Only two players in all of baseball hit more home runs last season than Anthony Santander managed with the Baltimore Orioles.
Their names: Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge.
That, by itself, seems breathtaking enough to make a frigid January morning feel like Florida in the spring.
The Blue Jays need what Santander brings — they were 13th in home runs hit last year in the American League. Santander’s Baltimore Orioles, winners of 91 games in 2024, 101 games the year before, were second in homers.
Santander, a switch hitter with all kinds of power, is precisely what the Jays everyday lineup requires — that’s with a bat is in his hand. Sometimes.
He hits home runs. He doesn’t get on base a lot. And, from the opposite perspective, he’s precisely what the Jays don’t need when he isn’t at the plate.
That is the paradoxical acquisition of the well-liked, highly regarded Santander. It’s the theme, really, of this recent Blue Jays wonky attempts at puzzle-building, not with all the right pieces, in recent summers and winters of difficulty.
Santander can hit. One hundred and five home runs the past three seasons to be precise. Those are almost an Edwin Encarnacion type of numbers.
That’s 17 more homers than Vladimir Guerrero Jr. wound up with over the past three seasons.
What he can’t do, however, is field. Not very well, at least. And what he can’t do is the run the bases. Not very well, at least.
A major league scout I know rated Santander as below average in both playing the outfield and running the bases. Guerrero’s WAR number from last season was 6.2. Santander’s was 2.9 — with all of his home runs.
And this is where it is hard to understand the job-saving desperation that it being displayed by general manager Ross Atkins and club president Mark Shapiro in piecing together this roster.
The Jays have acquired a brilliant-fielding second baseman in Andres Gimenez, to star in the infield, an up-the-middle entry that includes the genius centre fielder, Daulton Varsho. Winning teams are supposed to be great up the middle. We’ve been hearing that all our lives.
Varsho is the best-fielding centre fielder in baseball. Gimenez is the premier second baseman.
Santander is likely to play left field. Premier is not a word often used to describe his outfield play.
The Jays have another problem in the middle of their batting order: It’s speed, or a lack thereof, and with that comes the ability to run the bases.
Guerrero may not be Rickey Henderson on the bases, but he’s a decent base-runner with below-average speed. Santander isn’t thought to be much of a baserunner at all and, depending on where John Schneider decides to put Alejandro Kirk in the batting order, the Jays could be running three offensive lineman in places where you want to have running backs carrying the ball.
The reason Santander wasn’t everyone’s pick for free agency this off-season, coming off his giant season, was that for everything he does well, there is an opposite and polar effect.
He’s not George Bell at the plate, but then he’s really not George Bell in the field,
Nobody wants to pay big money for designated hitters anymore, so you would expect Santander to play-hold-your-breath left field, just to the right of the finest centre fielder in the game.
The Jays are all about defence with Varsho and Gimenez and even George Springer in right field — until they’re not all about defence.
The thinking, like the team, is rather inconsistent.
A year ago, the Jays started the season with three strong outfielders, all of them below-average hitters. Now, if they’re being honest about having the aging Springer back in right field, it means they’ll be weak at the plate in centre field, right field, second base and that’s without knowing who will be the DH come April.
It’s a little like having one of those giant jigsaw puzzles fall on the floor, with the pieces scattering in all directions, some of them getting lost. When you try and complete the picture, something is always missing.
And that’s without knowing what the future of Guerrero and Bo Bichette beyond this season and without considering how badly the Jays have misplayed the Guerrero circumstance.
He should have been signed years ago — and probably would have been signed for several hundred millions less than he will be now. The Jays threw huge money in an attempt to get Ohtani as a free agent. And then did it again this winter, trying to sign free-agent Juan Soto.
The Jays established how much they would pay for someone who wasn’t theirs. Guerrero is no fool: His price for the future is now through the Rogers Centre roof.
You must keep him to make the expensive deals for Gimenez and Santander make any sense at all. And still to be determined, how and where Bichette fits in, if anywhere.
Are the Jays better today than they were yesterday? Yes, they are.
Are they good enough to challenge the Yankees, Orioles and Red Sox in the American League East? Probably not.
But Anthony Santander was a necessary signing, flaws and all.
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