Carlos Santana; All Around The Diamond

It is no secret the Cleveland Indians’ manager Terry Francona loves versatility on his team. Tito prefers players like Mike Aviles and Jose Ramirez that can play multiple positions without skipping a beat. Over the past three seasons this has been tried with Tribe first baseman Carlos Santana.
Although Santana has seemed to have found a home at first base, this year marked the third different opening day position in the past three seasons for the Tribe clean-up hitter. His time spent at each position has brought varied levels of success, not only defensively, but offensively as well.

Behind The Dish

Santana spent his first three seasons in an Indians uniform as the primary catcher. While Santana was never the best catcher on the defensive end, he was a very good hitting catcher. In his four seasons spending time behind the plate Santana caught 325 games and stepped to the plate a total of 1,341 times. Santana has kept an average of .241 with 43 home runs and 156 runs batted in. The other number worth noting for him would be his on-base percentage of .364. No matter where he has played, Santana has always done a great job taking pitches. While his offensive numbers are good for a catcher, it seems as if his catching days are over, at least unless there is an emergency.

The Hot Corner

The emergence of Yan Gomes forced Carlos Santana out of the primary catching role in the Spring of 2013. Inconsistent play at third base led to a transition to the hot corner for the former back stop. Santana beat out Lonnie Chisenhall for the Opening Day start at third base. Looking back on the start of the 2014 season, it is safe to say that the Carlos Santana experiment at the hot corner was a failure. Not only was the defense played by Santana atrocious, but his hitting was less than stellar as well. The experiment lasted a total of 113 plate appearances. Even though the sample size was small, the numbers that Santana posted were some of the worst of his career. Santana hit an abysmal .129 with only two home runs and seven runs batted in. The lone bright spot of Santana’s time while playing third base was that his on-base percentage still was near the .300 mark, so even with the terrible batting average, he still found a way to get on base and see pitches.

Santana’s On First

Carlos has always spent sometime at first base, but it wasn’t until the second half of the 2014 season where he was anointed as the team’s full-time first baseman. The move was made partly because Santana had become a better defensive player at the position than Nick Swisher, although Swisher’s injured knees needing surgery also helped make Santana the everyday starter. Of the positions played, Santana has posted his best offensive numbers while playing first base. In Santana’s 961 plate appearances, he has hit .267 with 42 home runs and 133 runs batted in. His power numbers are very similar to his numbers while catching, however he has played almost 100 less games at first base than he has caught. The one trend that has kept no matter where he has played is his OBP. First base is no different to this trend as Santana has an on-base percentage of .389

There may be a number of different reasons that can attribute to the differences in how well Santana has hit in his different positions. My opinion is that the less thinking he has to do in the field, the better he hits at the plate. People tend to underestimate the mental ability that it takes for a catcher to handle a pitching staff, as well as be successful as a hitter. The move to third base forced Santana to focus on his defensive abilities on a daily basis, which definitely took a toll on his hitting ability as well. First base is by far the easiest position of the three mentally, and that has shown in his numbers. The best case scenario for the team, and Santana, would be to keep him posted at first base.

On the Indians, Tito values versatility. While Carlos Santana has shown the willingness to be versatile, it is in the best interest of the team, and the player, to keep him as the everyday first baseman.