Player Profile: How Good Can Carlos Santana Be?

If the 2012 Indians stand any chance against the Tigers—projected by most to be a 90+ win team—then they’re going to need a few players to perform much better than they did last year.  Some of that year-over-year improvement should just be assumed.  For instance, Jason Kipnis’ groundbreaking ability to NOT be Orlando Cabrera makes him an immediate upgrade from our 2011 second base situation.  We have every reason to think that Shin-Soo Choo will be healthy and therefore provide more production than last year’s RF corps.

But then there are those players who I think will just be better this year than last.  I’ll be writing about some of these guys in the upcoming weeks.  I’ll also touch on some players who might come back to earth after over-performing in 2011.  Some of my conclusions are related to random variation, some are based on past performance, and some will just be wild guesses.

Just by including Carlos Santana in this group—those who will get better in 2012—I’m tacitly encouraging the notion that he wasn’t good in 2011.  I regret that implication, because it just ain’t true.  Sure Santana had a .239 average, but did you know that according to Fangraphs only two AL catchers were more valuable last season?  Santana’s value was derived mostly from his bat.  Not only does he have well above average power for a catcher—his .217 ISO and 27 HR led all of MLB among qualified catchers in 2011—but his batting eye is superb, resulting in an exceptionally high on base percentage.

But that’s all stuff we already knew.  Why would I think that he’s going to be better in 2012 if he was already so valuable in 2011?  Well, believe it or not, Santana was that good in 2011 while being incredibly unlucky.  I say this for two major reasons: (1) his abnormally low batting average on balls in play (BABiP); and (2) his abnormally high strikeout rate.

Throughout Santana’s professional career, his BABiP ranged between .300 and .400, which is pretty standard for most good offensive players.  Last season it dropped all the way to .263.  Throughout his professional career, he’s struck out in approximately 16% of his plate appearances.  Last year it was 20.2%.

Let’s make some not unreasonable projections here and see the effect they’d have:

1. Santana’s BABiP will normalize around .300 this season*
2. His walk rate will hover around 16%–below his career average, but accounting for lower walk-rates in MLB than in minor leagues.
3. His strikeout rate will drop to 17.5%.

*Let’s be clear here before I get a comment war going: a .300 BABiP would be below what we expect from a good hitter, which is what I think Santana is.  While it’s true that pitcher-BABiP usually normalizes to around .300 for most pitchers, batter-BABiP is thought to be a bit more “talent” than “luck”, and is therefore more repeatable.  Look at the leaders in batter-BABiP in any given year: it’s almost always the game’s best hitters, and year-over-year variance is fairly small compared to pitcher-BABiP.  If we really think that Carlos Santana is an above average hitter—and I do—then assuming a .300 BABiP is actually fairly conservative.

Those three changes alone—none of which seems all that unattainable to me—would raise Santana’s OBP from .351 to .388.  Only 10 players had an OBP higher than .388 in 2011, and they were probably ten of the most valuable hitters in baseball:

 For Santana to join this group, all he has to do is be not unlucky.  Now, if he were to actually get lucky…