As part of our Trademas in July series, we’ll take a look at potential trade targets for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Today, we look at Hector Santiago, a left handed starter from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Throughout the last few weeks, we have highlighted various starting pitching options that the Pirates could inquire about in the days leading up to the trade deadline.
We have looked at options from selling teams such as the Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. We have already highlighted Angels pitcher Matt Shoemaker as a potential trade target, but now we take a look at his teammate Hector Santiago, a lefty who teams around the league have reportedly inquired about.
angels r getting calls on santiago and shoemaker, as you’d expect. they’re listening if it helps immediately or near future
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) July 25, 2016
Profile and Performance
Santiago is in his sixth season and has appeared in 161 games (103 starts) with the Chicago White Sox and Angels. Santiago served primarily as a relief arm in 2012 with the White Sox, but has been a starter ever since. He has never had a breakout season; however, he has served as a solid middle/back end of the rotation starter.
When it comes to pitch selection, Santiago holds a interesting arsenal. This includes a four seam fastball that touches the low-to-mid 90’s on the gun. He also throws a changeup, slider, curveball and occasional cutter. Santiago isn’t a huge strikeout pitcher, but he relies heavily on inducing fly ball outs, holding a 47.6 fly ball percentage.
Despite holding a 4.28 ERA this season, Santiago leads the team with nine wins and is holding opposing hitters to a .230 batting average.
Santiago has been considered an average pitcher throughout his career and his statistics in regards to a hitter’s plate discipline against him prove that. His First-Strike Percentage of 54.5 percent is consistent with his 56.5 percent career average. This season, Santiago also has a somewhat low O-Swing percentage (23.6) and a relatively higher Swinging-Strike Percentage (9.5) compared to his career average of 8.2 percent.
Career-to-Date
| Year | Age | G | GS | GF | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 24 | 3.33 | 42 | 4 | 19 | 70.1 | 54 | 26 | 26 | 10 | 40 | 79 | 4.70 | 1.336 | 6.9 | 1.3 | 5.1 | 10.1 | 1.98 |
| 2013 | 25 | 3.56 | 34 | 23 | 4 | 149.0 | 137 | 69 | 59 | 17 | 72 | 137 | 4.44 | 1.403 | 8.3 | 1.0 | 4.3 | 8.3 | 1.90 |
| 2014 | 26 | 3.75 | 30 | 24 | 2 | 127.1 | 120 | 63 | 53 | 15 | 53 | 108 | 4.29 | 1.359 | 8.5 | 1.1 | 3.7 | 7.6 | 2.04 |
| 2015 ★ | 27 | 3.59 | 33 | 32 | 0 | 180.2 | 156 | 80 | 72 | 29 | 71 | 162 | 4.77 | 1.256 | 7.8 | 1.4 | 3.5 | 8.1 | 2.28 |
| 2016 | 28 | 4.28 | 21 | 21 | 0 | 115.2 | 100 | 59 | 55 | 19 | 51 | 101 | 4.95 | 1.305 | 7.8 | 1.5 | 4.0 | 7.9 | 1.98 |
| 6 Yrs | 3.68 | 162 | 104 | 26 | 648.1 | 568 | 297 | 265 | 90 | 288 | 589 | 4.61 | 1.320 | 7.9 | 1.2 | 4.0 | 8.2 | 2.05 | |
| 162 Game Avg. | 3.68 | 41 | 27 | 7 | 166 | 145 | 76 | 68 | 23 | 74 | 151 | 4.61 | 1.320 | 7.9 | 1.2 | 4.0 | 8.2 | 2.05 | |
The case for Santiago
- Like Matt Shoemaker, Santiago is also a controllable pitcher that teams have inquired about. The 28-year old lefty is earning $5 million this season and he is controlled through 2017 due to arbitration.
- As I mentioned before, Santiago is a pitcher that relies on fly balls to get a majority of his outs. However, he also owns a career best 38.8 percent ground-ball rate. The Pirates love ground ball pitchers, so there’s no surprise as to why they are linked to Santiago.
- Santiago holds a stellar 74.8 left on base percentage this season. This has has factored in to his 77.8 percent rate over his entire career.
- Santiago is coming off of a season in which he pitched over 180 innings. He has pitched 115.2 innings this season and could eat up some frames at the back end of the rotation.
- In his last seven starts, Santiago has been dominant. The lefty has compiled a 5-0 record with a 2.53 ERA and 1.24 WHIP in that span.
The Case against Santiago
- Santiago’s BB/9 rate has been relatively high throughout his career. He holds a career 4.00 BB/9 and holds a 3.97 rate this season. The Pirates have had issues with walks this season and they may want a solution to that problem rather than making it worse.
- Santiago has compiled a career worst FIP (4.95) at this point in the season. This goes hand in hand with his career worst 4.28 ERA.
- If Santiago were on the Pirates, he would rank second on the team behind Jonathon Niese in home runs allowed. Santiago is tied for ninth in the American League with 19 home runs allowed. Santiago was tied for the league lead in home runs allowed last season with 29.
- They Angels may want too much for Santiago, which could make other options more intriguing.
What it might take
As it showed in the tweet from MLB Network Insider Jon Heyman, the Angels are going to want prospects that could help in the near future. This is mainly because the Angels have a relatively weak minor league system.
In his Trademas piece on Matt Shoemaker, Jason Rollison highlighted the lack of top 100 prospects the Angels have in their system. In fact, their top prospect, Taylor Ward, is a catcher with an estimated time of arrival in the big leagues of 2018.
When looking at the Angels prospects, they have an abundance of shortstops, outfielders and right handed arms. Since they want major league ready prospects, the Pirates could swap some of their recent prospects who have debuted. Chad Kuhl or Steven Brault could be options, but I’m not sure it would be worth it for a guy of Santiago’s caliber. The Angels may have to settle for a few of the Pirates lower caliber prospects in this type of deal.
Conclusions
In some instances, Santiago seems like a good possibility. He is capable of being a solid addition to the back end of the Pirates rotation. However, there may be better options. If the Angels want too much for Santiago, the Bucs may be better off giving up more for more reliable options like Nathan Eovaldi or Matt Moore.
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