The Cleveland Indians are off to a terrific start. The Tribe has the best record (26-14) and run differential in baseball (62+). Even after last night’s loss to the White Sox, the Indians have a five-game lead in the AL Central—by far the biggest division lead in baseball.
The Indians have done well at the run-prevention aspect of the game—opponents are averaging 3.6 runs a game—but they’ve been best on the offensive side. They’re scoring 5.2 runs a game in a year when offense is way down. With 207 runs scored, Cleveland ranks first in the American League.
But amidst the Tribe’s offensive explosion, there’s been a lot of focus on a guy who’s perceived as underperforming: catcher Carlos Santana.
Santana was phenomenal in 46 games as a rookie last year. As a 24-year-old catcher, he posted a .796 Power Factor and an insane 19.3% walk rate en route to posting a .260/.401/.467 slashline. His performance was worth 2.0 WAR—on pace for 7.0 WAR over a full season.
Fully recovered from a knee injury last year and with some big league experience under his belt, Santana was expected to build on his stellar debut. His performance to date—his average dropped to .227 after an 0-for-3 game Wednesday night—has inspired questions like: “What’s wrong with Santana?”—even from non-Indians fans.
The correct answer to this is: “absolutely nothing.”
Anyone who is disappointed in Santana clearly isn’t looking at all the information. His fantastic plate discipline has carried over to this year—his 14.6% swing rate on pitches outside the strike zone is the lowest in baseball. Santana is the proud owner of a 17.4% walk rate and, as a result, has a solid .360 OBP.
His power, too, has carried over. In 37 games and 161 plate appearances, he has as many home runs (six) as he did in 46 games and 192 PAs in 2010. His .800 Power Factor is almost identical to what he posted last year. Plenty of pop in his bat—as seen in his walk-off grand slam last month.
Before Wednesday’s game, Santana had a .786 OPS and a 125 wRC+. His 1.3 WAR puts him second among AL catchers. He’s on pace for 5.9 WAR over a full season—just under Carlos Gonzalez’ 2010 production.
He ranked second among Cleveland position players, ahead of everyone except Asdrubal Cabrera. Travis Hafner, Grady Sizemore, Shin-Soo Choo, Jack Hannahan, Michael Brantley, Matt LaPorta, Orlando Cabrera—none of them has made as much of big impact as Santana has.
The best part? Santana has actually suffered from a tremendous amount of bad fortune. His .242 BABIP reeks of unlucky bounces and random chance. He’s hitting line-drives at roughly half his rate from last year and beating more than half of balls he hits into the ground—a guy with his speed won’t get a high hit rate that way.
But that doesn’t mean a BABIP that low can truly be chalked up to making weak contact. A hitter as selective as Santana can wait for pitches he can hit well, and a guy with his power hits the ball hard.
If we replace Santana’s .242 BABIP with his .309 xBABIP (h/t: The Hardball Times’ Simple xBABIP Calculator), his slashline jumps to .277/.410/.499—a .909 OPS. Them’s MVP numbers for a catcher.
Santana’s production to date might not be as good as it was last year, but even if this is his true-talent he’s easily an All-Star caliber player. And given the huge discrepancy between his BABIP and xBABIP, we can conclude that he’s actually been far better than the superficial stats would indicate.
Tribe fans, don’t worry about Carlos Santana. He’s fine.
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Original Story:
http://www.wahooblues.com/2011/05/19/...
