If Charles Dickens were commissioned to write a depiction of Hector Santiago‘s 2015 season—paid by the word, of course—he probably couldn’t do any better than simply copying and pasting his intro from A Tale of Two Cities several times over. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Santiago’s year was polarizing enough to act as catalyst to a political and economic revolution, but it certainly was the best of times and the blurst of times for the left-hander, baseball-wise.
What to expect, then, from Santiago in 2016 is bit of a mystery. Was his All-Star first half a complete mirage, or were there some aspects of it that he can carry into the future? Is he always going to be so streaky, or can he eventually settle into the middle ground he always seems to wind up in at the end of the year? Santiago will get the opportunity to answer some of these questions in April and May, as other starters work their way back from injuries, but if he can’t start strong again he could eventually be shifted to high-leverage work in the bullpen.
Position: SP | Age (2016): 28
Bats: R | Throws: L
Height: 6’0” | Weight: 215
2015 WAR: 1.8
2015 in a Tweet
Hector Santiago regressed hard after an All-Star first half, ultimately finishing the year with numbers right in line with his career norms.
2016 Projections
[table id=175 /]The projection systems never seem to know what to do with a pitcher of Santiago’s ilk. Despite a solid track record over 530+ MLB innings and improving peripherals, the left-hander is projected to post ERAs that are not only considerably worse than his career mark (3.55), but also worse than anything he’s put up in any individual season. I won’t pretend to know what all goes into these calculations, but I imagine the weird projections probably come down to the same thing that FIP consistently underrates about him: That his high propensity for fly balls is a skill, and it will always result in his ERA being lower than defense-independent metrics will tell you it should be.
It makes sense to put most pitchers in the same bucket when it comes to projecting batted-ball outcomes (i.e. BABIP) over the course of the season. But for outliers on either side of the scale—e.g. Santiago, Jered Weaver, Dallas Keuchel—some adjustment should be baked in to account for their unique results. Unless Santiago’s approach changes drastically, his ERA isn’t suddenly going to align with his FIP as FanGraphs and others still expect it to do.
tl;dr – Hector Santiago is better than he gets credit for, because the existing systems simply aren’t designed to adjust to a pitcher with such an extreme fly-ball approach. See also: Chris Young.
*PECOTA uses DRA in lieu of FIP
Pitch Usage
There hasn’t been much change in approach for Santiago on a year-to-year basis. He throws his fourseam about 60 percent of the time, his change-up is his go-to offspeed pitch, and his three or four other offerings are used sparingly. The infamous screwball is now a distant memory, replaced by more cut fastballs and a new slider, but none were/are utilized enough overall to make all that much of a difference. Well, unless you break things down more granularly.
In the first four months of 2015, when Santiago was a no-doubt All-Star with a sparkling 2.33 ERA, he was throwing his cutter 13 percent of the time overall and 16 percent of the time vs. left-handed batters. From August through the end of the year, when he was atrocious, those percentages dropped to 5 percent and 13 percent, respectively. Correlation isn’t always causation, but it’s worth pointing out. More cutters seem to lead to good things for Hector.
Zone Profile
Santiago mostly stays away from left-handed hitters, as he should, but seems to have no idea how to attack right-handed batters. The big red spot in the middle of the zone is bad news and seems to indicate that he has trouble spotting his change-up, which he throws a quarter of the time against righties. His reliance on the cambio is likely because he has no other pitches with arm-side run when he’s not using his screwball.
Fun Fact
Santiago is an avid collector of sports memorabilia, primarily signed jerseys. His proverbial white whales are autographs from Barry Bonds and Willie Mays.
What to Watch For
Santiago’s walk rate has improved incrementally in each of his four full MLB seasons—from 13.1%, to 11%, to 9.7%, to 9.2% last season. He’s still a couple percentage points shy of league average (7.6%), but he’s heading in the right direction. If he can continue making those gains with his control in 2016, it could go a long way toward helping Santiago cut back on self-destructive innings. You know the ones where it takes him 30 pitches to retire the side and no one hits the ball out of the infield? Yeah, those.
A Bold Prediction
Not content with his 30% groundball rate, Santiago will do his darnedest to become an even more extreme fly-ball pitcher. The ultimate goal? Besting Chris Young and his career 26.4% GB rate.
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More Previews: Yunel Escobar; Kole Calhoun; Mike Trout; Albert Pujols; C.J. Cron; Daniel Nava; Carlos Pérez; Johnny Giavotella; Geovany Soto; Andrelton Simmons; Cliff Pennington; Jered Weaver; Andrew Heaney; Garrett Richards
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