Getting to know Tony Santillan

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With Sonny Gray (right groin strain) on the injured list, Tony Santillan is set to make his major-league debut on Sunday.

Santillan was the Reds’ second-round draft pick in the 2015 draft out of Seguin High School in Arlington, Texas. The 6-foot-3 righty was known as a hard-throwing yet erratic pitcher coming out of high school, but the Reds saw plenty of promise to work with.

Santillan’s first year-and-a-half of professional baseball could certainly be classified as an adjustment period. He posted a 5.16 ERA, 4.76 FIP, and 13.2% walk rate in 2015 and 2016. His 26.6% strikeout rate, though, showed his potential. Santillan took a leap forward in 2017 with Low-A Dayton, cutting his walk rate down to 10.5% and putting up a 3.38 ERA, 3.77 FIP, and 3.89 xFIP in 128.0 innings. Santillan really got his walks under control in 2018, when he lowered his walk rate to 6.0% between High-A Daytona and Double-A Pensacola. His strikeout rate fell to a mediocre 21.3%, partially because he’d taken some velocity off of his fastball to throw strikes, but the overall results were still there (3.08 ERA, 3.69 FIP).

Prior to the 2019 season, Santillan got the nice honor of being named Baseball America’s 69th-rated prospect in the game. MLB Pipeline rated Santillan as the fifth-best prospect in the Reds’ farm system. But the right-hander took a step back. He started the season in Double-A and stayed there all year as his velocity dipped, his walk rate climbed back up to 11.6%, and his strikeout rate fell to 19.8%. Santillan later revealed he was pitching through a knee injury that hampered him for much of the 2019 season.

Santillan spent 2020 at the Reds’ alternate site in Mason, Ohio, where it was reported that his velocity ticked back up and he looked much more like his 2018 self.

Santillan, who just turned 24 in April, began this season in Triple-A Louisville and looked to be back to his 2018 form. In six starts and 32.1 innings with the Bats, he has a 2.54 ERA, 3.74 FIP, and 3.53 xFIP. He leads the Triple-A East league in strikeouts (45) and has fanned 34.4% of the hitters he’s faced in 2021. Meanwhile, his walk rate is at 9.2% — not quite at 2018 levels, but manageable.

In his most recent start, Santillan struck out 13 batters in seven innings. One of those strikeouts came a slider that hit a batter in his back foot. Behold:

Here is every one of Tony Santillan’s 13 K’s from today? pic.twitter.com/Rj5EoTNQl3

— Louisville Bats (@LouisvilleBats) June 5, 2021

Santillan relies on three pitches: a four-seam fastball, slider, and changeup. He can sit in the mid-90s with his fastball and touch 98-99 mph at times. As the video above shows, his slider can be a dominant, plus pitch to put away hitters on both sides of the plate. Most scouting reports feel Santillan’s changeup is an average offering. But his fastball-slider combo can be enough to get by when they’re on.

Santillan is a fly-ball pitcher, though not to an extreme degree. His career ground-ball rate is 40.8%, which is just slightly below average. In 500.2 minor-league innings, he’s allowed just 43 home runs, or 0.77 per nine innings. Santillan has fairly even platoon splits throughout his career, although he’s struck out a higher rate of right-handed batters, likely thanks to his slider that breaks away from them.

• vs. RHB: .245/.329/.350, 25.3 K%, 9.5 BB%
• vs. LHP: .243/.321/.384, 21.0 K%, 10.0 BB%

It should be noted that he has completely dominated righties in 2021, holding them to a .195/.241/.256 slash line in 90 plate appearances.

With Gray and Jeff Hoffman sidelined for the time being, Santillan should get at least a couple of starts in the majors. It’s hard to know what to expect from any player in their MLB debut, but we should get a good look at a pitcher who has a legitimate chance to become a mainstay in the Reds’ starting rotation in the coming years.

Featured Photo: Jeff Speer (Icon Sportswire)