Cleveland Indians: Carlos Santana Is Having an Incredible Month of July

Carlos Santana has been on fire for the Cleveland Indians this month

Just before June ended, I listed three Cleveland Indians who I felt were going to have a big July. Among those three players, I noted that Carlos Santana looked primed to have a big uptick in the upcoming month. One of the biggest reasons for this prediction was that he has historically been great in July, and he was showing signs of improvement in June. 

More from Away Back Gone

• Cleveland Guardians tantalizingly close to locking up AL Central tiebreakers
• Cleveland Guardians: Terry Francona becomes meme in profanity-laced ejection
• Say goodbye to defensive shifts and hello to bigger bases, pitch clock in 2023
• Cleveland Guardians: Shane Bieber second-fastest to 800 strikeouts in major-league history
• The next week will make or break the Cleveland Guardians’ season

Since that post went online, Carlos Santana has been an absolute beast. In 51 July at-bats, the switch-hitter has batted .373 with a slugging percentage of .725. All this considered, his run creation has been over twice that of the average player, something that is in the elite territory. It goes without saying that he has been one of the best players in the league so far this month.

A big part of this production surge has been an increase in his power. Santana’s isolated power, which subtracts batting average from slugging percentage to calculate a batter’s power output, has increased roughly 130 points from his average from March through June. The underlying aspects of his change are even more impressive. He has already his six doubles, tying his monthly best this season, and four home runs despite only appearing in 12 games.

Interestingly enough, his batting average on balls in play has increased by a large margin in July. Santana perpetually posts low batting averages on balls in play, largely because he is a victim of the shift. He has traditionally pulled over 50 percent of his balls in play, but that has not been the case this month. Only 47 percent of his balls in play have been pulled, and a whopping 24 percent have gone the other way. This is well above his career and seasonal averages, which means that more of his contacts have been falling for hits.

Also from his batted ball profile, Santana has been hitting the ball harder than usual this month. While his hard contact percentage has remained roughly constant over the season, he has managed to reduce the share of soft hits. This has not only helped his cause by creating more hits from contacts but also by increasing the value of his hits. After all, harder hit balls tend to go farther than their softer counterparts.

A final improvement that has aided in his monster July has come from the long ball. As noted above, Santana has experienced a power surge this month and is on pace to set a personal 2016 record for the most home runs in a month. One of the best ways to measure the power surge is in his home run to fly ball ratio, which is sitting at an outlandish 26.7 percent – nearly double his career average.

Next: Indians Place Tommy Hunter on DL, Recall Cody Anderson

Of course, all of this comes with the usual small sample size warnings, so it would be incorrect to assume that these trends will continue for the rest of the season. Still, it is quite fun to note just how great he has been this month. His bat has been a big factor in keeping the Cleveland Indians atop the American League Central standings, and he should still be a key cog in the wheel moving forwards.