I am a little surprised he is not in the Sox conversations. He would be a great DH reserve outfielder. I wonder if he could learn to back up Casas. He would bring some thump which the Sox will need.
Santander??
- Thread starter TheDogMan
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I may be missing something. Deep center in Fenway is 420 compared 400 at Camden Yards but Camden is deeper everywhere else since it was remodeled I think. I a. trying to find Anthony's Fenway numbers but have failed so far. I will look for his spray chart
Santander has 153 Fenway ABs for a .248/.310/.497 line. He does have 10 homers there, topping 9 HRs in the Bronx.
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For the record, I like the player and would like him on the Red Sox.
He certainly has his flaws, but I do like a lot of the things he brings to the table. He strikes out far less than O’Neill. Unlike the vast majority of our line up, he has shown to be good against both sides of the mound over the course of the past several seasons. He has been a consistent 120 OPS+ / wRC+ hitter over the full duration of the last three seasons (and I DO think 2024 was an outlier and he’s much more the 120 guy than the 135 guy).
As you mentioned, he does have some experience playing 1b, so he’d make a better option to back up Casas should it be needed for a prolonged stretch of time than anyone in the organization.
He does nothing to fix the corner infield defense, which I think is a significant issue, but as a hitter he checks a decent amount of boxes of what I’d like the team to add.
That said, there really hasn’t been any recent indication that the Sox are at all involved, as is the line up is full and most on the board seem good with that (I’m not) but am in the vast minority and am trying not to mention specific places I think players would make sense.
I think we need to add a big power source and a closer for 2025. I understand wanting to improve our corner defense but it almost seems that making Devers the DH and bringing in Bregman or Arenado to play third creates a potential damaged ego/attitude issue with Devers. We still would have what to do with Yoshida issue. IMO this year we need to see what we have with Campbell and Anthony at the MLB level. I hope Campbell takes the second base job but we have two other options if he fails. Our outfield with Duran, Anthony and Abreu could be stellar. Rafaella as a right handed platoon guy, with Santander playing a little out field and DH ing makes us a contender if Bello improves. Frankly I have big doubts about Trevor Story being a good hitter or even playing 100 games. We are developing his replacement and have Rafaella as a fall back. The Yoshida problem needs to be resolved. He is the guy who is killing me. A decent hitter but not good enough to be our DH for the whole year if we are going to win. Beulher is a guy who has a lot to prove. Could be a 20 million dollar bust or bargain. My overall premise is we need a top closer and one bat to improve the lineup and cut down on the strikeouts. I hope Campbell and Anthony prove to be low k guys who hit 300 with some pop. Lots of hope for 2025 with very little sure things.
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I do not think the money should be the primary concern, improving the team to the point we can get to and win the World Series should be the only concern.
Following the post quoted, I’m certain @chrisfont9 was referring to the QO and $21m being a lot of money to give O’Neill to be a platoon DH (ie splitting the role with Yoshida), and I agree that giving that kind of money to a platoon DH would be asinine. So I’m glad O’Neill was not offered one.
Santander doesn’t have a detrimental career split (career 111 wRC+ vs LHP and 116 vs RHP) and, it was also 119 and 122 in 2023 and last year it 132 wRC+ vs LHP and 123 wRC+ vs RHP. That is a reason I happen to want the player on the Red Sox as he’d be one of three regulars in the line up (Devers and Casas) where one doesn’t need to parse MLB small sample size data into even smaller sample sizes to show why a player might end up being useful against both sides of the mound.
He has his issues that make other posters uninterested in the player, but platoon splits and “caddy” have not shown to be valid ones using largest MLB sample sizes.
And Santander is different because he had more even splits last year? O’Neil has a .753 career OPS against RHP but yes, last season he was at smidgeon under .700. If that’s his big issue I think too much weight is being placed on a one year sample. I also don’t think that that could reasonably explain why you’d rather pay more money and give up a draft pick for a guy who is both older and less suited for Fenway.
If they aren’t even willing to “risk” ending up with O’Neil on a 1 year $21 million dollar deal, then why the heck should they risk many times that and a draft pick (fangraphs predicts he’ll sign for exactly five times that, 5 years/ $105 million) on a Santander, who at the end of the day is a pretty similar player?
Not offering a qualifying offer appears asinine unless you just don’t have any interest in another OF who is going to want to get a lot of ABs (ie. you’re all in on Rafaela and Anthony). It would make more sense if they replaced him with a Grichuk type player who might not expect regular playing time and will be far cheaper to sign (which is what I expect will happen). So unless they just can’t stand O’Neil for reasons we’re not privy to the dumbest thing they could do is decline giving him a qualifying offer and then sign a similar player that has a QO for much, much more money.
I don’t think Santander is coming to Boston.
But he does strike out far less than O’Neill (20.7% career K rate vs 30.8%); they’re the same age (well, Santander is about 7 months older), but Santander has been far more available the last 4 seasons; as mentioned Santander has some MLB experience at 1b, and O’Neill does not.
Again, I don’t think he is coming to Boston, but I can certainly see the appeal that Santander would have to fitting in with the rest of the roster construction as opposed to O’Neill.
O’Neil’s health issues have been a concern, but the QO would have only been risking a 1 year deal and Santander wants a similar amount on a five year deal. Anyway, it just seems most likely that they aren’t interested in anyone for the role that O’Neil filled last year - which would explain them not offering a QO. In that case they are probably comfortable putting their faith in Anthony/Rafaela and don’t want any high priced Vet demanding playing time as part of that mix. In that case, you’d expect the RHB (if they sign one) to be a Canha/Grichuk type or a more expensive signing that is a defensively strong infielder (Bregman/ Kim).
He probably would have declined it and they would have got another draft pick
Santander is just another of those guys that's technically an upgrade in year one, and he maybe nets you an extra win, but he's also aging and he should be a DH already and there's simply no way he's worth the cost to fit him onto this team.
I would not have wanted to gamble on that.
He was one of their best hitters last year and has no proven replacement on the roster, on a 1 year deal it wouldn't have been much of a gamble
And there is no reason to think O’Neil would end up a “platoon DH” unless that’s also true about Santander. Both are no longer great fielders and both have -for their careers- hit well against LH and RH pitching. Heck, O’Neil actually hit better against RHP than LHP as recently as 2023.
Never mind that a multi-year deal for Santander potentially makes a Crochet extension tougher while a one year QO deal with O’Neil shouldn’t. But alas, that ship has sailed so there’s no use in crying over spilled Muscle Milk.
Yeah, certainly possible but I absolutely agree I wouldn’t have wanted Breslow to risk O’Neill accepting either.
I mostly agree (I think). If you’re only targeting one year stop gaps, there is no reason at all to not just go Duran, Rafaela, Abreu L to R (though I DO think Anthony will be give a legit shot to win the LF job in the spring and I think he’s going to demolish spring training “pitching” the same way he did AAA last year).
Campbell had an excellent year, and is an outstanding prospect. He’s also only had about 350PA all in against the upper minors, with Grissom and Hamilton, I can at least see the argument for not starting him in Boston even with a good spring. I’d disagree, but I can see it.
Anthony on the other hand has basically made a mockery of upper minors pitching for roughly 600 PA. I’m not saying he’s going to be great or even good against MLB pitching right from jump. Even Rice struggled in his first 25 games, and the jump from AAA to MLB is likely even more difficult now.
However, Anthony would gain nothing going back to AAA, and every day he spends in AAA just takes time away from developing (or not) the cycle of adjustments and re-adjustments that are necessary to be what we all hope he’s going to be in the bigs.
With Anthony showing that the minors pose no challenge to him, AND already having Duran, Rafaela, Abreu and ostensibly Refsnyder, though he stinks defensively, I don’t think there is quite literally any reason to give (or risk) a large AAV deal for one season to any outfield only player.
A big part of the reason O'Neill worked last year was Story going down and Rafaela needing to spend a bunch of time in the infield. With Abreu breaking out, the FO planning for Ceddanne to be the regular CF, Ref under contract for another year plus whatever we get from prospects, O'Neill really doesn't have a place on this team beyond the platoon DH situation that's been mentioned.
They didn't have to plan for him to be the regular CF, and they still don't have a 2b. Plus, at the time they made the decision Yoshida had just had surgery.
It sure sounds like that's the plan from Breslow's press call this week.
And they do have a 2B, it's Grissom unless Campbell steals his job in ST.
Looks like he gains a few and looses a few more.... maybe a net loss of 3-4? Possibly a few outs going off the monster for hits as well. Not a huge difference.
Statcast has Fenway suppressing his career HR third most of any park (after KC and SF, tied with PIT). He'd definitely benefit from staying in the AL East though, between Camden and the toilet and Tampa playing at a toilet replica this year.
I don’t want Santander at all. I wasn’t saying that. If we want a guy who makes outs 70% of the time, we don’t need to sign one.
I would have been OK with the QO for O’Neill, I think I said as much in November. He would only be eating a spot for a year while we see what we have with the kids. And I advocated for him over Teoscar, whose extra value was mostly about having more PAs. Or at worst he walks and we get a pick. I don’t know why they didn’t just do that.
I’m in this boat. I thought QOing O’Neill made sense because he’d be silly to accept and risk being a part-timer in a pillow contract on a team with a full outfield, but maybe Breslow didn’t want to risk irking him and Boras by flattening his market if weren’t fully committed to playing him.
Regardless, the really silly move would be to sign only Teoscar or Santander — two older, costlier guys with comparable production — as O’Neill’s replacement. It’d be less silly if we signed another QO FA like Soto or Fried, but still kind of silly.
The Sox need to get over the staying under the cap BS as the teams that win generally blow through it. Either that or we will be perennially an underdog fighting for a wildcard birth. Going over cap intelligently should be the norm for big market, expensive to watch Red Sox. They ask us fans to spend top dollar, they should do the same.
Going over CBT intelligently is the trick here. Is it intelligent to give Max Fried an 8 year deal? I'm of the opinion that it's not. I think they really are playing this winter intelligently and as such may not even be able to get over cap while making the moves that are best for the team. A big part of that is how cost controlled so much of the roster is right now; adding another extension or three and getting a year deeper into arbitration will bring spending up pretty quickly.
But that's not going to satisfy the Verucas of the fanbase that want to give Bregman 6 years or whatever.
But that's not going to satisfy the Verucas of the fanbase that want to give Bregman 6 years or whatever.
Precisely.
Have at it with spending up to and over the cap so long as you’re spending on the player’s prime. Long term contracts to older players just make that harder to do. I personally couldn’t care less what the payroll number is. I just happen to believe that drafting, developing, and trading the surplus for players in their prime is the likeliest way to achieve sustained success. It isn’t about being cheap, it’s about maximizing picks early in the draft so that you have something to trade for a 26 year old Anthony Santander, or a Garrett Crochet.
And that isn’t to say never sign any free agents to a long term contract ever. Take JD Martinez, for example; a most obvious fit imaginable for that team at that time. It was clearly the correct move. I would even have gone so far as to say Fried or Burnes would have been worth the risk for this team in a pre-Crochet world. But Anthony Santander? If Yoshida weren’t here, then sure, he’d help for a couple years and then you’d be trying to dump him once Raffy’s ready to take over DH. I definitely can understand people seeing it differently, and maybe they’re right and I’m wrong, but I have a hard time seeing Santander as a good idea for a team that already employs Devers, Casas, Yoshida, Duran, Abreu, Anthony, Campbell and Rafaela.
If only Yoshida was the exact same guy, but right handed. His contact and decent OBP game could really be an asset for a team that struggled sustaining rallies with all the Ks last year. Plus, he’s fun to root for. A right handed hitter in his place really would help balance the lineup, though.
Out of Santander's 44 home runs, 37 would have been out at Camden and only 31 at Fenway. For comparison, it would be 40 at the Toilet and 39 in Toronto. Scroll down about 2/3 of the page to Expected Home Runs by Park.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/anthony-santander-623993?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb
Spray chart for HRs last year, clearly shows more than 31 in Fenway.... 31 expected in 2025 is pretty reasonable.... It really doesn't matter to me, because I don't want him anyway. Like many I have changed course several times on the off-season. I would rather pick up some additional wins with a Hoffman addition to the pen and cut our blown saves in half ...then go with Grissom/Campbell at 2b to see what they add to the mix. The trade deadline with our assets could be good to us.
I don't get how this is calculated. How can someone who hit 44 homers in the real world only have more than that number of expected homers in two ballparks? Did he rack up a few 4 HR games in a little league park when nobody noticed?
Presumably, many of his homers had lucky outcomes (wind, temps)? Note that in 2023, he hit 29, but would've expected more than that in 25 parks.
Edit: You can see on this leaderboard, Santander led the majors in HR-xHR last year with 7.4. The opposite end was Witt with -6.4. Witt hit 32, and only would've expected fewer than that in KC (28) - he expected 32 at Fenway and more than that everywhere else.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/home-runs?sort=xhr_diff&sortDir=desc
Edit 2: With at least 10 HR, Torkelson led the majors with % of HR that were "No-doubters" with 70%. Witt was 3rd with 69%. The leaders in this tend to have underperformed their xHR. The lowest % was Gleyber with 5.9% (1 out of 17). The lowest in this tend to have overperformed their xHR. Santander's 45.5% is a little above average (Median is 39%).
Edit: Why not a third? Santander had xwOBA of .324 and actual wOBA of .345, the 21 point difference tied for 20th most among qualified hitters (Connor Wong 3rd with .288/.330/.042). So his actual wOBA was 45th (out of 252 qualified), but his xwOBA was only 102nd (only 7 points above the median qualified batter, Wilyer, who also outperformed his xwOBA by a bunch - 19 points).
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/expected_statistics?type=batter&year=2024&position=&team=&filterType=bip&min=q&sort=13&sortDir=desc
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Fairly certain it's not as simple as spray charts superimposed over different ballparks and counting the dots. For one, spray charts don't account for the angle/trajectory of the ball. A screaming line drive down the LF line might get out in, say, Tropicana Field and be marked on the spray chart as landing 340 feet from the plate. The same ball on the same trajectory might bounce (high) off the wall at Fenway though. Statcast info can account for that.
Also, I assume that it's not taking a player's total HR and projecting what he'd have done with a different home ballpark but where he'd play his road games also. Which road parks he played and how often would be different playing for a different team. For example, Santander had opportunity to play 6-7 games each at the Trop, Fenway, Yankee Stadium, and Rogers Centre. If he were a Padre instead, he wouldn't even have played at half those places, let alone that many times in a season.
He's just a bad fit in general. He doesn't play defense well and will further impact the team's flexibility (i.e. Devers needs to eventually move to 1B or DH). If we are going for right-handed power, it should ideally be an infielder that can play 3B and/or at least rotate between 3B, 1B, and DH. Also, his slugging numbers are good but his OBP is not great. He is my potential pick for overpay of the offseason.
I wonder if with the kids they just weren't too committed to O'Neill and decided to do him or his agent a solid? It is a fairly small industry.
How many times does a team get to trade for a player in his prime or for that matter sign an FA in his prime willing to sign a contract that ends before age 36? It is a great idea but there are only so many deals and signings that preclude the late 30's.
Masataka's platoon splits vs LHP compared to Bregman's in 2024
Masataka: .239/.318/.351 OPS .669
Bregman: 224/.287/.424 OPS .712
I don't see enough of a difference to be spending in the style to match Bregman's expectations.