Welcome to 2014: Carlos Santana
Jul 27, 2014; Kansas City, MO, USA; Cleveland Indians first basemen Carlos Santana (41) hits a two run home run against the Kansas City Royals during the ninth inning at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports
One of my good friends who finds diamonds in the rough years before the general baseball public is aware of their name has always loved Carlos Santana as a hitter. In fact, he tries to draft him every single year, and he is willing to overpay by quite a bit.
To give my friend a little more credit because everyone would want to own Carlos Santana, he told me about Derek Norris in 2010 when he was a Nationals prospect and he used to always own Edwin Encarnacion because of his massive power potential. Of course, he stopped owning Encarnacion after 2011, and then Encarnacion proceeded to hit 42 homers in 2012.
The point is that my friend tends to have an excellent eye for projecting hitters, and Carlos Santana is maybe his all-time favorite (even though Santana was a highly touted prospect).
My friend loves Santana for his hit tool, power, and elite plate discipline. While Carlos Santana of the Cleveland Indians has flashed some power this year, he started off really, really slow.
Up through the end of May, Carlos Santana posted a batting average that would make B.J. Upton sick to his stomach. Santana slashed a putrid .157/.327/.301, but the underlying numbers tell the story on how incredibly unlucky he was. The C/1B/3B/DH had an unsustainably low BABIP of .177, while also sporting a phenomenal 19.5% walk rate.
It was actually incredible how poor Santana was performing for the first two months of the season, but his bad luck was borderline incomprehensible. To put the bad luck in a movie perspective, Carlos Santana’s luck was comparable to Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption getting a double life sentence for two murders he did not commit.
Disclaimer: I will not include any spoilers for anyone who has not seen the greatest movie of all time.
Since then, Carlos Santana has been hard at work making his fantasy owners proud. He has crushed 14 homers since June 7th while improving his slash line over that period to an MVP-level .311/.421/.622.
For the majority of you in weekly head-to-head leagues, Carlos Santana was “Supernatural” this week by almost single-handedly winning the offensive categories. He blasted six homers, scored eight runs, drove in ten, stole a bag, and hit .556. I can finally say The Carlos Santana Redemption happened, and he looks really “Smooth” ever since the Indians shifted him over to first base full time.