Coming into the 2017 regular season, the Milwaukee Brewers were surrounded by a mass of storylines that all seemed to predicate the team’s impending shift toward a more successful future — and one player was almost entirely left out of the conversation at season’s start.
Speculation as to the movement of Ryan Braun seemed to eat up most of the headlines, while numerous questions remained as to whether 2016 staff ace Junior Guerra would repeat his success, whether closer Neftali Feliz would return to prominence and how the young roster, including last year’s standout Jonathan Villar and top prospect Orlando Arcia would adjust to a position shift and more playing time respectively.
While the first four may not have panned out as planned, the Brewers have yet improved their roster on both a large and personal scale. Chase Anderson took his lost arbitration hearing to heart, storming his way through the first half after nearly missing a chance to grace the major league rotation, collecting a 2.89 earned run average and 1.107 walks plus hits per inning rate with 85 strikeouts and 27 walks in 90 1/3 innings of work before hitting the disabled list.
Jimmy Nelson, in similar fashion, has finally developed into the pitcher the team had hoped since his days as a highly-touted prospect, going from leading the majors in walks in 2016 to helping to lead the rotation in innings pitched (109) and showing massive improvement in his strikeout-to-walk ratio, raising it from a near-career-worst 1.63 up to a fantastic 4.37 this year.
Other players have followed suit in similar developments, including Arcia’s eye at the plate, Travis Shaw’s coming out party (who now leads Brewers position players in WAR at 3.1), Keon Broxton’s potential capitalization of his streaky nature, Eric Thames’ progression towards evening out his line after a blistering May, Manny Pina’s exceptional consistency and defensive prowess and Eric Sogard’s eye-popping reintroduction to Major League Baseball.
But beneath it all, one player seems to have been snubbed of much recognition, at least until first half numbers had many analysts turning their heads between I-told-you-so’s and subtle disbelief of high-upside numbers that have finally begun to translate.
Domingo Santana came into the year with modest hopes. After numerous trades left Santana as the second-longest tenured position player on the major league roster behind Braun, little thought was given to a player who had shown enormous potential in between regular trips to the disabled list. Finally healthy this year, Santana is finally poking out from the shadows to prove he is no longer just a guy in a lineup that was often described in the preseason as league-average at best.
While his defensive numbers themselves leave something to be desired, Santana has done his best to make regular appearances on the highlight reel, showcasing his instincts, range and arm.
But above all else, Santana has entrenched himself as a staple in the lineup and his offense has been nothing short of an asset so far in 2017. While Thames’ power display, love for beer and likable personality has Brewers fans drooling, Santana has easily kept up, if not helped to set benchmarks for a team now widely considering to be a true second-half contender.
In comparison, both Thames and Santana sport a healthy 1.7 WAR and his well-rounded skill set have granted the team a plethora of opportunities to take advantage.
Across the board, in a position stacked with some of the game’s most highly-regarded names, Santana has positioned himself as a surprising underdog, outplaying many of the game’s elite in the first half, and that’s no exaggeration — he ranks around the top ten in nearly every significant offensive category.
After two consecutive years of playing 77 games or less due to injury, Santana has so far shaken his identity as one who is perennially injured, compiling 86 games already in the first half, ranking fifth (tied) in the National League.
But outside of his health, which was a huge factor in previous years, his production has truly been his calling card in 2017. At the All-Star Break, Santana ranks seventh in runs scored (T-54), 11th in hits (T-86), 12th in home runs (15), eighth in RBI (T-50), second in walks (44) behind only Bryce Harper, eighth in stolen bases (T-9), eighth in average (.291), third in on-base percentage (.384), 12th in slugging and ninth in on-base plus slugging (.881) amongst outfielders in the National League. While he may still struggle with strikeouts, the Brewers have recently embraced this as a downfall of many of their young players, and so far it has done little to hold him back in any meaningful fashion.
Best of all, these numbers are not even outliers. Combined with his total tenure as a Brewer, Santana has amassed a highly-useful 162-game average of 25 home runs, 79 RBI and 11 stolen bases — numbers he is currently on pace to surpass given his current rate.
If that wasn’t enough, Santana is only 24 years old and still has more than enough time to improve in areas in which he still shows weakness. His current contract won’t have him hitting arbitration until 2019 and given the payrolls of the players that surround him on stat sheet in the outfield, his $542,200 salary could easily make him one of the most valuable players at his position.
If nothing else, he is helping to redeem the late-career decisions of preceding general manager Doug Melvin, who was known for both prudent and highly-questionable transactions during his tenure, largely sullying his name towards the end of his reign, until trades of this type helped to kickstart the team’s impending rebuild.
Along with the recent prominence of trade partners Josh Hader, who has been productive in his first stint in MLB, and Brett Phillips, who has already seen his first call-up and has been enjoying a massive rebound in Triple-A after a disappointing 2016 season, Santana has made the Carlos Gomez/Mike Fiers trade look more and more uneven by the day.
If his second half looks anything like his first, Santana will help lead the charge into the late season, one that could have the Milwaukee Brewers looking like the strongest roster in franchise history since the almighty ’82 team cemented itself in team lore. While that may be a high mark to reach, it stands to reason that this group of neglected players has already surpassed expectations by a wide margin, even with the notorious collapse that occurred just a few seasons ago looming as a repeat possibility in many minds.
Beyond all else and regardless of the expectations that seem to increase in intensity as the winning continues, the team seems to be having fun, and that experience has translated into the stands. The Milwaukee Brewers may not be the first players interviewed, the first players highlighted as the center of midseason conversation or even still regarded as a legitimate threat, but if one thing is for sure, they have started their own campaign to make baseball fun again — at least for their fans — all without headlines that question the traditional integrity of baseball.
And that remains a statement in itself.
Jonathan Powell is the Managing Editor of Outside Pitch MLB and the Milwaukee Brewers writer. Follow him on Twitter @jonathannashhh.
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