Promotion Watch: Carlos Santana
The first few weeks of April are usually pretty quiet for the game’s best prospects, but once May rolls around, teams will begin to call them up after effectively pushing the player’s free agency and arbitration clock back a year. It’s a sound strategy, because usually whatever is sacrificed during those first few weeks of the season (a win? maybe two at most?) is more than recouped in the extra couple of months of team control.
Ryan Braun surfaced in May of 2007 and became not just one of the best hitters in the league, but a savior for many fantasy owners. Evan Longoria did the same in 2008 and last year it was Andrew McCutchen. Finding that one big time prospect who goes from the bush leagues to fantasy megastar is never an easy task, but that’s what we’re here for.
Cleveland’s current catching situation features the tag team of Lou Marson and Mike Redmond, who’ve combined to reach base just four times in 27 plate appearances so far this season. At some point soon the Indians will summon uber-prospect Carlos Santana from Triple-A, who they comically acquired from the Dodgers for Casey Blake and whatever was left on his contract. Our own Marc Hulet ranked him as the seventh best prospect in the game, and the second best catching prospect overall.
In this young season, Santana has gone all Albert Pujols on the Triple-A International League. His triple-slash line sit at .450/.500/1.150, a year after posting a .418 wOBA in Double-A. Six of his nine hits have gone for extra bases (four homers, two doubles), and he’s come around to score seven times in five games. Santana has more walks (181) than strikeouts (170) since 2008, which backs up his reputation as having supreme knowledge of the strike zone. The defensive ability is there as well, so a position switch is not coming anytime soon.
The catching situation in fantasyland is pretty grim beyond the top six or eight players, but Santana could jump right into that mix once he’s promoted. Cleveland has to keep him in the minors roughly two weeks to push free agency back by a year, but about two months to push arbitration back. Count on a mid-to-late May call up.
Santana sports the power, the bat control, and the discipline to be an impact fantasy player once the Indians calls him up, and he’s clearly the best catcher in their organization at the moment. The fact that he plays such a scarce position makes him even more attractive to fantasy owners. If you’re willing to live with a dead spot on your bench for the next month or so, then by all means grab Santana, who’s owned in just 3% of Yahoo! leagues. If not, then make sure you keep an eye on Cleveland’s transactions, because chances are he’ll be an upgrade over your current catching situation or a fantastic piece of trade bait.
Mike writes about the Yankees at River Ave. Blues and baseball in general at CBS Sports.
Santana for Sean-Rod? 12t 6×6 (ops & k/9). Have Montero & filled with Suzuki while he’s out.
Would you say that Santana or Posey is the better fantasy catching prospect? Whom would you rather have assuming they come up the same day? I currently have Posada, is using a roster spot (short bench, keeper league) worth it on one of these two?
My current catcher is Soto, but I was thinking about picking up Santana once he gets the call. I don’t have room for two catchers on my roster, so do you think Santana would outperform Soto in a standard league with obp added in?
I have the same question and same situation as Mike and Rahul. I own Soto and Posey. So will Santana or Posey be the better fantasy option and is either going to outperform Soto this year (which is something that is seeming easy to do atm). I’m in a keeper league and thats why I’m willing to sacrifice a spot on getting a keeper quality catcher for the future. (with there being 8 keeper spots)
Offensively, Santana is the superior of Posey, and for fantasy purposes, isn’t that all we care about? Santana shouldn’t lose AB’s, because his defense is good enough.
Plus, Posey is a long shot to see the majors until rosters expand later this year.
Gotta disagree on the assessment that Posey won’t be up until rosters expand. The Giants are almost certainly only keeping him in the minors to delay his arbitration. While he can use a bit more work defensively, his bat is ready, and the Giants recognize that, hence him working at 1B in the Spring.
I’d expect Posey to be summoned around the same time as Santana this season. While I think both have similar offensive ceilings, though contributing in differenet ways, Santana is the better option this year. Posey will serve as the backup to Bengie and perhaps get some starts at 1B on Huff’s off days. Santana will have a chance to get as many starts as his body can handle.
Long term I like Santana just a little bit better because I’d rather have the guy who can go 25-30 HR’s with a .285-.300 AVG than the guy who can go 15-20 HR’s with a .330 AVG. That said, it’s probably going to be a preference type deal with both IMO.
Santana is the better bat (though I’m a big fan of Posey, too). Posey will lose ABs to Molina, also.
Generally, though, I just don’t see the motivation for Cleveland to call him up before June. They’re not going anywhere, so they may as well delay his arb clock.
I thought Posey’s glove was his one weakness (particularly fast fastballs). He’s not going to improve his glove playing 1b. I expect him to stay down and get regular experience behind the plate until Bengie is traded or the minor league season ends.
You can accuse Sabean of post peak veteran fetish, but we can’t really analyze how much better Molina’s staff handling is than Posey’s and what that means to a pitching oriented team. If Lincecum and Cain tell Brenly they want Bengie around, Posey’s got no chance in 2010.
Mind that Brian Sabean is the GM of the Giants.
With my luck, he’s going to get called up just as Napoli is seeing regular ABs again.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do with Napoli? Is he an outright drop at this point?
Scioscia may just be sitting him a lot now so he will be able to play down the stretch–he has had trouble staying healthy for a full season. I wouldn’t drop him just yet.
I’ve dropped him in both of my leagues, but largely because I fully expect to be able to pick him up again before anyone else does. If I were actually worried about losing him to someone else, I’d’ve kept him on my team.
If I bite the bullet and drop Napoli who do you guys like the most out of the following:
Olivo
C. Snyder
Clement
R. Hernandez
What a motley crew…
Snyder for sure. Clement is the only other rosterable name.
Clement should get the most ABs, so he’s #1 unless you consider one of the others a significantly better bat. I don’t
Of the other three, Snyder’s probably the next best bet. Just a step under in ABs and in a good lineup.
I really like Santana’s chances of producing some offense this season – certainly over Posey based on their teams catcher situations. Hopefully he’ll come up and soften the blow of losing Montero. This is a 2C 15 team league mind you. In a 12 team 1C, keeper league, I might make a move on him soon and use him as trade bait since I already have Weiters.
I wasn’t planning on picking him up so soon, but with all of the recent articles – and the way he’s mashing AAA, I figure the smart guys in my league are paying attention too.
That’s what I did – picked him up as trade bait for when he gets hot. Already have Mauer so just a case of the rich trying to become richer.