Carlos Santana haters - will you admit you were wrong?

[laloesch]

I think my perspective was that it was a meh type of move.  Kirlloff is just not cutting it at 1b that's apparent.  He's sitting at negative war right now and is just awful.  The Twins I think were hoping that this would be the season that FINALLY Alex would stay healthy and step in and take the role of fulltime 1b for the future.  That hasn't happened.  Carlos was signed as a backup in case that plan was slow to roll out or failed to happen.  He's trying.  

[jorgenswest]

I loved his all out attempt on the foul ball diving head first into the wall. Seeing their 38 year old teammate with that effort has to fire up the bench. I enjoy watching him play first base. I have said I would have spent the money differently but I was wrong. Santana is valuable to this team.

[DJL44]

13 minutes ago, RpR said:

Glove is far better than any option the Twins have in the Org.

I'm pretty sure Willi Castro would be a better fielding 1B than Santana but 1B is not a glove-first position, it's a bat-first position.

[DJL44]

I still want Brandon Belt

[2wins87]

I would say I was lukewarm on the Santana signing, and at this point in the season he's been pretty much at expectations overall. If he stays hot for another few weeks I'll be pleased with where he is at, but right now I'd still say it was an ok signing for the price, and I still wish they would have found a way to concentrate their money into someone like Hoskins, rather than spreading it around to Santana, Margot, and Farmer.

I didn't think he would just be a platoon player, but I did think that he would sit a little more against righties than he has.  He currently has a .617 OPS vs righties and .917 vs lefties, so I still think he should be viewed as closer to a platoon right handed bat like Farmer or Miranda than a full-time switch hitter as Rocco has mostly used him.

[2wins87]

13 hours ago, arby58 said:

Second on the team in HRs, second in RBIs. Those are for the year, not a few games.

 

13 hours ago, arby58 said:

Santana won the game for the Twins today. He has pretty much won a couple others as well.

I'd much rather use WPA and RE24 to talk about producing runs than HR and RBI.  Using RBIs amounts to cherry-picking the good out from the bad, and just citing his recent games does the same. He also did his share to contribute to losses in the first month, and we can't ignore that part.

For the season he still has a -0.31 WPA and -3.16 RE24, which is a little worse than we should expect from his slightly below average offense overall.  So despite his recent clutch hits he hasn't been clutch overall considering how many times he came up empty earlier in the season. 

This is a little bit of an aside, but Buxton, for comparison, has the same wRC+ of 98 but a WPA of of 0.6 and RE24 of 0.58 on the season.  Buxton has actually been clutch for them this season, though I don't tend to hear him discussed that way.

 

[2wins87]

1 hour ago, danielp19653 said:

I agree with this it was unlikely Santana would stay as bad as he was for the first 3 weeks (unless age hit him like a freight train) But Fangraphs and baseball reference both have Santana graded out negative for defensive value and unless he can hit like the last few weeks for the rest of the year I still don't think this was the best choice the Twins could have made. A pretty below average hitting 1B who is also not really benefiting the team with the glove is a pretty tough sell for being a difference maker for the team.

*edited to add screen grabs of defensive ratings*

-1 runs saved compare to league average, -4 overall bbref

-1.6 def rating on fangraphs (better than Kirilloff) but bad overall on the team

The -1.6 def on Fangraphs includes the positional adjustment.  Even a gold glove 1B will tend to have negative overall defensive value because every first baseman gets dinged pretty hard for positional value.

I wouldn't put a ton of stock into BBref's range factor based -1 defensive runs either (which does not include the positional adjustment).  Range factor is good for historical comparisons because it can be calculated simply from a play log, but it is very crude compared to modern metrics.

He has a positive 0.9 UZR and 1 OAA on Fangraphs.  My overall reading of several defensive metrics would be that he's been a least a bit above average for first basemen.  My eye test would agree with that too.  He's a solid defender, but at first base, we should want a little more on offense as well.

[Alex]

15 hours ago, arby58 said:

Miranda didn't even start the year with the Twins. You're doing the 'hindsight 20-20' thing. Meanwhile, back in reality, Santana is a far better first baseman than Miranda will ever be - that's why the Twins are playing him at 3B. 

Santana won the game for the Twins today. He has pretty much won a couple others as well.

It's fine if you want to give him credit for yesterday and even his hot run during the winning streak.   But as hot as he's been he was even colder during the 7-13 opening to the point where he hasn't yet managed to level out his WPA (-0.31 still) or bring his OPS to average.   I very much hope he does since a +bat an +glove would be great at 1B, but it's disingenuous to give him credit for some recent wins without also pointing out that his bat was as bad as a pitcher's and cost them games, early, too.

[Brazilian Twins Fan]

Yes

[arby58]

3 hours ago, Alex said:

It's fine if you want to give him credit for yesterday and even his hot run during the winning streak.   But as hot as he's been he was even colder during the 7-13 opening to the point where he hasn't yet managed to level out his WPA (-0.31 still) or bring his OPS to average.   I very much hope he does since a +bat an +glove would be great at 1B, but it's disingenuous to give him credit for some recent wins without also pointing out that his bat was as bad as a pitcher's and cost them games, early, too.

Rocco: "Carlos has been excellent. He's been a big part of our offense really coming alive," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "He's hitting balls hard. He's feeling good. He's shooting line drives all over."

Which loss would you put on him - he definitely won yesterday's game.

[arby58]

5 hours ago, 2wins87 said:

 

I'd much rather use WPA and RE24 to talk about producing runs than HR and RBI.  Using RBIs amounts to cherry-picking the good out from the bad, and just citing his recent games does the same. He also did his share to contribute to losses in the first month, and we can't ignore that part.

For the season he still has a -0.31 WPA and -3.16 RE24, which is a little worse than we should expect from his slightly below average offense overall.  So despite his recent clutch hits he hasn't been clutch overall considering how many times he came up empty earlier in the season. 

This is a little bit of an aside, but Buxton, for comparison, has the same wRC+ of 98 but a WPA of of 0.6 and RE24 of 0.58 on the season.  Buxton has actually been clutch for them this season, though I don't tend to hear him discussed that way.

 

I've done statistics for a living, so this stuff doesn't really surprise me as presented. In my world, we create ARIMA (auto-regression integrated moving average) models to forecast future outcomes, where a time series is regressed on its own past values, it is then made stationary (such as removing seasonality) and then regressed on past forecast errors. The first thing we learn about these is the need to use human intervention, because lots of stuff outside of statistical models needs to be taken into consideration.

In the world you rely upon, you are aggregating outcomes - fine, but it loses the individual impact in specific games. Lots of baseball people refer to that as 'clutch hitting.' It's like when Royce Lewis comes up with the bases loaded and does you know what. Of course, it happens that he does that in lots of instances, but maybe the Carlos Santanas of the world should be recognized when they 'go off' for three or four games in a row and have a pretty direct positive impact on the outcome of games. I'd much rather have Santana winning a game they probably otherwise don't win with a 3-run homer than a guy who stuffs stats with a bunch of singles that don't really produce much of anything.

[Aerodeliria]

I also didn't hate getting Santana. I just said I think he's in the regressing phase. I think I mentioned that he would hit around .220 or .230 and hit a few home runs, but (as many have said) there were much better options.

I was wrong about Maeda. He appears to have slipped.

I was right about Margot who is even worse than I imagined.

I was right about the Twins being stinking cheapskates (although they announced they were going to be). I was so irritated by this that it has taken me this long to post.

The jury is still out, but let's see!

[Fatbat]

Yup. I was wrong. I wasn’t on board with it much but understood why he was signed.  He can stay as long as he is doing the Nelson Cruz ball smashing job impressions.

[Riverbrian]

13 hours ago, arby58 said:

I've done statistics for a living, so this stuff doesn't really surprise me as presented. In my world, we create ARIMA (auto-regression integrated moving average) models to forecast future outcomes, where a time series is regressed on its own past values, it is then made stationary (such as removing seasonality) and then regressed on past forecast errors. The first thing we learn about these is the need to use human intervention, because lots of stuff outside of statistical models needs to be taken into consideration.

In the world you rely upon, you are aggregating outcomes - fine, but it loses the individual impact in specific games. Lots of baseball people refer to that as 'clutch hitting.' It's like when Royce Lewis comes up with the bases loaded and does you know what. Of course, it happens that he does that in lots of instances, but maybe the Carlos Santanas of the world should be recognized when they 'go off' for three or four games in a row and have a pretty direct positive impact on the outcome of games. I'd much rather have Santana winning a game they probably otherwise don't win with a 3-run homer than a guy who stuffs stats with a bunch of singles that don't really produce much of anything.

Timing is everything. 

[Alex]

15 hours ago, arby58 said:

Rocco: "Carlos has been excellent. He's been a big part of our offense really coming alive," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "He's hitting balls hard. He's feeling good. He's shooting line drives all over."

Which loss would you put on him - he definitely won yesterday's game.

As I said, it's been great he's doing well this month and I hope it continues.   You keep mentioning "yesterday's" (Sunday's) game.  He didn't "definitely" win that game, btw.   Kepler hit a 2-RBI double in that one as well that would have been enough to win it, too.

It's hard to pick a specific game a position player "loses" for them because that's just not how baseball works, but having a 1B that is hitting that poorly is the worst drag you can have on a lineup (His April WPA explains this and goes to your argument of timing).   Here are a couple more stats (two of which relate to the "timing" issue we are talking about).

He ranks 11th among hitters in WPA despite this month and is still a net negative (-.31 as mentioned above).   This is a pretty good indicator of just how important a player is to getting big hits, but he's still been a net negative.  Jeffers leads the team at 1.73, but I think it's pretty telling that Santana is 11th.    For the season, he's behind players like Austin Martin and Jose Miranda.    This is because he was a -1.17 WPA during the 7-13 start, this is the worst mark on the Twins during that time and is almost double what the next worst, Kyle Farmer, was. 

In fact, he was third worst in the majors during that time.    That's just awful and it's really hard for me to imagine someone arguing that he didn't cost the Twins something during the start of the season.  If you're argument is that he didn't cost them a game during this time, then no position player will ever cost a team a game by that logic.

Fangraphs clutch rating is similar in that he's -.12 (again, net negative).  Buxton leads the team with a .82.   Santana is behind KYLE FARMER in this category though they're only separated by .01 points. 

Despite being third on the team in Games played with 37, he's 9th in WAR with .3 (Fangraphs).

If you sort by just first basemen, he's well below average for hitting categories,    

Now, if we sort for the start of the win streak, he's 2nd on the team in WPA during that time (behind Kepler) and 1st in clutch (Satana is a .4 and there are a bunch of hitters in the .3-.4 range).  So, Rocco's absolutely correct that during the streak, he's been much better and one of the keys to the success.   

But that goes to show just how much of a drag he was for the team during the 7-13 start if he's still on the bottom of team numbers at this point.   An average 1B hitter in place of him would have benefitted the team a bit more up to this point.

Like I said, hopefully he continues playing the way he has this month.  That would be a huge boon for the lineup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[h2oface]

On 5/12/2024 at 5:59 PM, arby58 said:

I liked the Santana signing, if nothing else because he was, for years, a Twins killer. At least he wouldn't be on another team doing that, right?

I'm always amazed at the fan/critics who take the first 10, 20, 30 games and project that on a player for the entirety of a 162 game season. Santana has had a couple of important home run streaks for the Twins - where they were the impetus to winning several games. He now is tied for second on the team in home runs and is second in RBIs. 

So, those who laughed at my support for the signing - who is laughing now?

Pretty silly to gloat at this point in the season. Gallo won a couple games with his home runs too. It's a long season. Time will tell. I still don't like it. For his reputation of defense, he already has 3 errors (and that doesn't count the boot that was called an error at the end of the game a couple days ago.) He is a rental for a season, if he makes it through the season. He definitely isn't part of any future of this team.

[h2oface]

On 5/12/2024 at 8:11 PM, bean5302 said:

Did you see that .665 OPS? Joey Gallo hit a lot of home runs last year on his way to rank 2nd on the team, too. Santana will probably finish the year with a near league average bat (probably below league average) while playing the least valuable defensive position in baseball.

Compare that to Miranda's .280/.322/.439 OPS .761 wRC+ 118. There is absolutely no GM in baseball who'd pick Santana over Miranda right now.

...... except ............ apparently .......

[Puckett34]

I'd let the season play out before giving out any flowers.  A decent month (he's been slashing .247/.311/.505 since April 13th, even better since April 22nd), does not beget a good season.  Just like slashing .125/.222/.156 in the first 9 games doesn't mean he'll have a bad season either.  I'd preach patience before dishing out crow. 

[Whitey333]

Interesting that you call out fans for extrapolating a bad start to the season for Santana and projecting it out.  Yet you do the same by In essence implying this recent hot streak is either normal.  You can't pick and choose which hot streaks to use to " prove" a point.  Let's see how the season plays out.

[USAFChief]

I should admit I was wrong because our big free agent acquisition is occupying first base and hitting .207/.279/.393?

Second among Twins in PAs, BTW. 

 

 

[KBJ1]

Great, now all 3 players we got for Polanco are out. Topa won't throw until July.  And that's if he doesn't end up needing surgery. Martin & Kiriloff & Wallner have been hugh disappointments.

Time to bring up Kiersey or anyone else who can actually play outfield.

The bullpen is toast, barring a miracle.

Thanks Polads for making us a perennial pretender.

 

[joefish]

Ok for today.

Fans are fickle. It's our right.

 

[Linus]

Yea this is a weak argument. One small sample offsetting another small sample. As far as his defense goes he has made several great plays and has made several brutal errors in critical situations. I was meh on the signing because it was driven by payroll cuts that I am not meh on. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

On 5/12/2024 at 8:26 PM, DocBauer said:

Just to be clear, I never "hated" the Santana signing. But he was pretty bad for about 3yrs before a bit of a resurgence in 2023, though he was still only a little above league average in OPS, and that's low for a 1B. I thought it was an unspectacular but solid signing for a 38yo part time player and late inning defensive player.

So far, his 2024 numbers are all below his career norms. And in truth, he hasn't been the "on base machine" of his younger days for some time now. And to be fair, his first few weeks were pretty awful. However, again to be fair, the past 30 days he's had an OPS above league average and has produced power and timely hits. And his defense has been excellent.

My personal issue is can he maintain what he's been doing over the course of the season, or come close? Or is this just a hot streak and he's going to wear down really soon?

He's doing better now than I expected. If he can pretty much match what he did in 2023...much less keep up his current 30 day pace...I will admit his signing was better than my initial, tepid opinion.

I don't see him leading the Twins in any category, but at the moment, he's looking like he might be winning the battle against Father Time for one more season.

They’re not below average. It’s the worst season of his career by a wide margin. .38 BB/K is the killer.

[Road trip]

Santana killed the Twins back in the teens, sure.

He may be a good, even great teammate... I certainly can't judge that.  His glove is probably solidly above average yet. 

I'd have loved to have Santana circa 2015.  I'd have liked Santana circa 2018.  But it's 2024.  He's 38.  Father Time is undefeated. 

I'm not sure it even looks like a decent signing now.  I'll wager it'll look bad again by July, especially if he continues to get the majority of his AB's against right handed pitchers.

[USAFChief]

On 5/16/2024 at 10:35 AM, USAFChief said:

I should admit I was wrong because our big free agent acquisition is occupying first base and hitting .207/.279/.393?

Second among Twins in PAs, BTW. 

 

 

Update: Through May 25: .205/,283/.367

Still second on the team in PAs.

Yeesh

[Richie the Rally Goat]

20 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Update: Through May 25: .205/,283/.367

Still second on the team in PAs.

Yeesh

As of May 27, at 80 plate appearances Santana’s .643 OPS ranks 28th in MLB First Basemen.

[DJL44]

He's been bad against RHP, decent vs LHP. Miranda has been much better vs RHP and should be getting more starts at 1B when Lewis returns. Kirilloff could also get more starts.

[stringer bell]

Santana hasn't started three of the last five games. Given his poor numbers against right handed pitching, that is the right call. I'd much rather see Larnach, Kirilloff and Miranda in the lineup against right handed pitching. He'll be in there tomorrow against Ragans and that also is justified by the stats of one-third of a season.

[RpR]

16 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

Santana hasn't started three of the last five games. Given his poor numbers against right handed pitching, that is the right call. I'd much rather see Larnach, Kirilloff and Miranda in the lineup against right handed pitching. He'll be in there tomorrow against Ragans and that also is justified by the stats of one-third of a season.

He has made plays that history shows, Miranda and especially Kirilloff would not have made at First Base.