Santander drawing interest

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

Mancini being likely to leave is another reason Santander leaving is harder to replace. Now you're trying to replace two of your best hitters. 

Not that hard to do if the organization is developing players at a good rate.

[wildcard]

32 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

It could be Mountcastle...it could be Kjerstad.  It could be Nevin..it could be a MI that isn’t cutting it there, so they move them.  It could be someone who isn’t in the organization right now.

Lots of possibilities.

Kjerstad played every game in college in the outfield except 3.   He does not project as a 1B with what we know now.   Nevin has not shown the power for 1B yet and his fielding is questionable.   I want to follow him in this year and see if he develops.  Mountcastle is the hands down favor to replace Mancini at first from the in house candidates.

So is Mountcastle moves to first in 2022 then there is room in the outfield corners for Santander and Diaz.   Kjerstad probably not making the majors before mid 2022 or sometime in 2023.   

Santander is a FA after 2024 so the optimum time to trade him is sometime in 2023 unless the O's are blown away with an offer before that.  Maybe when Kjerstad is ready.    But all that depends on whether the O's are contending, who is playing well and what the O's can get in return.

So I see Santander being a productive member of the O's in 2021, 2022 and maybe some part of 2023.

[eddie83]

50 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

Mancini being likely to leave is another reason Santander leaving is harder to replace. Now you're trying to replace two of your best hitters. 

I don’t think Mancini plays into this at all. 
 

 

[Just Regular]

Leaving aside Santander as symbol of do Elias/Sig think the 2022 team is any good or not, just in a vacuum I think its worth it to see if he can consolidate his gains in the 1st half.    Five months of star slugger is better than one, and give the club a view of who the next Core One/Two/Three/Four have become in this layoff.

RBI's might not even be so expensive by his later arb years.

Bleday of course sure, everyone is always available, etc - that's like cloning Kjerstad and could be a 2022 contributor anyway.

[eddie83]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

He has been worth 1.2 wAR FOR HIS CAREER!!

A 1-2 WAR player is a middling at best player to me..now, I’m saying that looking at him as a starting player.  I think he’s a middling everyday guy.  Which btw, is a far better designation than he has had for his entire career thus far.

You could also frame it that he has been worth 3.1 WAR his last 2 seasons combined which add up to 130 games, basically one year. 
 

He is a 26 year old switch hitter with oppo pop and under team control for 4 years. 
 

Odds are he is JAG because most players never reach their ceiling. Clearly there is depth at corner OF but no Adley type on the way either. Who knows what he could bring but I would not be in any hurry to move him. No reason not to listen to trade proposals. 

[Sports Guy]

42 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Kjerstad played every game in college in the outfield except 3.   He does not project as a 1B with what we know now.   Nevin has not shown the power for 1B yet and his fielding is questionable.   I want to follow him in this year and see if he develops.  Mountcastle is the hands down favor to replace Mancini at first from the in house candidates.

So is Mountcastle moves to first in 2022 then there is room in the outfield corners for Santander and Diaz.   Kjerstad probably not making the majors before mid 2022 or sometime in 2023.   

Santander is a FA after 2024 so the optimum time to trade him is sometime in 2023 unless the O's are blown away with an offer before that.  Maybe when Kjerstad is ready.    But all that depends on whether the O's are contending, who is playing well and what the O's can get in return.

So I see Santander being a productive member of the O's in 2021, 2022 and maybe some part of 2023.

Mountcastle is the most likely.  You act and talk like it’s a fact and you were surprised that he was going to be the LFer to start the year.  I don’t see how.  The writing has been on the wall for a year.  
 

What happens long term has as much to do with everyone else as it does Mountcastle.  
 

I think you are going to be upset about Santander.  You should start bracing yourself now.

[interloper]

Santander and Scott (in particular Scott) will probably be moved midseason. Santander move frees up some space for Diaz who should be ready for the bigs by the deadline (hopefully). Scott is just too tasty a piece of trade bait to not trade. Young lefty fireballer peaking right now with closer potential and years of control. Elias could get a huge return for him if he has a successful first half. 

[Sports Guy]

26 minutes ago, eddie83 said:

You could also frame it that he has been worth 3.1 WAR his last 2 seasons combined which add up to 130 games, basically one year. 
 

He is a 26 year old switch hitter with oppo pop and under team control for 4 years. 
 

Odds are he is JAG because most players never reach their ceiling. Clearly there is depth at corner OF but no Adley type on the way either. Who knows what he could bring but I would not be in any hurry to move him. No reason not to listen to trade proposals. 

Baseball reference’s WAR is much friendlier to Santander.  Fangraphs has him at 1.6 the last 2 years.

 

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, interloper said:

Santander and Scott (in particular Scott) will probably be moved midseason. Santander move frees up some space for Diaz who should be ready for the bigs by the deadline (hopefully). Scott is just too tasty a piece of trade bait to not trade. Young lefty fireballer peaking right now with closer potential and years of control. Elias could get a huge return for him if he has a successful first half. 

If you get really good value for Scott, by all means move him but iM not in a hurry to move him at all.

[Just Regular]

Yeah, I'm a career numbers guy generally, but Rule 5 picks shouldn't be measured by that yardstick too soon.

The sub-replacement level performance he was chosen to compile in 2017-2018 is a badge of honor with respect to the industry's assessment of his talent.   Hat tip also perhaps to the richness of Indians rosters Koby perhaps had a hand in assembling back in the day.

I mean he could still end up a mostly empty RBI guy like Renato, but I think this is what it looks like if your Rule 5 guy really starts to pan out.

2.33 years his junior, RMC has almost caught up to him in professional PA already.   They kind of hit me as bat first twins, except for of course the service time thing.  If I have to parse the 5/9ths of the early Adley Lineup Supporting Cast, I think RMC/Santander are the good ones, and Mancini/Hays/Diaz are the iffier ones.

[wildcard]

11 minutes ago, interloper said:

Santander and Scott (in particular Scott) will probably be moved midseason. Santander move frees up some space for Diaz who should be ready for the bigs by the deadline (hopefully). Scott is just too tasty a piece of trade bait to not trade. Young lefty fireballer peaking right now with closer potential and years of control. Elias could get a huge return for him if he has a successful first half. 

So Rutschman will be with the O's in 2022 and you don't think Elias will keep Scott and Santander to try to win?

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, wildcard said:

So Rutschman will be with the O's in 2022 and you don't think Elias will keep Scott and Santander to try to win?

I don't think Elias is planning on making the playoffs in 2022.

[interloper]

1 minute ago, wildcard said:

So Rutschman will be with the O's in 2022 and you don't think Elias will keep Scott and Santander to try to win?

He might! But probably not? Especially not if he can get what he perceives to be a legit SP or SS which that Rutschman team would need far more than a reliever and a RFer. 

[Frobby]

6 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

He has been worth a total of 1.2 fWAR in his entire career.  His career wRC+ is 95.

He’s an average-ish defensive player.

His career OBp is 292, with the highest being 315 in any season.

His Ba is usually around 260.

He has never played more than 93 ML games.

His slugging is where his value lies.  In 2019, amongst players with 300 or more at bats, he was 101st in MLB in slugging.

Last year, his slugging was 21st amongst players with 150 or more at bats.  He played 38 games.  That’s not much a sample size going forward.

He isn’t likely to ever carry an OBP of higher than 330 and its more likely its closer to 300 than 330.  His slugging is where he can “make his money”.  Is he a 450-500 slugging guy or a 525+ guy?

My guess is he will be an 800ish OPs guy, give or take 20 points.   In 2019, there were 114 players who had an 800 or better OPs who had at least 300 at bats.  13 of those players  had an OPS between 801-820 and there were 26 others in the 780-799 range.

For him to not be relatively easy to replace, his OBP would have to creep up into the 320-330 range, his slugging 500 or higher and he would have to continue to be a better defensive OFer than his career has suggested.  Oh and he actually has to stay on the field and be healthy.

I don’t think a .330 OBP, or even .320, is necessary to be considered a good hitter in this day and age.  .323 was the average for an OF last year, and that’s with an average SLG of .420.   

I agree Santander’s career .292 OBP isn’t good.    If he can put up .315 like he did last year, though, he supplies enough power to be a good contributor.  

As to your tally of how many players were in the .800+ or .780-.800+ range, I think we draw different conclusions from that data.   140 players over .780 is fewer than 5 per team.   So I don’t see that as easy to replace.    

For me the big issue is how good Santander will turn out to be.   Is he a .759 OPS guy like his career average?  A .773 guy like in 2019?   An .807 guy like in 2019-20 combined?   An .890 guy like in 2020?    Honestly, I don’t know.    The projections I’ve seen from ZiPS, Steamer, Marcel etc. have him in the .769 - .797 range.     I’d be a little disappointed with that, but those are probably realistic guesses.    



 

[Sports Guy]

Why are we even talking about his OPS in 38 games in 2020.