Saturday thoughts: Carlos Santana fix just wasn't quite there, off-season reflection

Carlos Santana signed with the Minnesota Twins on Friday, and while a reunion would have been nice, the fix wasn't there.

Photo Credit: Ryan Palencer

Late Friday night, word came out that the Minnesota Twins were set to sign free agent first baseman Carlos Santana to a one-year contract.

Santana signed as a free agent the previous off-season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he played 94 games before being traded to the Milwaukee Brewers.

While originally, the plan looked like he was going to platoon with Ji-Man Choi, an injury to the latter forced Santana into the lineup more regularly.

He responded by hitting 12 home runs and posting a wRC+ of 97 while playing strong defensively before getting traded.

Santana also wasn’t shy about expressing his interest in returning to the Pirates, which, with their need for a first baseman heading into the off-season, seemed like a good match to run it back.

The Pirates ended up signing Rowdy Tellez, hoping he could return to his 2022 form that saw him hit 30+ home runs.

While there was still talk he could return, the fit didn’t remain once they got Tellez under contract.

Roster flexibility has become even more crucial as teams construct their roster, and the path the Pirates were heading - especially if they had signed Santana - was down the wrong direction.

Adding a first-base-only player like Santana would have forced the Pirates to assign three roster spots to two positions.

Tellez and Santana would have been a great pair as a platoon, especially with the latter success against lefties (career 125 wRC+), but then factoring in that they also have Andrew McCutchen, who may end up being solely a DH, that’s three roster spots already tied up, and that may not be it.

Jack Suwinski doesn’t have the best track record against left-handed pitchers (57 wRC+) and would probably benefit from having someone step in when those situations come about.

Even Oneil Cruz has struggled mightily against lefties (54 wRC+), and Edward Olivares is a borderline platoon player (another center fielder that would allow Suwinski to move to right would fix all of that, but that’s for another day).

Of course, they could improve, but banking on that stuff this late into a rebuild seems dangerous.

The Game of "IF"

So, while bringing back Santana seemed like a popular opinion for a lot, the way the roster is currently being set up, it’s hard to see a fit for two players who are only first basemen, especially when there is a third player who will likely only be a DH.

Santana was always a favorite of mine, going back to his Cleveland days, and it was fun to watch him last year, he brought a lot to that team.

The fix just wasn’t there to run it back.

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This off-season has felt weird, mostly watching it all unfold. I tried not to speak too much on it until a clearer picture was painted, and with a couple of weeks until pitchers and catchers report, we are pretty much there.

It probably speaks to how high they are on Alika Williams that he stuck around, as he is the only ‘real option’ for the Pirates as far as a true shortstop behind Cruz.

It's almost like they didn’t quite learn from last year when their starting shortstop got hurt early in the season, and they had to patch things together for well over 100 games.

Maybe Olivares can handle full-time at-bats against both righties and lefties, but they are very close to needing to platoon at three different positions (1B, CF, RF) without having a clear-cut picture at second base.

I'm not in the room with the decision-makers, and I don’t have any real inside information, so I don’t know what was done or how much effort was put into things.

It would seem weird not to put any effort into getting better and altogether buying into most of your guys taking the next step forward—there is a lot of risk there in doing that.

I’d have to imagine some contracts have been offered, maybe even some trades thrown out there. It’s also hard to imagine that they’ve come up empty every time.

So, a very weird off-season.

I'm not going to say it’s a lost cause; it’s just sometimes, by the time it’s done, you can kind of draw out the map a team took during the off-season.

I’m not sure we can say that here.