Bullish on Carlos Santana

Just moments ago, Howard put on his eviscerating goggles and made his best shot at informing us why we should all be thwarted in Carlos Santana this season. I see this perspective, I really do. A casual glance at his counting stats doesn`t stir up images of Mike Piazza nor do they urge much trust in Santana going forward. But I mean the generation of the grousing about Santana is wrapped up in expectations of what sort of player people thought he would be rather than the one that he ought to be.

2010 was widely considered to be a fairly big success for Carlos Santana, 25, and people had general expectations that what he did in his brief tenure in the majors would be repeatable over the course of the flavour in 2011. Should he do so, it would cause him an awfully valuable commodity at a relatively thin position and his high draft position reflected as much. We`re only roughly 60 plate appearances ahead of his execution in 2010 (at the sentence this was composed), and the equivalence is quite interesting:

2010: 46 games, 192 PA, .260/.401/.467, 6 HR, 22 RBI, 23 R

2011: 59 games, 249 PA, .223/.353/.386, 7 HR, 26 RBI, 29 R

So practically speaking, his production isn`t a country mile from what he demonstrated in 2010 in price of home runs, RBI and runs. The big changes are of form in that triple slash line, lowlighted by the batting average, which is adequate to produce most standard format managers pretty irritated. His step is to hit 18 home runs, drive in 66, and score 74 runs. Interestingly, in November, ZiPS predicted 18 home runs, 77 RBI, and 77 runs. So were we simply expecting too often from the young backstop? Hard to say, but again, I reckon there`s a chasm between the player that Carlos Santana ought to be and what owners thought he should be.

Baseball America rated Santana as the #10 prospect in all of baseball headed into the 2010 season and he forced Cleveland`s hand by posting a .316/.447/.597 line with 13 home runs and 51 RBI in just 57 games at Columbus. But on his minor league career, Santana has never been a Goliath home run hitter. In fact, in his minor league career, he averaged right around one home run per 30 plate appearances. As he got a little older, that number shrunk a bit, but if you drafted Santana expecting him to hit 30-plus home runs then you only had your mind in the clouds. Carlos Santana was typically pitched as a high contact, high OBP hitter with gap power, decent speed, and a plus home run hitter for his side and what you get is a high contact, high OBP, gap-hitting, plus-home run catcher.

But what of the giant rough skinned pachyderm in the room - that odious batting average? He`s currently carrying a .236 BABIP and his expected BABIP is an even .250, so while he has perhaps not gotten the gain of a lucky hop or two, it isn`t terribly significant. His hit trajectory this class is downright head-scratching, with his infield flies almost doubling over last season from 11.1% to 20.3% (third highest in all of baseball). In many ways, he barely resembles the 2011 Santana relative to his hit trajectory, with far more ground balls and far fewer line drives this season overall. But while the way the egg is going seems to get changed, he`s swinging and missing less this season (6.5% vs. 8.7% SwStr%), swinging at fewer pitches outside the strike zone (a stingy 16% O-Swing%) and overall, making contact with a higher share of pitches compared to 2011. So why, oh why the terrible batting average?

Here`s the trouble with Santana: we don`t love what a good batting average looks like for Carlos Santana. Yes you can call and cry that you drafted him to hit .300, but consider that Carlos Santana has fewer than 450 plate appearances in his major league career. Based on the heavy influence by Pizza Cutter here on Fangraphs, we recognise that batting average doesn`t even stabilize after 650 plate appearances. The K rate, walk rate, HR rate, OBP all are pretty reliable at this point - but those aren`t the things we`re very concerned with on Santana right now. The fact is, we want more information before we can call Carlos Santana a batting average bust (Pizza Cutter hypothesizes that batting average may stabilize somewhere around 1000 plate appearances).

That Carlos Santana still has some influence to do shouldn`t surprise you. He`s young, relatively inexperienced, and even learning. And it turns out, from a fan perspective, we`re still learning who Carlos Santana is too. With every plate appearance we get a larger vat of data sludge to dig at, and the larger the vat, the nearer we`re leaving to do to understanding what sort of major league hitter he will be going forward. But there`s little argument that he`s one of the most talented catchers in the conference and he has the line to be thrust at the dish. The fact is that right now, he`s producing home runs, RBI, and runs inside a rate of what you should reasonably expect, and he really hasn`t even begun to warm up. That`s a musician that ought to pique your interest.

Sure, make all the comparisons to guys like John Horse and Miguel Olivo, and others of similar ilk. It`s what we do when you need to scream "you`re a bum" from the stands but all we possess is the flashing cursor of a computer screen to see at. But stand back and use objectivity when considering who will be a better producing catcher for the rest of the season, and you`ll probably still have that Carlos Santana is the more gifted and unique player at his position. It`s my expectation that Santana`s production will increase across the table as the pendulum swings towards the participant we saw last season, and while what we`re left with may not be what you expected from Carlos Santana, he`s likely to give a moment half as well as any other catcher in the league.