Why Anthony Santander Could Be a Free Agent Trap

With the MLB free agent market officially heating up, rumors and predictions are more all over the map than Taylor Swift’s flight log.

Considering that the excitement for the 2023 free agent class was predicated almost entirely on Shohei Ohtani, it’s understandable given the abundance of great players available this go around.

You’ve got a super-duper-star in Juan Soto, multiple frontline aces like Corbin Burnes and Max Fried, fan favorites like Pete Alonso and Teoscar Hernandez, and even some intriguing veterans like Paul Goldschmidt and Max Scherzer. 

But there’s another category. And that is the category for players that feel like a mistake in the making. Anthony Santander might very well be this year’s Trap player. 

On the surface, Santander’s appeal makes perfect sense. He’s coming off his best campaign yet with 44 home runs, 3.3 fWAR, and a 129 wRC+ to boot.

A master of hitting absolute moon shots, his .271 isolated power mark ranked 4th among all qualified players with only Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, and Shohei Ohtani finishing ahead. Indeed, he’s quietly been one of the most lethal power hitters in the sport and was a major factor in the Orioles ascension to contention status after being stuck in a fugue state for so long. 

And his last name is sick. Like, really sick. I genuinely don’t think this has been talked about enough; just say it out loud to yourself right now. 

But once you dig a bit deeper, your drilling equipment begins to malfunction and you’re worried about it exploding into a million pieces and leaving you buried in a cave of sorrow for all eternity. Because Anthony Santander’s value is built like a house of cards — and it’s the type of house that doesn’t tend to get better with age. 

Too much of Santander’s game revolves around his power. He’s historically reliant on power, in fact.

The 44 home runs he clubbed this past season were the most ever for a player with an OPS under .815. 40 plus home runs, and his OPS was lower than, say, Riley Greene’s, who had 24 knocks. Plus, according to Statcast, he had 7 more homers than expected. 

Part of that could be how many of his home runs came off pitches from outside the zone (10), which is a bit of a calling card for him.

Since 2020, he has 24 bombs off pitches outside the zone, the most of any player during that span. Don’t get me wrong, that’s sick, but is something like that sustainable?

Where will his offensive production come from if he hasn’t shown an ability to get on base consistently (career .307 OBP) considering the reality he likely won’t hit 44 (!) home runs again?

He feels reminiscent of a player like Pedro Alvarez, who in 2013 knocked 36 homers to make up for the lack of skills elsewhere and produce a 2.8 fWAR. What happened after?

He never produced an fWAR greater than 1.1 again. His 2015 season — in which he hit 27 home runs — resulting in just a 0.5 fWAR serves as a possible outcome for Santander. And that breakout 36-homer season from Alvarez was when he was even younger (26) than our man Santander.

And don’t forget, our man is also a bit slow. Since 2020, he’s been in the 44th percentile or lower in sprint speed; in 2024 specifically, he landed in the 18th percentile mark.

Unless you’re Sonic the Hedgehog, you’re not getting faster over time. And even worse, his defense over the last 4 seasons has been, at best, below average. 

Last year, he posted -7 DRS and -2 OAA, and his numbers in seasons prior aren’t much better. Not disastrous, but mediocre. It all culminates in a player that’s too much of a one-trick pony.

Sure, one might cite Kyle Schwarber — a defensively-lacking (to put it nicely) player with herculean power — as a counterpoint, but his resume was a bit lengthier before initially signing with Philadelphia and his walk rate significantly better. 

It’s possible that Santander has more to provide as a hitter than we realize, and that he’ll hit more than just 25 doubles, but for a player that’s projected by The Athletic to be signed for about $100 million over 5 years, or $80 million over 4 years conservatively by FanGraphs, it all feels like an evil trap. Not a fun one like the MouseTrap board game, but one more akin to the Saw movies.

That’s hyperbolic, oops, but I’d genuinely rather take a shot on a player like Tyler O’Neil who, when healthy, has showcased not just elite power numbers (31 home runs in 113 games in 2024) but also better on-base skills and, at times, elite defensive numbers with two Gold Gloves to boot. 

Or even (don’t laugh) Michael Conforto, whose on-base skills have always been solid and isn’t too far removed from multiple seasons that are better than any that Santander has ever had. You can get him for practically nothing; just ask the Padres how their small investment in Jurickson Profar worked out (okay, fine, you can laugh a little bit, but still!)

Every offseason, we see teams pay a premium for power-oriented players. It makes sense, of course, as Big Boom Boom power is a rarer skill to find on the open market, but Anthony Santander feels like a player that’s going to disappoint depending on what your expectations — and, maybe even more importantly, team needs — are.

If you’re a team with a pretty high floor on offense already, having Santander could be a terrifying player that could single-handedly bring a team back when the top bats aren’t producing.

But if you’re a team with lots of offensive holes to fill (e.g. Royals, Mariners), you might be in for some pain.