Three-United: Guardians Sign Carlos Santana Again (Again), Trade Josh Naylor to Diamondbacks

I hope that you spared a thought over the holidays for the poor Naylor brothers. In a premise tailor-made for a lesser Hallmark movie, their time as teammates came to an end just four days before Christmas, when the Guardians traded Josh Naylor to the Diamondbacks in exchange for right-handed pitcher Slade Cecconi and a Competitive Balance Round B draft pick. Just 21 minutes after Jeff Passan broke the news that broke up the family, he also reported that veteran first baseman Carlos Santana had agreed to a one-year, $12-million deal to fill the hole Naylor left in the Cleveland infield. He failed to report on what, if anything, would fill the hole left in Bo Naylor’s heart.

After five years away, Santana is coming home to Cleveland for the third time — another solid premise for a Hallmark movie. In fact, he still has a home in Cleveland. Or he did, anyway. He put it on the market a few weeks ago and closed on a sale two days before signing with the Guardians. Another fun side note to Santana’s signing: He very nearly busted the We Tried Tracker. Ken Rosenthal listed seven other teams that were in on Santana: “The Seattle Mariners, Santana’s team in 2022, sought to reunite with him virtually the entire offseason, and were pushing for a resolution. Santana said both New York teams, Detroit and Arizona also were in the mix, while San Diego and Texas had asked him to wait.” If you’re keeping score at home, that’s four teams that were in the mix, two in the brand-new category of asking the player to wait, and then the extraordinarily thirsty Mariners. As you may have noticed, Rosenthal is citing Santana himself as the source for this information. If more players spoke to reporters about the interest they received, the tracker would look a lot more robust.

After running a combined wRC+ of 94 from 2020 to 2023, Santana suddenly rediscovered his form with the Twins in 2024. In his age-38 season, Santana ran a 114 wRC+ with 23 home runs, and his 11 fielding runs earned him his first Gold Glove. He racked up 3.0 WAR, more than he totaled in all but two of his 15 years in the big leagues, and good for the fifth-most WAR among first basemen last season. His average contact quality didn’t stray far from his career norms, and his vaunted batting eye remained about as strong as ever. The big difference is that 23.8% of his batted balls came in the form of line drives or fly balls to the pull side. That’s his highest rate since 2014. Focusing on pull-side power has been a major organizational focus for the Twins, so much so that before the season, Trevor Larnach decided he’d gone too far in that direction and needed to develop a more balanced approach. Whether or not the Twins were responsible for it, this approach change certainly worked for Santana, and the Guardians are hoping that he can keep both the bat and the glove going for one more year.

As for the Diamondbacks, they’re in for their first taste of life without a cornerstone at the cold corner since 2010. Naylor may not be peak Paul Goldschmidt or Christian Walker, but he’s been a top-10 first baseman over the past three years. As slugging first basemen who play bigger than the numbers suggest, Naylor and Santana have a lot in common. Both players are under six feet tall and both depend on the home run ball despite lacking jaw-dropping exit velocities. Naylor hits the ball on the ground more often and lacks Santana’s gift for staying within the strike zone, but he hits the ball harder. Despite comparable average exit velocities and hard-hit rates, Naylor’s 90th percentile exit velocity was 106 mph, significantly higher than Santana’s 103.7-mph mark. In 2024, despite running a bottom-quartile groundball rate, Naylor put up the first 30-homer season of his career, to go along with a 118 wRC+. He’s now reached that mark or higher in each of the last three seasons. His 2.3 WAR ranked 11th among first basemen in 2024, and his 7.0 WAR over the past three seasons ranked eighth.

Santana’s deal is for exactly the same amount as MLB Trade Rumors predicted that Naylor would get in his final year of arbitration, and that’s what makes this such a Cleveland move. The Guardians are taking on more risk due to Santana’s age and giving up Naylor’s higher upside, but essentially, they swapped out two similar players for identical prices and wound up with a draft pick and an interesting arm in Cecconi. Steamer projects Naylor to put up 2.0 WAR next season, compared to 1.2 for Santana. You can understand why, on the “Five and Dive” podcast, Jeffrey Paternostro called the move, “so Guardians (derogatory).” It took a whole lot of work for Cleveland to make its first base situation a bit dicier in exchange for a couple longshots.

Cecconi announced his arrival in Arizona with a bang in 2023, and I mean that very literally. He made four starts and three relief appearances, running a 4.33 ERA and 4.37 FIP. Cecconi entered the 2024 season as the D-backs’ no. 5 overall prospect and their system’s top-ranked pitcher, but he struggled mightily, running a 6.66 ERA and 5.02 FIP. He bounced between the minors and majors, and he was sent to the bullpen in late July, but his 4.49 xERA and 4.70 xFIP — while still nothing to write home about — were much less worrisome. Cecconi doesn’t rack up many whiffs or strikeouts, he doesn’t run a great groundball rate, and he doesn’t avoid hard contact. But what he does have is solid control, a fastball that can reach 98 mph, three other pitches that grade out as above average according to Pitching Bot, Stuff+, and StuffPro, and 0.155 years of service time.

The Rays were rumored to be interested in him at the trade deadline, and it’s entirely possible that the Guardians turn him into a serviceable pitcher. Although the fastball can reach 98, it averages closer to 94 and got rocked last season. Somehow, the Diamondbacks let Cecconi throw it 55% of the time anyway. Maybe the Guardians will get him in the pitching lab and help him figure out a fastball that works. Maybe they’ll make him a full-time reliever to bump his velocity back up to the top of its range. They’ll definitely have him throw his heater less often. Then again, maybe they just wanted that draft pick.

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