Ervin Santana: Can We Trust Him in the Playoffs?
By Brad Kelly
Ervin Santana has had quite the interesting season, as it started off with him getting hit with an 80 game PED suspension. He would eventually return, and to his surprise the Twins would be in the midst of a playoff race.
The Twins have and will continue to rely on him to be the ace that they signed him to be, and over his last three starts he has does just that. These last three quality starts have come as a pleasant surprise as well, because they come on the heels of four absolutely terrible outings.
Throughout his career, fantasy owners would tell you that he has been inconsistent and prone to some pretty awful outings as he tends to lose his command and stuff all at once. But, when he is on, like he is right now, Santana has the raw stuff to dominate.
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What has caught my eye the most has been the K uptick that Santana has shown over these recent starts. He struck out 11 both outings against the Astros and followed that with a decent 6 K performance against the White Sox.
After his hellacious starts in August, Santana just looks sharper on the mound since September. His breaking stuff has been really effective as it has the snap and tilt that he needs in order to succeed. His walk rate has been consistent at about two a game, and his hits allowed per start has stayed at a modest six per nine.
If we were to look at his pitch usage charts, his recent success has been as result of him utilizing his slider more. In August, he depended more on his changeup, which was problematic, because it did not have the downward or fading motion that he needed.
Santana had decent success in July upon his return, because on his higher slider usage as well, so the correlation is pretty clear. Another interesting usage note is that Santana has seemed to completely scrap using his sinker, as its usage has dropped all the way to 0% for the month.
Like the problems with his changeup, one would think that Santana knew that his sinker was ineffective and hanging up in the zone, so once again owners can see that his tweaks in pitch usage may be the key to his recent run.
With the fantasy playoffs in full tilt across all formats, many owners could and should be looking at Santana has a potential addition as his recent surge should be taken advantage of. Over his last three starts he has not allowed more than 2 ER and has averaged at least 7 IP per start. Santana is in quite the groove and it can’t be ignored.
I would recommend owners to pick up Santana if they need to make changes to the backend of their rotation. I know that there have been a lot SP’s getting rocked lately, and Santana could step in and prove some stability and decent output. He has been prone to some blowups, but with the recent tweaks and success, he could be the answer.