2023 Profile and Preview: Anthony Santander
Breaking Down The Orioles Slugger and What To Expect This Season
The former rule 5 draft pick bounced back last season after dealing with a myriad of injuries the prior two seasons as Santander set a career-high for games played at 152 shattering the prior high he set in 2021 with 110 and led the emerging Orioles in home runs with his career-high 33. Slamtander will still be in his physical prime entering his age 28 season and is one of the highest-paid players on the team after signing a $7.4 million contract and avoiding arbitration this offseason. He is under team control for two more seasons and will be a free agent after the 2024 season. With the roster being the most competitive it has been in years he will have to fight for playing time with Mullins/Hays/Stowers/McKenna/Vavra/Frazier all likely to make the roster and with top-100-ranked prospect Colton Cowser knocking at the door at AAA this upcoming season will go along way in determining whether or not the team decides to commit to him long term.
Last season was the switch hitter’s best season in his career not only did he set a career-high in home runs he had his best season in terms of WAR with him measuring 2.1 according to Baseball-Reference and 2.5 according to Fangraphs which is decent starter territory and numbers hopefully he can improve on. His slash line of .240/.318/.455 as his OPS was 17 percent above league average registering as a 117OPS+ and his Weighted Runs Created+ was 120 or 20% above league average demonstrating he is an above-average hitter which he will need to continue to do to stay in the lineup as his defense leaves a lot to be desired. Santander or Agua Blanca as he’s nicknamed has some well above-average stat cast numbers ranking in the top 20 percent of all MLB players last season in terms of maximum exit velocity(81st percentile), barrel percentage(82nd percentile), expected weighted on-base average(88th percentile), and expected slugging(87th percentile). The slugger is also significantly above average in terms of average exit velocity(72nd percentile), hard hit percentage(68th percentile), expected batting average(66th percentile), strikeout percentage(63rd percentile), and whiff percentage(67th percentile) while being about average in terms of walk rate(53rd percentile). The bat makes up for the problems he has in the field as his sprint speed(30th percentile), outfielder jump(31st percentile), and outs-above-average(12th percentile) show. Overall his weighted on-base average did underperform his expected by .016 and his batting average on balls in play(.248) was significantly lower than the MLB average of around.300 and .016 lower than his career average, though some of this is due to the Great Wall Of Baltimore.
Heading into the season I would expect him to garner a lot of his playing time at designated hitter where he played in 34 of his 152games last season while occasionally spelling Mountcastle at first base as the O’s have a lot of better defensive options in the outfield though I’m sure he will still get a good deal of time out there. ZiPS currently has him projected for a .256/.317/.473 slash line which is a slight improvement over last season and projects him hitting 32 home runs which is almost as much as the 33 he hit last year. These numbers are overall very realistic and I could easily see him hitting these but he does have a lot of room to improve on the ZiPS projection of a 3.1 WAR season though his defensive value could drag that down. His walk rate which was 8.5% last season is significantly higher than his career average of 6.3% and his strikeout percentage of 18.9% was also significantly greater than his career average of 20.2% if he can continue to improve on those numbers he should easily outperform his projections. In summary, I expect Anthony Santander to have a really solid season in 2023(2.5-3WAR) while having an all-star level upside(4-5+WAR) if he performs closer to his periphery numbers and continues to improve his plate discipline.