Don’t Worry about Carlos Santana
Few players are able to immediately dominate once promoted to the majors. Last season, Carlos Santana was the exception. In 192 plate appearances, Santana terrorized opposing pitchers, posting a .401 OBP with a 19.3% walk rate. He was one of the biggest breakout candidates entering 2011. Though Santana isn’t playing poorly, his current season might be seen as somewhat of a disappointment. That, however, would be a foolish assumption. Despite some struggles on the surface, Carlos Santana is still well on his way to becoming the future star that everyone expected.
Santana’s phenomenal rookie season caused many analysts to increase their expectations for the 25-year-old catcher entering 2011. While Santana proved he was capable of handling the majors last season, he received less than 200 plate appearances in his rookie season — hardly enough time for pitchers to properly adjust to him. Since expectations were set so high, Santana’s current slash line of .242/.350/.444 may be viewed as a sophomore slump.
Santana’s slash line may be considered low for a player of his caliber, but he’s still managed to perform better than most catchers this season. In 2011, catchers have hit only .245/.315/.388, making Santana’s line look much better once compared to his competition. Still, Santana was expected to join the elite ranks of catchers this season. While he may eventually get there, he has some work to do before he’s reached the Brian McCann/Joe Mauer level of excellence.
While his strong walk rate helps compensate for a low average, Santana may struggle to reach the heights of the .401 OBP he posted in his rookie season. While his .271 BABIP seems low, it’s in line with his performance from last season. He may not hit for strong averages, but he’s more than capable of overcoming those issues.
A look at Santana’s splits reveals one area where Santana will need to improve in order to be considered an elite catcher. While Santana has slugged 17 of his 20 home runs versus right-handed pitchers this season, he’s managed only a .220 batting average against them. While luck could play a role in his struggles — he currently owns a .240 BABIP versus righties — his 23.3% strikeout rate against righties has been a huge factor as well. Santana has shown the ability to crush right-handed pitching when he makes contact, but he could be scary-good if he finds a way to cut down on the strikeouts.
While his struggles against righties are legitimate, it’s tough to really criticize Santana’s performance this season. With one month remaining, Santana has already managed nearly a three win season. Expectations for Santana may have been extremely high heading into the season, but it’s important to remember just how inexperienced he was last year. As we’ve seen in recent seasons, not all future stars are capable of dominating immediately upon reaching the majors. Everybody can’t be Buster Posey. As he’s shown this season, Santana still has the tools to become one of the best catchers in the major leagues. He may not be there quite yet, but his current season is far from a sophomore slump.
Chris is a blogger for CBSSports.com. He has also contributed to Sports on Earth, the 2013 Hard Ball Times Baseball Annual, ESPN, FanGraphs and RotoGraphs. He tries to be funny on twitter @Chris_Cwik.
I like how guy who put up a .400+ OBP last year is a breakout “candidate’. What’s he going to break out to, a .500 OBP?
Given Santana had less than 200 MLB PAs last year, I assume “breakout” refers to a full season of work at that level of production (i.e. a 6 WAR season).
So, breakout means “continue to play at his established level of performance”?
How’s that for redefining words?
One thing many people fail to recognize with Santana is how much time he has spent at 1B (roughly 400 innings, or 1/3 of his playing time). If my understanding of WAR is correct and positional adjustments are prorated for guys who play multiple positions, this may underscore how value Santana could be producing at the level he is now. I haven’t run the positional adjustments to see what his WAR would be if he had made only a handful of starts at 1B, but I would suspect it would push him well over the 3 WAR barrier to date. Given Matt LaPorta’s terminal case of sucking, I hope the Indians don’t do something crazy like move Santana out from behind the plate permanently.
But he also has 100 more PA than the 2nd-place catcher. So, the 1B time is getting him to the plate more, arguably canceling out any lost value from positional adjustment.
Betting that Posey is as good as his rookie numbers could just as easily be a a fools errand. Posey’s wOBA numbers by month
May 2010 .510(12 PA)
June 2010 .279
July 2010 .488
Aug 2010 .325
Sept 2010 .343
Mar 2011 .334
Apr 2011 .344
I don’t think he has reached his ceiling by any means, but his numbers last year were certainly inflated by an insane July last year with a .417/.466/.699 line and 7 HR
July is just an arbitrary period of time. If his hot streak had happened from July 15th to August 15th, people wouldn’t be making the judgement that the .488 wOBA is an aberration. If he had put up a .410 wOBA in each July and August, it would make him look more consistent but still be the exact same thing.
Right it is the fact that it was one hot streak that accounted for a huge portion of his production that make me doubt his leveling off around 380+wOBA
First of all, are there really people who were ‘worried’ about Carlos Santana? His 2011 line is excellent for a catcher, especially in the current run environment. What the heck were people expecting?
If he had a .300 BABIP, his line would be .264/.368/.474/.842 right now. His BABIP’s in the minors: .310 in rookie ball, .242 in A-ball, .304 in AA, .336 in AAA.
And Santana isn’t in the elite ranks of catcher? His career 124 wRC+ is better than every active catcher except Joe Mauer ($184M) and Mike Napoli (not really a catcher). He’s been better than McCann, V-Mart, Posey, Posada, Avila, Martin, etc.
Aren’t BABIP results in the minors to be discounted? I thought that those numbers are generally dismmised
Dismissed? No. Discounted? Sure. In the high minors, particularly AAA, you can generally take BABIP numbers as fairly ballpark (the LD and GB rates you get for those levels are accurate enough that you can adjust for luck), but anything below AA needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt. In particular, the FSL is notorious for having miserable ball in play data (LD rates in particular are routinely under reported there for no apparent reason).
Maybe it’s pitchers adjusting to him, but his K% and BB% are going the wrong way.
Meh, he’s no Casey Blake.
I like how the “don’t worry about Santana” post came after his bat woke up for an extended period of time.
Write this when he’s slumping for a while, it has legs. Write it now, the horse is out of the barn. We can’t get him cheap now in our leagues, but 4-6 weeks ago, it was possible.
I would so rather have Casey “Good Guy” Blake
Yes. For a sophomore catcher with the upside that he has, I love the fact that this season is considered somewhat of a disappointment. And he’s not even having that bad of a year. He will join the top tier soon enough.
The main worry about Santana is he isn’t a good catcher or 1st baseman. It may just be about learning the position, 1b particularly, but he doesn’t seem to handle pitchers as well as Marson does either.
Even so his future has a lot more hope than worry going on. Fingers crossed, the Indians could use some good fortune.