Introducing Ervin Santana

Ervin Santana and Frank Wren at yesterday’s new conference. Graphic created by Fred Owens

Yesterday’s announcement that the Braves had signed free Agent pitchers Ervin Santana to a one year $14.1M contract fills the void left by the injury to Kris Medlen. What did the Braves get for their money and what can they expect this season.

Ervin Santana was born in La Romana, La Romana, Dominican Republic on December 12, 1982. His given name was Johan Ramon Santana and he played under that name until the beginning of the 2003 season. He changed from Johan to Ervin so he wouldn’t be confused with the other Johan Santana late of the Mets. Why Ervin? “I just came up with Ervin.” I have no idea hwy he didn’t simply call himself Ramon Santana perhaps he didn’t want to be confused with the city. I digress.

He was signed by the Angels as an International Free Agent in September of 2000 and worked his way up through the Angels system over the next 4+ seasons. He was rated Baseball America’s 51st prospect entering the 2003 season and moved up to 29 on the list the next year. He made his major league debut on May 17, 2005 against the Indians giving up six runs – including two home runs – in his four innings of work. He remained with the Angels the rest of 2005 posting a 4.65 ERA and 1.392 WHIP is 23 starts and 133 2/3 innings of work.

Ups and Downs

In 2006 he started 33 games for Anaheim throwing 204 1/3 innings with an ERA of 4.28 and a 1.230 WHIP, striking out 141 and walking 70.  2007 wasn’t a good year for Santana, his ERA shot up to 5.76 and his WHIP went along rising to 1.547 in his 28 starts managing only 150 innings of work. The next season saw him rebound as he started by winning five straight starts equaling the Angels’ record. He was an All Star in 2008 and  finished with a 3.49 ERA and 1.119 WHIP in 219 innings over  33 starts.

He began the 2009 season on the disabled list with a sprained medial collateral ligament in his pitching elbow and didn’t start his first game until May 5. He struggled most of the  season and only began to show signs of coming around towards the end of the year. In September he threw a complete game shutout against the Rangers to clinch the AL West title however  he finished with a 5.03 ERA and 1.475 Whip in 139 2/3 innings.

The 2010 season saw the Angels struggle but Santana himself did not.   While the team finished two games under .500 he posted a 17-10 record and e finished the year with a 3.92 ERA/1.320 WHIP in 222 2/3 innings. His good performances continued into the 2011 season. Although he went 11-12  he was a much netter pitcher than that. he threw his first no-hitter against the Indians striking out 10 while walking only 1 and finished with the best numbers of his career – a 3.38 ERA1.220 WHIP and 228 2/3 innings in 33 starts.  That season had many predicting he had finally figured it out and while his WHIP did settle at 1.220 for 2012, his ERA climbed back to 5.16 in 30 starts – 178 innings – due in large part to allowing an AL leading 39 home runs. Following that season the Angels picked up his $13M option then traded him to the Royals along with $1M for minor league pitcher Brandon Sisk even though the Angel rotation was unsettled and uninspiring and they gad no one lined up to replace his innings.

Kansas City agreed with Santana. In 2013 he posted his best statistical season to date with a 3.24 ERA (ERA+ 127) and a 1.142 WHIP in 211 innings (32 starts.) After the season the Royals made a qualifying offer to Santana but he rejected it hoping for a multiyear contract close to $100M.  Whether it was the Tanaka posting saga, the draft pick and associated pool money lost by signing him or teams being leery of him being able to sustain statistics like that, he found himself without a job when the Braves called on Sunday to check.

Update:  For a look at Santana at home I recommend this video from last year. It says a lot about the man off the field.

What Can The Braves Expect

Barring injury Santana will give the Braves 30 starts and 200 plus innings. Moving to the NL East from the AL West should drop his ERA a bit as will having the Braves defense behind him.

The Pitches

He’s a fastball pitcher who throws an occasional change and uses a slider as his breaking pitch. Until the 2103 season he featured his four seam fastball over 60% of the time. Last year however he dropped to less that 35% in every month except July but his velocity remained between 91 and 93. The lost fastballs weren’t gone, they were simply identified as hard sinkers from 90-92 mph.  The velocity of his change was fairly constant at 85 and his slider ran from 83-85 making it hard to differentiate it from the change.

Here’s a graph of release velocity for his pitches from last season from Brooks Baseball.

Speed of pitches at release Courtesy Brooks Baseball’s Pitch F/X data

(NOTE: This is insider stuff and may be boring so feel free to skip on by it. The differentiation between the two fastballs stems from the way Pitch F/X identifies each pitch. My numbers come from Brooks Baseball’s Pitch FX database based on data from Pitch Info. I am aware that Fangraphs doesn’t distinguish between his four seamer and his sinker so their numbers won’t match mine. That may be due to who interprets their data.  I prefer Brooks Baseball site for this; YMMV,  to each his own etc.  Now back to your regularly scheduled post.)

What Happens To The Pitches

Like most pitchers who feature a four seam fastball, Santana has always given up home runs averaging 1.2 every nine innings; 25.4 a season.He had one 200+ strikeout season (2008) but his 7.1 per 9 innings works out to about 142 a year if he throws 200 innings. Likewise his average his 2.8 every nine innings which would put him at about 500 in the coming year. All of that assumes everything is about the same where he’s going as where he’s been. It  isn’t.

Park Factors compare the rate of stats at home to the rate of stats on the road. Above 1.000 is good for hitters while below 1.000 is good for pitchers.

A look at ESPN’s Park 2013 Factors for his past and future home gives us a little insight.

The wide open spaces in Kansas City encourage more hits of every type except for those that leave the yard while the Halo’s home encourages doubles and triples and is more generous to the homer. As you can see the Ted is close to the Big A in runs but slightly higher for home runs. The numbers for the NL East and AL west are comparable while the AL Central are generally a bit more hitter friendly.  Offsetting that is the relative weakness of the NL East compared to all AL divisions.

In his post “Finding the Toughest and Weakest Divisions” over at Fangraphs Jeff Sullivan quantifies this based on fWAR. His numbers make a nice graph but it doesn’t take a statistical study to know that the Marlins lineup is about replacement level, the Phillies are dangerous if their age doesn’t betray them and Cole Hamels gets healthy while the Mets are a rebuilding team lacking enough pitching at least a year away from a challenge. This leaves the Nationals and the Braves to fight things out. Other divisions are deeper and stronger. For Santana this is a good thing.

The relative weakness of the NL East will help him keep his WHIP and ERA down. If he continues to use that sinker – with perhaps some help from Roger McDowell – he can bring the home run number down as well and of course most of the hitters haven’t seen him enough to have a book on him so for the first half at least he should have an edge.

I will say in advance that I know these are optimistic numbers but something has to go our way. . .  right? The fWAR guess prediction is low according to the Simple War Calculator if the rest is close but I’m not going higher. The other estimate are from Fangraphs player page.

That’s A Wrap

Santana would not have been my first choice but he is a pretty good option and he answered the question quickly.  This could well be his break through year, being in the NL helps and although he’s been in the AL his whole career, he apparently wanted NL.

"(Blue Jay’s)GM Alex Anthopoulos told reporters Wednesday he was informed by Santana’s agent, Jay Alou, that “he wanted to pitch in the NL. Couldn’t compete with it. It wasn’t money. It wasn’t years. He had a strong desire to pitch in the NL, and there was no way to compete with that.”"

Adding that to his desire for a big contract next year and the benefits he gains by coming to the NL East and we could see a very different Santana than anyone has seen so far.

Briefly on a related topic

Much has been said about how bad Liberty Media is as an owner but they reacted within an hour of the request to spend an extra $14.1M this year. That’s pretty good response from a corporate decision making team. The reason they reacted was that the Braves are in a win now mode. The coming move to a new ballpark and extensions to core players should have told everyone that prior to this event. I made the point a few weeks ago that the Braves had a two year window to win. The extensions were meant to extend that window and guarantee a competitive team in the new ballpark. The injury to Medlen and Brandon Beachy’s inability to pitch without discomfort could have brought that window crashing down. Terry McGuirk and the baseball operations staff made that solid business position crystal clear to Liberty and they accepted it.  That shows a far better thought process that throwing money at aging superstars then regretting it for years after.