Kansas City Royals coveted Carlos Santana’s patient approach as much as his presence
Before last season ended, the Kansas City Royals identified Carlos Santana as a guy they were going to target. They reached out to him at the start of free agency and moved aggressively to sign him this offseason.
They didn’t feel so strongly about Santana just because he was a power-hitting first baseman. His impact loomed much larger in the eyes of the Royals’ brass.
Power, sure he has that. More importantly, he’ll be their minister preaching from the pulpit of patient hitting.
Santana, who’ll turn 35 in April, goes a long way toward establishing an identity and the style of play the Royals crave.
“You need that impact, professional hitter in the lineup,” Royals general manager Dayton Moore said of Santana this winter.
Santana’s trademark at the plate throughout his career has been his patience and knack for getting on base.
He’s not an all-or-nothing slugger with a pile of strikeouts stacked as high as the batter’s eye at Kauffman Stadium. He’s the opposite. Last season, he walked an American League-best 47 times compared to 43 strikeouts.
The Royals hope part of his approach at the plate rubs off on the rest of the lineup. They’ve ranked among the bottom five in the majors in on-base percentage in each of the last two seasons.
“Carlos Santana puts together some of the best at-bats that you’ll see,” Royals starting pitcher Danny Duffy said. “He’s a tough out. I feel like I just learned how to get him out last year after nine seasons.”
Duffy has seen plenty of Santana while the first baseman established his reputation at the expense of the Royals as a member of the division rival Cleveland Indians.
The 5-foot-11, 210-pound switch-hitting Santana has a career on-base percentage of .366 to go along with a .248 batting average and a .446 slugging percentage. He has hit 240 home runs in 11 big-league seasons.
He led the majors in walks in 2014. Last year, he posted an OBP of .349 when he batted just .199 in the pandemic-shortened season.
“To be honest, I never worked at that,” Santana said this week. “I think God gave me that ability to be patient. I know it’s very important for this team. I’m not trying to change. This is my approach. … I tried to help a couple guys like (Adalberto) Mondesi and (Jorge) Soler. They asked me about that. I try to help my teammates be patient at the plate.”
As third baseman Hunter Dozier explained, simply having Santana as a sounding board may open the eyes of other hitters to things they don’t see or different ways of thinking.
“We get to watch him firsthand,” Dozier said. “We get to pick his brain and see what his approach is off different pitchers. Because when you’re getting on base, you have the right approach. It’s going to be nice to actually talk to him, and when we actually start games, kind of pick his brain on what his approach is off this guy. It’s going to help a lot of us.”
Royals manager Mike Matheny certainly believes Santana’s signing, as well as the acquisition of Andrew Benintendi, sends a message about what the organization values.
Matheny characterized the Santana and Benintendi additions as giving “teeth” to the Royals’ goals of wanting quality at-bats, increasing on-base percentage and decreasing swings and misses.
Had the Royals added a pair of all-or-nothing hitters, Matheny believes they would have lost credibility.
“The first thing we do right out of the gate is make a huge investment in a guy that embodies that in Santana,” Matheny said.
Even if Santana’s approach doesn’t rub off, he can still provide a major presence in the middle of the Royals’ lineup.
After all, he has averaged 23 home runs and 77 RBIs per season and slugged .445 since 2011. He won a Silver Slugger and earned American League All-Star honors in 2019, a season in which he hit 34 homers.
Royals leadoff hitter and offensive catalyst Whit Merrifield also pointed out another benefit of the patient approach Santana and Benintendi bring to the Royals lineup.
“Guys like Benintendi and Santana, they’re patient hitters,” Merrifield said. “They see a lot of pitches, and it gives guys like myself and Mondi some good opportunities to steal some bags and generate some runs.”
