Danny Santana

[chuchadoro]

(under construction)

[stringer bell]

I liked what I saw of Santana in spring training. He's hitting modestly at NB, and has committed a lot of errors (6). I hope he gets it going as the weather warms.

[stringer bell]

I liked what I saw of Santana in spring training. He's hitting modestly at NB, and has committed a lot of errors (6). I hope he gets it going as the weather warms.

Update on Santana and so far I would have to call him a disappointment. His BA is down to .250 (.586 OPS) and he now has eight errors. I am waiting for a solid shortstop to come up through the minor league system, so I'm quite disappointed in Santana's performance to date.

[jokin]

Update on Santana and so far I would have to call him a disappointment. His BA is down to .250 (.586 OPS) and he now has eight errors. I am waiting for a solid shortstop to come up through the minor league system, so I'm quite disappointed in Santana's performance to date.

 

Did you get a chance to see him play last night, Stringer?

[MichiganTwins]

well the weather is warm and he is heating up.

[Oxtung]

Since there hasn't been an update lately I'll just write up his stats.

 

Santana has been having a quietly nice season. After struggling in April with a .522 OPS, as you can read in previous posts, he has turned his season around. Over the last four months his OPS has been .761. He currently is riding quite the hot streak with a .923 OPS in his last 16 games. For the season his line is .294/.330/.382/.712. He is a switch hitter and hits much better from the right side, .843 OPS, versus the left, .661. Surprisingly he has one at bat as a lefty hitter to a lefty pitcher and one at bat as a righty hitter to a righty pitcher.

 

He has 21 BB's (3.9%) and 86 K's (16.2%). On the season he has 25 SB's and 11 CS. He has 31 errors on the season for what it's worth.

 

At 22 years old Santana is very young for AA. He has only 21 PA's against younger pitchers and 511 against older competition.

 

While he could work on upping his walk rate and perhaps hitting for a bit more power, all in all it has been a pretty successful season so far for Mr. Santana.

[Larsbars08]

I have to think that the walk rate is the biggest impediment he has to eventually being a productive major leaguer. It's pretty clear he can hit for a good average, with very little power, so in order for him to be productive, he's going to need to get on base at a solid clip. I can't remember who it was, but I believe I saw a scouting report that said, despite his low walk rate, he has a fairly patient approach at the plate. I can only hope that his walk rate will rise towards average. With his bat, if he can have a walk rate approaching average, he'll be an above average SS.

 

With the errors, I'd worry more about his defense, but Baseball America rated him as the best defensive SS in the Eastern league, and from the brief glimpse the other day, he had tremendous range. If his range is as good as I suspect it is, the amount of errors might be attributed to the fact that he's able to reach balls that very few others are, if not always make a clean play. If it's only mental errors, than you would hope that he could work through them and become a top notch SS.

[Steve Penz]

Last year he had 8 HR in Ft Myers. Where did they go? I remember hearing a breakdown on Ben Revere's OBP and the same theme seems to be present here. With no power his walk rate may struggle because when necessary a pitcher knows they can put it down the middle. The worst he will do is hit a single. If they were slightly scared that he can hit one out or hit the gap for a 2B or 3B then it will drive up his walks on OBP. For those of you who have been to see him, does that sound right?

[Shane Wahl]

Revere slugged .363 at NB, so Santana still has that on him even in the absence of homers. Revere made up for that with a high amount of steals and Santana is . . . .getting there. At least Danny is in the damn middle infield. Another season starting at AA will be good for him.

 

Beresford is ahead of him.

[MichiganTwins]

You think he will actually stay at AA for the beginning of next year?

[Seth Stohs]

Santana was named the 2013 New Britain Rock Cats team MVP.

[Boone]

Danny took a big step forward in July-September:

 

2012 (Ft Myers): 5.3%BB 14.1%K .38 BB/K .124 ISO

April-June: 2.7%BB 15.2%K .15 BB/K .080 ISO

July-September: 5.9%BB 17.0%K .35BB/K .102 ISO

 

Hopefully he can translate his end of season success to the start of next year in AAA. If he does, he might earn an October call-up and could be our opening day SS in 2015.