Day Five: Catcher

This is a spot where there will be a lot of discrepancies. Carlos Santana might be the most frustrating player in the Indians line up. After giving us so much hope with a great year last season, Santana looked like he was swinging a guitar every at-bat and, though improved, still had trouble throwing guys out. Having a solid catcher is one of the keys to having a solid team, and all in all, Santana gives the Indians a better than solid backstop.

Since the All-Star break, Santana is batting .279 (which brings his yearly average up to .242), with 8 home runs (giving him 13 for the year), 26 RBI (almost as many as his first half 30), and has more walks (25) than strikeouts (22). He had a horrible June, but now has an OBP nearing .400 and is starting to show some of that amazing talent more consistently. If the Indians don't want to be the laughingstock of the AL Central (which they're dangerously close to becoming), they need to keep Santana as their catcher.

Now I know, each reader out there will be saying, "now's the perfect time to start listening to offers for him!" and "if we're going to rebuild again, we need to trade away our best pieces." In fact, I personally said the latter statement when talking about Asdrubal Cabrera. Here's the difference though: the number one prospect in the organization is a shortstop, and both of the catching prospects in the top 20 list are fringe guys at best. (Plus the Indians have two or three other high-ranking SS in the org) After seeing Alex Monsalve myself for 8+ games last season, I can safely say I was not impressed at ALL***. The other catching prospect according to the list on indians.com is Chun Chen, but he has played the majority of his games at first base and DH, and he only hits singles.

Another guy that I know you're all thinking about is Lou Marson. Here's the thing about Sweet Lou; I would be completely okay with trading Santana and having LouMar as the filler guy to our next catcher if we had a stud waiting in the wings. We just don't have that luxury. He went on a hot streak right before the All-Star Break and saw his batting average as high as .297, but a .138 average since (including a .196 mark at Progressive Field) has brought that plummeting downward.

I don't think a minor league return on Santana would justify trading his major league production, even if it is inconsistent. Other teams realize his inconsistencies as well, and there is simply no way we could trade Carlos for anything close to what he means to the Indians lineup. Final verdict for the Indians' catchers: Santana is a keeper and so is Marson. This gives the Indians four total players that I've deemed worth keeping (Chisenhall and Kipnis as well).



***I wanted to add another note of my prospect evaluation skills. It was easy for everyone to see last year that Billy Hamilton was a special player, but I can honestly say that I called one of the MLB's top prospects well before he leaped up every "experts" watch list. Oscar Taveras, outfielder in the St. Louis Cardinals organization, was my personal most exciting player to watch last season. (Here's a great article on him, if you're interested) I know how to evaluate the tools of minor leaguers, so my evaluation on Monsalve, though not "expert" can be taken with confidence.