Anthony Santander was a very pleasant surprise for the Orioles last year, having a career year slashing .240/.318/.455 with 33 home runs, 78 runs, and 89 RBI in 152 games.
But Santander has had a rough start to the year so far (and that’s being generous), slashing .207/.273/.356. So what exactly is going wrong with Santander? Is this just a slow start to the season that’ll correct itself, or is there reason to be worried?
As usual, it’s not a straightforward, easy answer. There are some areas of concern and some things that I think will correct themselves over time. So let’s take a look at what Anthony Santander has been doing so far.
Plate discipline problems
After the season ended last year, I did a 2022 in review for a handful of Orioles players, one of them being Santander, and I mentioned that one of the keys to Santander’s success was a significant improvement in his plate discipline.
Santander has never had the greatest plate discipline, but last year saw some notable improvements, as he dropped his chase rate to a career-best 33.7% (which is still worse than MLB average, but good for him) and his swinging-strike rate to a career-best 10.2%. As a result of Santander’s patience at the plate, he saw his walk rate rise to a 8.5%, yet another career-best.
But 2023 to this point has been a different story. So far, Santander is sporting a 29.3% strikeout rate which, if the season ended today would be the worst rate of his career. Alongside that, Santander has a 42% chase rate (another career-worst) and a 13.7% swinging-strike rate (yet another career-worst).
In fact, to this point in the season, Santander has been behind in counts constantly. He’s only gotten to a hitter-favorable count (2-0, 2-1, 3-0, 3-1) 8.2% of the time so far. Last year, that rate was 12.3%. And when he gets into a two-strike count, he’s chasing pitches outside the zone a ton, at a 37.3% clip, well above the 30.8% rate he had last year and the MLB average of 26.5%.
Quality of contact
If you want a cause for optimism with Santander, I’d point you toward his quality of contact—he’s still hitting the ball pretty hard.
Last year, Santander saw a career-best barrel rate of 11.2%. That’s dropped a bit this year, but it’s still a respectable 8.2%, right around the league average. Similarly, Santander’s hard-hit rate (the percentage of balls hit at least 95 MPH) has remained pretty strong, sitting at 30.3% so far this year, compared to 30.1% last year.
This is where I think some bad luck is in play. If you look at where Santander has been hitting the ball, he’s been hitting a bunch of fly balls that have been dying in the outfield or popping up in the infield.
To this point in the season, the percentage of balls Santander has gotten under (that is, balls with extremely high launch angles) is 37.7%, well above his 32.1% rate last year and the MLB average of 25.9%. He’s also posted an infield fly ball rate of 19.7% so far, above his rate of 16.9% last year and the MLB average of 8.9%. As a result, his HR/FB rate has dropped from 16.3% last year and a career average of 21.1% to just 7.1% so far this year.
I know those are a bunch of numbers all thrown in one paragraph so let me sum it up: Anthony Santander is still hitting the ball hard, about as hard as he did last year, but he’s hitting a bunch of fly balls that die in the outfield or pop-ups in the infield. These are things that I’d expect will correct themselves over the course of the season.
Conclusion
There are definitely some things to be concerned about with Anthony Santander so far. Yes, it’s early in the season, so I’m not totally panicking yet, but I don’t love that he’s seen his plate discipline regress as much as it has. That was a major reason for his success last year, and if that regression keeps up, he’s likely to continue to struggle.
That being said, there are plenty of things that I think will average out as the season goes on, which means he’ll start hitting better. It’s not likely that he’s going to continue hitting the ball as well as he is but still hit a ton of pop-outs or fly ball outs.
There’s also one thing I want to leave you with to keep in mind: last year was a career year for Santander, but from Opening Day through May 31, he was slashing .226/.335/.407. Then, from June 1 through the rest of the year, he hit .247/.311/.476.
The point is, it’s a long season. Guys go through slumps and hot streaks and Santander is no exception. Certainly these plate discipline issues are a concern that hopefully Santander will address as the year goes on, but I don’t think we should start panicking that Santander is going to entirely implode just yet.
Ben Palmer has lived in Maryland his whole life and currently spends his days working as a health care journalist. He also previously wrote for and was a site expert for the FanSided blog The Baltimore Wire and currently works as managing editor at Pitcher List where he writes about fantasy baseball.