana’s pedigree – we could be looking at one of the best players in Major League Baseball.
This season was only a taste of how good Carlos Santana can be. Hopefully he recovers quickly and can get back to doing what he’s done in 2010, not only for the Cleveland Indians and their fans, but for Major League Baseball as well.
Jack Moore's work can be seen at VICE Sports and anywhere else you're willing to pay him to write. Buy his e-book.
K% and BB% are some of the first stats to stabilize, and we know he has power–look at those minor league numbers–so I’m willing to go out on a limb and say he’s going to be a very good catcher for years to come. I can’t wait to see his first full season next year.
Casey effin Blake.
Too soon.
Ned Colletti is silently pumping his fist under the table. The weird thing is he hasn’t heard about Santana getting injured yet.
I partially tore the LCL in my left knee during a track meet in high school (triple jump if anyone cares). It didn’t require surgery, but I was on crutches for 3 weeks, had to wear a knee brace for about 6 weeks, and had pretty intense physical therapy for (IIRC) 10 weeks. Once I was cleared to get back to running and jumping, I could run pretty well and jumping didn’t hurt during the take-off, but landing was an absolute bitch. “Absolute bitch” is a technical term. Overall, it was about 16-18 weeks before I really felt comfortable squatting or landing my jumps. I was 16 years old and obviously not a high level athlete like Santana, so if it really is just a serious sprain and not a complete tear, I don’t think it should drastically affect his ability next year or beyond. Obviously I’m not a doctor, but if one man’s experience is any indication (SSS), this isn’t nearly as bad as it looked on the replay.
On the season Carlos Santana has drawn 37 unintentional BB’s and struck out 29 times. Resulting in a BB/K ratio of 1.28. How then does he have identical BB% and K%? Is K% based on ABs while BB% is based on PAs? This is the only conclusion I can come up with, but even so I find it confusing. Looking at those percentages you would assume Santana had walked and struckout an equal number of times, while he has actually walked more than he has struckout. Sorry to nitpick, it was a great piece, but the way the %’s are presented left me with some initial confusion.
K% is (K/AB); BB% is (BB/PA)
I agree I don’t see why this is the case (I suppose you need to take out sacrifices, but you can do that and still use PA).
I was excited to see him play after I read he hit 3 HRs in his first 3 ABs at AAA…he made a joke of minor league pitching and hardly skipped a beat after being call up. This is doom for a couple of my fantasy teams, where I’d stashed him since April.
LOL Is this article a joke? I guess some of that Strasburg -mania is rubbing off on other highly touted but ultimately flawed prospects.
How are Santana or Strasburg for that matter, “ultimately flawed” prospects?
150 at bats does not a career make. And while we are “celebrating” what about Buster Posey? He has outplayed Carlos Santana in nearly every aspect of the game even with Santana’s small sample size assistance.
Posey has 228 PAs while Santana has 192 PAs. Both are small samples.
We’re celebrating Santana because his season is likely over, and he’s had a fantastic rookie season.
Please keep your inane opinions on your pretentious Twitter account.
Posey plays in AAAA (NL).
NL West is the second best division in baseball after the AL East. And Buster Posey has been better in most category while being a year younger.
I’ll take these “ultimately flawed” prospects on my team any day, and you can have so-called “proven veterans” like Ted Lilly or Pudge Rodriguez. Deal?
At least Ted Lilly and Pudge Rodriguez are healthy. And Pudge is a Hall of Famer so yeah, I’d take them over a guy with 150 ABs to his name.
I really hope you run the Phillies, Braves, Nationals or Marlins.
No. He runs the Mets. 🙁
If Posey’s season were probably over, there would (rightfully) be an article to this effect in his name. As my username will indicate, I just hope that Santana can make a full recovery (physically, then in his peripherals) and have a more normal BABIP for a guy of his attributes.
And call me a homer, but how is Santana ultimately flawed? His only negative pitch value is on the changeup, and it’s -.05 per 100. His O-Swing is about 80% of the MLB average, his contact rate is above average, and then there’s the aforementioned line drives, the well above-average ISO, and the fact that the guy’s been doing this at every stop along the way.
Bob Feller’s a Hall of Famer. And he’s healthy. In the year 2010, I’ll take my chances with Santana.
While Santana has performed very well in the easily measured categories, the real concern was that his relative lack of experience at catcher and limited English would make it difficult to to call an effective game and work with the pitching staff.
Has anyone attempted to analyze his effects on team ERA or another related category ?
What’s the big deal with a .260 batting average anyway?
Santana is going to be much better than Posey in the future. Posey looks nice now because of a shiny .373 BABIP. How many hitters have sustained that over a career?
Santana has the higher ISO and higher BB rate. His K rate is worse but still above MLB average. Plus he’s a switch hitter and plays in the AL. His OBP is higher despite his BA being almost 100 points lower.
We’ll see.
Jussell Martin is still better. He’s a gamer.
You’ll lose weight fast, and for the week, you can eat as much of the foods listed in the program as you want. Although the diet is only for seven days (and …