The Indians have completed their rumored contract with outfielder/designated hitter Domingo Santana, tweets Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The Wasserman client will earn a $1.5MM guarantee, and his contract comes with a $5MM club option or a $250K buyout. Santana can earn $500K in bonuses for days spent on the roster in 2020, and each roster bonus he triggers will boost the value of next that 2021 club option. In total, the deal can reportedly max out at two years and $7.5MM.
Still just 27 years old, Santana was an offensive force with the Brewers as recently as 2017, when he slashed .278/.371/.505 with 30 home runs and 29 doubles (good for a 126 OPS+ and 127 wRC+). However, Santana was the beneficiary of a .363 average on balls in play that year, punched out in nearly 30 percent of his plate appearances and played a below-average right field. It’s impossible to say whether those traits gave the Brewers concern about his ability to produce moving forward or whether the team simply found the value in a pair of marquee offseason acquisitions too great to pass up. Regardless, Santana was effectively pushed to a bench role the following year after Milwaukee traded for Christian Yelich and signed Lorenzo Cain to join Ryan Braun in the outfield.
The 2018 season wasn’t a great one for Santana. One can point to the fact that he was already a regression candidate or suggest that his newfound limited role was a difficult adjustment. Whatever the reason, Santana’s .265/.328/.412 slash through 235 plate appearances marked a substantial downturn. He was traded to the Mariners for Ben Gamel last winter.
In Seattle, Santana once again found himself in a near-regular role, and his production bounced back to an extent. In 507 plate appearances, he hit .253/.329/.441 with 21 homers, 20 doubles and a triple. It wasn’t the same level of pop that he displayed in 2017, but it was a nice bounceback effort all the same. Santana’s strikeout rate only worsened, though, as he fanned in 32.3 percent of his trips to the plate. And, his already shaky glovework bottomed out in 2019 when defensive metrics graded him as one of baseball’s worst defenders at any position (-17 Defensive Runs Saved, -16.1 Ultimate Zone Rating, -13 Outs Above Average).
Santana’s fit in Cleveland is admittedly something of a curious one, as the Indians already have an extremely similar player in Franmil Reyes. Both lumbering, defensively-challenged sluggers hit from the right side of the dish and profile better as a designated hitter than as an outfielder. Santana draws more walks and runs slightly better; Reyes has more power, strikes out a bit less and boasted 99th-percentile marks in exit velocity and hard-hit rate in 2019. Overall, they bring comparable skill sets to an already-crowded Indians outfield mix (though Reyes would seem to have more offensive upside).
Oscar Mercado should have center field locked down after a strong debut campaign in 2019, leaving Santana and Reyes as two options in the outfield corners. The problem is that right-handed-hitting Jordan Luplow is also in the corner mix, and his otherworldly production against lefties should at least ensure him a platoon role. Cleveland also acquired Delino DeShields Jr. — another right-handed bat — in the Corey Kluber salary dump. The switch-hitting Greg Allen is in the mix, too, as are lefty-swinging Jake Bauers, Bradley Zimmer and (once recovered from last year’s ACL tear) Tyler Naquin.
Santana is an affordable addition to the fray, to be sure, and there’s little doubt that he deepens the club’s reservoir of options in the corners and at DH. That said, it’s also not clear that Santana is an upgrade over what they already had in house.
What the hell damn Hanky, we said talls!
What are you tryin to worm me out of the deal for?
Lol
An incentive laden contract that works for both parties.. the exact right situation for the Indians and Domingo.. going forward..
It’s safe, he is still 27 so not a declining talent….if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out, you move on.
welcome to the land. we need those home runs and not those strikeouts. Slamtana²
Carlos – 34 HR, 108 walks, 108 strikeouts
Domingo – 20 HR, 50 walks, 164 strikouts
Not talking Slamtana2.
If we’re basing this on what he did last year, then meh…..produced like a bench player, paying him like a bench player. If he could re-capture his 2017 form, this would be a steal.
He had over 500 AB last year and struck out 1/3 the time. Sure if he recaptures that’s one good (not great) year where everything he made contact with fell for a hit… but that’s not reality.
He and Franmil Reyes will challenge each other for the DH in Cleveland.
The option tells me that he’s clearly there to take over 1B/DH from Carlos next year, as long as he doesn’t stink up the joint.
Plus at $5M, Dolan saves $16M over what he currently pays Carlos. Winning! (according to Dolan)
Seeing him last season in Seattle, when he gets hot it’s fun to watch. Still young with lots of upside. Seems like a happy go lucky kid. Good luck Domingo!
Low risk move for a club looking for affordable production
Wouldn’t CLE control his last arb years regardless?
They would have, yeah. This just puts cost certainty on it.
He was actually quite good at the plate until an injury derailed his season. His numbers would have looked a lot better had he just gone on IR instead of trying to play through injury.
Santana was excellent for Seattle in the first half. It was right around the break when he had problems with his elbow and he wasn’t the same from that point on, eventually hitting the IL and mostly DHing when he came off the IL with little success.
If the elbow issue is behind him, Cleveland could have themselves an excellent bat and defense in RF isn’t the train wreck it was in LF. This is exactly the kind of deal they should be making.
The phrase a dime a dozen comes to mind.
The phrase monday morning quarterback comes to mind.
The phrase “he had a good year one time a few years back” comes to mind.
Any word on the availability of Chris Carter?
Last I heard, he was crushing baseballs in the Mexican league.
With Clevinger out, watch for a trade of Luplow for starting pitching now.
They have plenty of starters, and Luplow isn’t gonna bring back anyone better than the options available in house
Boyd oh boy
Lindor, Ramirez and Bob Feller is Detroit’s asking price for Boyd.
Haha you might be right! DET asked for the Angel’s Brandon Marsh. It might be close
The Indians have 8 legit major league starters. Evens with Clevinger going on the IL, they still have 7. Plus a few pretty good prospects.
So the Ms had Domingo in right and Mallex Smith in center. Dom can’t catch and Mallex cannot pay attention to the game so he gets caught off base, throws to the wrong base, has the outs count wrong, all that really dumb stuff. Now we keep Mallex for the rebuild and dump the slow guy who cannot catch. Good luck with Dom. SMH #get rid of both
Mallex isn’t expected to be part of the future and will probably get sent packing as soon as youngsters are ready or Haniger is healthy. He’s at least a capable OF and played pretty good defense after his rough start to the year. Santana can’t play in OF at all. Was worst OF in league by a wide margin when he was playing LF and slightly less margin when in RF.
Defensively Santana is a fine DH.
Good potential for the cash strapped tribe.