November 21, 2009
Order Now The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 is now in development and will ship in mid November! This year's book will feature articles by THT's staff as well as Bill James, Tom Tango and Craig Wright. If you use this link to purchase the Annual, you will be in the first group to receive it and you'll be supporting THT. Most Recent Comments
On whiffing (3)
Sportswriters don’t vote for Cy Young based on popular opinion; baseball universe explodes (14) Where could Omar Vizquel and Nick Johnson end up? (6) You’re not Alou (8) Is peak at age 29? (6) 
Or you can search by:
Gear up for baseball season with Chicago White Sox tickets and New York Yankees tickets. LA Angels tickets, Houston Astros tickets, and Atlanta Braves tickets are hot sellers! You can get Boston Red Sox tickets, San Diego Padres tickets or Chicago Cubs tickets for your favorite baseball fan. Coast to Coast Tickets has the best MLB tickets like Minnesota Twins tickets, LA Dodgers tickets, Milwaukee Brewers tickets, New York Met tickets and St. Louis Cardinals tickets. Find premium Chicago Cubs tickets and other Chicago tickets at JustGreatTickets.com. Chicago Cubs Tickets Chicago Tickets  All content on this site (including text, graphs, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
Wednesday, October 21, 20092010 impact rookies: Carlos SantanaPosted by Alex PediciniContinuing with my look at impact prospects for the 2010 season today we will take a look at Cleveland Indians catcher Carlos Santana. Santana came to the Indians organization in 2008 as part of a deal that sent Casey Blake to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The departure of Victor Martinez all but assures that there will be a catcher opening for Santana next season, at least sharing the duties with incumbent Kelly Shoppach. The 23-year old switch-hitter has emerged as an elite catching prospect with a major league ready bat. He spent the entire 2009 season with the Akron Aeros of the Eastern League (Double-A) putting together an an eye-popping line of .290/.413/.530. His plate discipline is also advanced beyond his age. He drew 90 walks this season compared to 83 strikeouts. These numbers were no fluke either, in 2008 he posted a .431 on-base percentage and .227 ISO at the Advanced-A level. Defensively Santana is still raw. He needs to refine his receiving skills and improve his ability to block balls in the dirt. He has a strong arm but his accuracy is inconsistent at times. Santana makes up for his deficiencies with plenty of agility and athleticism behind the plate. Overall, he projects to be an average defensive catcher. Santana is probably a notch below Matt Wieters or Buster Posey in terms of ceiling but he could still develop into a consistent all-star caliber player. He will likely compete for playing time in spring training and could have the starting spot nailed down by mid-season in 2010. Santana will likely hit for a solid average and decent power numbers, in the range of 20-25 home runs. His real value will be in his ability to draw walks and reach base. I think we can expect a batting line in the range of .280/.375/.450 in the future. Alex is a student in Boston. He welcomes all questions and comments here CommentsLeave a comment:Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||