Cleveland Indians: What to do with Carlos Santana off the market

CLEVELAND, OH - OCTOBER 06: Francisco Lindor
CLEVELAND, OH - OCTOBER 06: Francisco Lindor

Cleveland Indians 2017 first baseman Carlos Santana signs a reported three year deal with the Phillies. They had no chance with their offer.

The Cleveland Indians had mentioned during the beginning of the off-season that resigning Carlos Santana would be a top priority.

However, with the reported offer the Phillies gave him, there was no way the Indians could compete with their offer.

Are you kidding me?! Three years for $60 million for Carlos Santana?! Watching the Indians play the past couple seasons we know he is a great player, but in no way is he worth $20 million per season.

My “Predator Player Projections” for 2018 has his Predator Player Value (PPV) at about $11.5 million, ranked as the 46th best hitter out of 716 hitters that had over 10 plate appearances in 2017.

He is a great player, not many players are projected 25 home runs and 83 runs batted in for 2018, but still $20 million a season? I find that hard to believe he is worth that.

This next statement is entirely speculative, but I would think the Indians did not offer anywhere close to that and at max offered $12-15 million per season over 3-5 years.

Spotrac had Carlos Santana’s market value at $18.2 million per season and thought the market would most likely give him closer to 5 years, not 3.

I think this could be a smart move to let him go for the Indians especially for that value. For a smaller market team that the Indians are, not signing him leaves the door wide open for other players.

Ultimately, I wrote about Jason Kipnis options for 2018; I think this virtually seals the deal that they are for sure not trading him and also possibly him or Michael Bradley the opportunity to play first a bit next season.

What are some other free agent options on the table for the Indians to consider?

A few names to look at:

*Note that PRI is a player’s Runs Created Value above an average player, and PWAA is a player’s wins value above average. A team of average players = 81-81 record.

Option #1:

Yonder Alonso (30 years old)

Predator Player Projection 2018:

HR: 13.3

RBI: 51.3

OPS: .764

PRI: 2.13

PWAA: 0.32

PPV: $3.0 million

Spotrac Market Value:  $7.0 million

Option #2:

Lucas Duda (31 years old)

Predator Player Projection 2018:

HR: 21.3

RBI: 53.3

OPS: .790

PRI: 4.94

PWAA: 0.74

PPV: $6.97 million

Spotrac Market Value: $9.01 million

More from Call to the Pen

Option #3:

Mitch Moreland (32 years old)

Predator Player Projection 2018:

HR: 22.3

RBI: 74.7

OPS: .767

PRI: 2.52

PWAA: 0.38

PPV: $3.55 million

Option #4:

Matt Adams (29 years old)

Predator Player Projection 2018:

HR: 13.7

RBI: 47.7

OPS: .759

PRI: 1.90

PWAA: 0.29

PPV: $2.68 million

Next: Cardinals make a big splash trading for Marcell Ozuna

The market still has a lot of first basemen that I think would fit for the Cleveland Indians, but it sure is disappointing that the team did not re-sign Carlos Santana. However, with his contract he received from the Phillies they had no chance to sign him, nor should they sign him for that much.

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