Cleveland Indians: Carlos Santana as a Leadoff Hitter?
The Cleveland Indians have looked to Carlos Santana as a leadoff hitter. It may be crazy enough to work long term.
It started out as a joke of sorts. Just a comment thrown out by Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona during spring training. What would it look like to have Carlos Santana, the Tribe’s designated hitter/first baseman who has been a staple of the middle of the order for the past five seasons, batting leadoff?
“It’s only a thought,” Francona said back in February in Goodyear, Arizona. “Because of his skill set, I think he’d be maybe one of the better leadoff hitters in the game.”
Why would a team that saw second baseman Jason Kipnis flourish in the top spot in 2015 and that added noted speedster Rajai Davis in the offseason put a lumbering slugger like Santana in the leadoff spot?
The answer is three simple letters: OBP.
While Santana is a career .244 hitter, he is annually among the top hitters in the game in drawing walks. His career on-base percentage is .364, or a massive 120 points higher than his batting average.
“It’s only a thought,” Francona said back in February in Goodyear, Arizona. “Because of his skill set, I think he’d be maybe one of the better leadoff hitters in the game.”
In 2014, Santana led the league with 113 free passes, and followed that up with 108 last season. His .357 OBP in 2015 lagged behind only Kipnis and Michael Brantley on an Indians team that was in wild card contention until the last week of the season.
So why not give it a try?
That’s exactly what Francona has done, and it’s worked out better than anyone could have foreseen. In his first at-bat as a leadoff man, Santana worked a full count on the Detroit Tigers’ Justin Verlander, and then smoked a home run into the right field seats. He hasn’t looked back since.
Santana has been in the leadoff spot in 10 games thus far this season through Tuesday. In those games, he’s slashing .289/.400/.553, has hit four doubles and two homers, and has drawn seven walks. For comparison, in 19 games in other spots in the order, Santana is just 12-for-67 (.179), and has dramatically worse OBP and slugging percentages. To say he is a born leadoff hitter would seem crazy on its head, but it’s working.
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More important for the Tribe than Santana’s stats, though, is the team’s 8-2 record in those games he has led off. It’s a small sample size, but Cleveland is just 8-13 this season when someone else leads off. Given how competitive the AL Central is shaping up to be, that isn’t something to scoff at.
The Indians like to make a big deal about their winning percentages when they score first or score four runs or more for their starting pitchers, so getting on the board early is supremely important to the club.
In Santana’s plate appearances leading off a game, he is 3-for-9 with two home runs and a walk. Davis, who has led off 16 times, has the same number of hits and has not drawn a free pass. His OBP overall at the top of the order is just .292, with a strikeout rate just under 31 percent, which seems to make the argument for Santana being the No. 1 option.
As baseball is a copycat league, Santana’s success as a leadoff man may breed more unconventional players sitting atop the lineup card. Joe Mauer, the first baseman and OBP machine of the Minnesota Twins, will be getting an audition in the leadoff spot this week.
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Whether this is a permanent move for Francona and Cleveland or not, it is clear that what started as something fans and media joked about in the desert has turned into a viable strategy. If Santana continues to produce and help propel the team to wins in the leadoff role, the Indians may well have the last laugh.