Top Prospects, part 6: Carlos Santana and recap
by APV on Dec 30, 2009 12:00 PM EST
in Analysis
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Print| 2010 | Top Prospects | 4 | Position Players |
| 1 | The Injured | 5 | Pitchers 1 |
| 2 | Fringe Position Players | 5.5 | Pitchers 2 |
| 3 | Fringe Pitchers | 6 | Santana & Recap |
In his six seasons with Cleveland, Casey Blake provided a tremendous amount of value as a minor league free agent. 820+ games, five different defensive positions (some better than others), more than 800 hits and an OPS+ of 108. According to FanGraphs data he produced something just north of 12 wins above replacement and something like $29 million dollars in excess value (estimated value-salary). He was a great pickup for a team decidedly lacking talent in the 2002 off-season.
And yet I think there is good reason to be optimistic that Carlos Santana, who the Indians acquired from the Dodgers when Blake was traded in late July, 2008, is going to provide Cleveland with a lot more value. Santana started off in the Dodgers system bouncing between the infield and the outfield. In 2007 they began transitioning Santana to catcher, a process that saw Santana struggle to a .688 OPS. He got off to a hot start in 2008, slugging .993 OPS in the California League (high-A) with Inland Empire. I have no idea how the Dodgers organization viewed him, but Cleveland clearly made a wise choice in asking for him in the Blake trade. Santana showed that his offensive numbers weren't a product of the California League's offensive environment by improving his season line in Kinston with a late-season OPS over 1.000. All in all, 2008 was a tremendously impressive season for the newly converted catcher.
But there were still questions about Santana coming into 2009. Was 2008 an offensive fluke? Could he really stick at catcher? Would he adjust to upper level pitching? All signs point to yes. Santana set career highs in HRs, BBs and had more walks than strikeouts. He has thrown out more than 30% of the runners who have attempted to run on him since joining the Indians organization. There are still questions about how he handles a pitching staff (there was a great article a while back from THT showing how CC Sabathia pitched differently with Jose Molina and Jorge Posada), but Akron's pitching staff was basically dominating in 2009 - with Santana behind the plate.
Santana should be in Cleveland sometime in 2010. And hopefully for many years to come.
| C Santana | PA | aOPS | XBH | ISO | BB% | K% | Net | ProS |
| 2006 | 391 | .661 | 28 | .154 | 13.6 | 15.9 | 17 | 5.02 |
| 2007 | 334 | .769 | 28 | .147 | 12.0 | 13.5 | 22 | 5.62 |
| 2008 | 568 | .959 | 65 | .242 | 15.7 | 15.0 | 71 | 8.78 |
| 2009 | 535 | 1.028 | 55 | .240 | 16.8 | 15.5 | 60 | 10.93 |
Another perspective (age, level, OPS):
- Player A: age 21 (A/A+) - .822, age 22 (A+) - .882, age 23 (AA) - .993
- Player B: age 20 (Rk/A+) - .815, age 21 (A) - .688, age 22 (A+/AA) - .999, age 23 (AA), .943
Player A is Victor Martinez, Player B is Santana...
A recap of this series below the fold:
The Series:
Pitching prospects ranked on 2009 Progress Score (2009 draftees excluded):
- 9.35 - H. Rondon
- 8.69 - C. Carrasco
- 7.67 - J. Todd
- 7.51 - J. Gomez
- 6.67 - A. Perez
- 5.36 - J. Knapp**
- 5.25 - T.J. House
- 5.17 - F. Jimenez
- 4.93 - J. Judy
- 4.87 - S. Barnes
- 4.82 - Z. Putnam
- 4.17 - P. Espino
- 4.06 - J. Tomlin
- 4.01 - B. Price
- 3.86 - M. Talbot
- 3.82 - Y. Pino
- 3.74 - E. Berger
- 3.46 - C. Cook
- 3.30 - M. Popham
- 3.03 - R. Edell
- 2.94 - B. Grening
- 2.76 - N. Hagadone**
- 2.60 - C.C. Lee
- 2.55 - C. Graham
- 2.15 - C. Jones
- 1.72 - F. Herrmann
- 1.63 - S. Wright
- 1.58 - C. Smith
- 1.45 - K. Landis
- 0.23 - N. Wagner
- 0.16 - K. De La Cruz** (5.96 in '08)
- -0.04 - R. Morris
- -0.76 - S. Frias**
- -1.47 - J. Mahalic** (4.85 in '08)
Hitting prospects ranked on 2009 Progress Score (2009 draftees included)
- 10.93 - C. Santana
- 9.08 - M. Brantley
- 7.78 - N. Weglarz
- 7.65 - L. Marson
- 7.52 - L. Chisenhall
- 7.40 - M. LaPorta
- 7.22 - C. Rivero
- 6.17 - W. Toregas
- 5.57 - J. Brown
- 5.38 - J. Drennen
- 5.15 - A. Abreu
- 4.82 - A. Abraham
- 4.62 - W. Hodges
- 4.48 - M. McBride
- 4.33 - C. Phelps
- 3.98 - J. Donald** (5.93 in '08)
- 3.97 - N. Romero
- 3.82 - B. Mills (5.55 in '08)
- 3.43 - N. Recknagel
- 3.27 - J. Rodriguez
- 3.00 - R. Rivas
- 2.75 - T. Fedroff
- 1.58 - J. Constanza
- 1.55 - D. Webb
The Indians have a very deep system. They have a few very high ceiling guys near the majors (Santana, Brantley, LaPorta, Weglarz, Rondon, Carrasco....), they have a few potential high ceiling guys a little further back (Chisenhall, Knapp, Hagadone, Perez), but more than anything they have depth. They have a huge number of guys who are good enough to potentially provide a surprise. Most of them won't. Most of them will make a marginal contribution to Cleveland if they make one at all. But not all of the impact players in MLB were viewed as impact prospects in the course of their development. If player development is about quality and quantity, the Indians appear at the moment (everyone except Adam Miller cross your fingers) to be well positioned for the near and mid-term future.
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Lofgren is 3.50 in 2009, with a career high of 5.60 in 2006. Talbot’s is 3.86 for 2009, but coming off three years in which his progress score was 8.62, 7.11 and 8.53. I don’t have Ambriz on hand, but I can look at it later.
I was really comfortable when I saw how the pitchers got differentiated with progress score. Of course I am likely just reinforcing my own biases. I still would like to go back and look retrospectively at some data to get a better perspective, but no time now or the near future for that.
There is no question that we’ve used developed Progress Score as a means of quantifying the way we already viewed prospects conceptually. It occasionally reveals something interesting, but mostly, it means we can just set up a spreadsheet to find the interesting guys rather than eyeballing the stats all the time.
I’ve enjoyed the series a lot, Adam.
Alright, here’s a nonsense little diversion:
Santana in 2009: 1.028 aOPS, 55 XBH, 16.8 BB%, 15.5 K%, .240 ISO
Cabrera in 2007: .788 aOPS, 36 XBH, 9.7 BB%, 18.2 K%, .137 ISO
Santana’s got about 50 more ABs.
I honestly thought that would be a fairer fight. Even with the jump to AAA considered for Astro, it’s Santana in a walk.
i wish asdrubal level-progressed more traditionally to be able to look at more often. that whole AAA, AA out of order thing messes things up a bit, no?
It does but not enough to make this a close call, I don’t think. Santana is also winning the defensive spectrum, slightly.
Santana is also winning the defensive spectrum, slightly
I think Asdrubal’s better defense probably makes this negligible, though, if not in favor of Asdrubal.
i would imagine asdrubal would have hit a ton at age 23 last year in double A. (i know that you, in particular, don’t need me to point this out.)
carlos will most likely begin his age 24 season at double A, and we don’t fault him for this fact because we understand he was a relatively late convert to catcher. at the same time, i’m concerned we’re not really tempering our optimism with respect to his offensive numbers, given age and level. ryan garko and jordan brown, by way of example, both opsed over 900 in AA at 23, and despite the fact that neither of them projected as catchers at that point, we don’t regard them as having v-mart-grade offensive upside either.
You really think he’ll start next year in Akron? I don’t. Have they said anything on this?
Without pulling all the numbers, I can say with confidence that Brown’s peripherals at AA were garbage in comparison with Santana’s. As for Garko, I’d have to look it up.
That said, I think you’re probably right. Santana might not be the total slam dunk we want but, out of a catcher, he’s about as close as you get.
Brandon Inge can. He can also kick a 30 yard field goal.
/Tired of hearing the same two Brandon Inge facts.
I believe the Indians have stated unequivocally that Carlos will start 2010 in Columbus. It would be considered a very bizarre choice across baseball to have the best hitter at any level repeat that level after a full season.
Keith Law has stated a few times that he should start the year in Cleveland or at least be up immediately.
What does Law base that on? It’s clear that Santana needs to fine tune parts of his defensive ability, and why would you want him doing that in the majors? There’s also the super 2 thing that might come into play (though I don’t know enough about that to say anything knowledgable on the matter).
I find it strange how Santana is viewed by a large part of the prospect analyzing community. Some see him as a bonafide top 10 prospect with the chance to be well above average in every aspect of the game, while other still think he will eventually change positions and downplay his bat for that reason (a point of view I’ve fought many times and strongly disagree with).
So at worst they think he is the current or near future Victor Martinez? I’ll take it.
Welcome back, Sandy! ATALECG...
I haven’t actually seen anyone suggest that Santana won’t stick behind the plate.
I think some prospect evaluators don’t see the harm in putting a near ready Major Leaguer on the big league roster slightly ahead of time in a season in which the team is not expected to compete.
Well, that statement generally comes from the lesser known evaluators such as Project Prospect and during forum discussion (on minorleagueball.com for example).
It comes from people who aren’t familiar with the details of the situation and have little inclination to consider any nuances. The batting stats say he should be in the majors, ergo, he should!
I think the only question about him behind the plate is his game-calling. That article I link to in the piece does a really good job of showing the difference a catcher can have on a pitcher and I think is really important, albeit largely intractable, part of catching. That said, if Akron’s collective pitching performance this season reflects Santana’s game-calling, he is headed in the right direction.
Just got done with the Posada/Molina article and before I finish reading Adam’s:
It would probably be nice to have Molina catching for our sinkerballers.
"I'm a baseball lifer. It's what I do." —Manny Acta
Two questions:
(1) Double asterisks indicate injured?
(2) Is a 5.0 progress score position player equivalent in value to a 5.0 pitcher?
Adding to Adam’s remark … the IP and GS parts of the formula are there to reward durability, and also so that if you have a reliever and a starter with the same basic rate stats, the starter ends up a few points higher. It should be very tough for a minor league reliever to score much over 5.0.
The overall scaling of pitchers compared to hitters is a question we should look at. It has been “eyeball adjusted” rather than precisely calibrated, and that may be the best we can do. My gut reaction is that if hitters and pitchers had equal attrition rates, then they would be equally valuable based on these scores, but we know that isn’t the case.
That is, we may say that their developmental “progress” has been set in a relatively equivalent way, we’ve tried to make it apples-to-apples in that sense. The pitcher, however, is significantly more likely to have a subsequent injury that is catastrophic to his value, this his overall value is less.
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