The Minnesota Twins appear on the verge of announcing the signing of 32-year-old Ervin Santana.
Once he passes his physical, he will be a Twin for the next four year, for better or worse.
If you are looking his recent track record, you may find similarities in his numbers to those of Twins' pitcher Ricky Nolasco in that same time span. Behind the pile of numbers is a slightly different story for Santana. If you were to remove the dreadful 2012, over the past two seasons, he has been an above average pitcher.
Here is why this is a good trend. Like rock music's Santana, Ervin's delivery is now Smooth
In 2012, Santana was a mess. His velocity was down, his command had escaped him and opponents were dropping dingers all over place (he allowed an MLB-high 39 home runs).
While with the Angels, manager Mike Scioscia questioned whether Santana could maintain a consistent release point and often found his mechanics erratic. Whether his mechanics played a role, the right-handed witnessed a decline in his fastball's velocity and the ability to throw it for a strike regularly. That year 23 of his league-leading 39 home runs came on his fastball. Tired of paying for more baseballs, Los Angeles decided not to pick up his option for 2013 and traded him to Kansas City.
Somewhere between California and Missouri, Santana smoothed out rough spots in his delivery that plagued him with the Angels. Most noticeably, in 2012 Santana had the habit of tilting his upper body towards the first base side while in the full windup before driving towards home. The results of this was a front side that would fly-open (his glove side drifting towards the first base line prematurely) and creating issues for his command.


At some point with the Royals, this was corrected and his upper body weight stayed above his back leg and tilted slightly towards the third base side while gathering. When driving towards the plate he remains on line and his glove side does not flip as quickly.


In these two examples both catchers are indicating they want a slider thrown down and on Santana's glove side. Because of the mechanics in 2012, his arm drags and is not able to finish the slider properly. The slider stays up and in. (Although he misses his spot, Seattle's Jesus Montero is flummoxed anyway as everyone knows his bats are afraid of balls that curve.) In the 2014 example, because of his fluid and smooth delivery Santana is able to place his slider in a much better spot.
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