Blue Jays To Sign Anthony Santander

The Blue Jays and outfielder Anthony Santander are in agreement on a deal, pending a physical, reports Jon Morosi of MLB.com. Ben Nicholson Smith and Shi Davidi of Sportsnet later reported that the physical is complete. The Beverly Hills Sports Council client gets a five-year deal, according to Ari Alexander of KPRC 2. Alexander adds that Santander can trigger an opt-out after 2028, the fourth year of the deal, though the Jays will have the ability to void that opt-out by picking up a club option for 2030. The deal is for more than $90MM, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. There is some deferred money in the deal, per Alexander.

Santander, 30, has established himself as one of the better power bats in the league in recent years. That included a huge 44-homer tally in 2024. That was his personal best but it was also his sixth straight season in double digits and third straight with at least 28 long balls.

Earlier in his career, he undercut that power production somewhat with more tepid results in terms of batting average and drawing walks, though he has been better at drawing free passes over the past three years. From 2019 to 2021, he hit 49 homers in 240 games but only had a 5.2% walk rate. That led to a .252/.295/.474 batting line and 100 wRC+, indicating his strengths and weaknesses evened out to league average production on the whole.

For the 2022 to 2024 seasons, Santander improved his walk rate by a few ticks, finishing between 8.4% and 8.7% in each of those. That’s roughly league average, with all MLB hitters walking at an 8.2% clip last year. He added those walks without sacrificing his power, putting the ball over the wall 105 times, which made for a productive combination. He had a combined line of .244/.317/.478 for those three campaigns, which translated to a 124 wRC+.

Apart from those home runs, Santander’s contributions have been fairly limited. As mentioned, the on-base abilities have been subpar overall, though fairly decent in the past three years. He’s not a burner on the basepaths, having only once stolen more than two bases in a season. His outfield defense has generally been graded as a bit below league average. He has a career tally of -3 Defensive Runs Saved in over 5,000 outfield innings, with Outs Above Average having him at -13.

More to come.