Rangers utilityman Danny Santana has changed representation and is now a client of Gene Mato of Mato Sports Management, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets.
For the 29-year-old Santana, the agency switch comes on the heels of one of his most productive seasons. He burst on the scene as a member of the Twins in 2014, totaling 3.9 fWAR in his 430-plate appearance rookie campaign, but then struggled in the next four years. Between the Twins and the Braves from 2015-18, Santana batted a disastrous .219/.256/.319 line with six home runs over 735 plate appearances. Just three hitters managed a worse fWAR than Santana’s minus-2.3 during that span.
Thanks to his years-long stretch of posting subpar numbers, Santana had to settle for a minor league contract with the Rangers in December 2018. The signing has worked out swimmingly for both sides so far. The switch-hitting Santana wound up totaling 511 PA of .283/.324/.534 of offense at the big league level last season. He was one of seemingly countless MLB players to power up during a home run-happy season, bashing 28 HRs en route to a 20-20 year (he also had 21 stolen bases) and 1.9 fWAR. However, it was alarming that Santana struck out in just about 30 percent of trips to the plate while walking a little under 5 percent of the time.
While skepticism may be warranted in regards to Santana’s 2019 offensive outburst, he should at least continue to give the Rangers a versatile, affordable performer. He saw quite a bit of action at every infield position and all outfield spots last season, and remains someone Texas expects to lean heavily on heading into 2020. Santana’s due to make $3.6MM this year – his second-last season of arbitration eligibility.
Santana’s change in representation will be reflected in MLBTR’s Agency Database, which contains agent info on thousands of Major League and Minor League players. If you see any errors or omissions within, please let us know: mlbtrdatabase@gmail.com.
My dude Danny Slamtana needs all the money he can get, I loved him last year, great guy and player.
HUGE news!
how did this guy go from journeyman to 30 homers? lol
Hmm Dominican steroids?
It should be noted that during Santana’s rookie season, he had a hard hit percentage of just 26.5%, and he never eclipsed 36% in any given year until last season, when he had a 44.8% hard hit rate. His BABIP was still high at .353 (though still about 50 points lower than his rookie season), so expecting him to repeat his production last year may not be realistic, but there are clearly signs he’s turned a corner as a hitter and I hope he can be at least an average bat next year.
Need a new agent for retirement?