Cristian Santana, INF, Los Angeles Dodgers

Decent strength now but plenty lean; strong hands and wrists; going to be a monster when he fills out; plenty of natural strength with a ton of physical upside … Oppo bomb early in my April look; very, very strong hands and wrists with great bat speed; didn’t try to do too much besides flip wrists; ball explodes off his bat. Good raw power, even when off-balance — and he’s off balance quite a bit. Aggressive early in counts; will hack first pitch. Some pace of play issues between pitches; takes too much time out of the box, killing his rhythm; appears he can get into his own head a little bit there; no doubt some maturity to come … Poor pitch recognition and aggressive hacker; strikeouts will be an issue as he moves forward; lots of head movement through load and into swing doesn’t help either. Widens out stance a bit for two-strike approach; will lunge at off-speed and fairly easy to get off balance, but if/when he does connect, he’ll still hit the ball a long way … Not a ton of foot speed; had him 4.39 and 4.41 up the line from the RHH box in my April looks … Defensively, moved surprisingly well at third base in my April look; made a couple nice plays on the run to snag balls to his backhand side and throw out runners across to first. Didn’t move in quite as well on bunts, though; flat-footed with a slower first step in. Looks better defensively now than he did during his 2017 Cal League playoff showing, but for me, he’s still probably a (mostly) first baseman at ceiling who might be able to sneak in a bit of third base here and there … Cristian Santana is a high risk/high upside guy with real projection that centers on his bat; that power stroke might be for real if he can only make enough good contact to show it consistently at higher levels.

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