Dennis Santana Is Running Out of Time With the Pirates

The Pittsburgh Pirates need to add relievers this trade deadline if they are serious about making the postseason.

No way around it.

It's also unrealistic to expect them to trade for six or seven relievers.

They need internal improvement also.

And if they could somehow get Dennis Santana to find his 2025 groove, that would be as big of an addition to this bullpen as almost any trade.

Is there any hope that he can turn this season around?

Good morning and welcome to OffBeat here on North Shore Nine presented by FanDuel.

My name is Alex Stumpf and this is a daily look at your Pittsburgh Pirates.

Hope you all enjoyed that Pirateless All-Star game.

As we rev up for the second half of the season, I'm going to be taking a look at three players who I think really are going to be pivotal to seeing if this team can get over the hump.

If they could become a postseason club.

And one of those guys is Dennis Santana.

I broke news last week about how the Pirates were calling up Antwone Kelly and Thomas Harrington.

Neither are still up in the major leagues right now, so it wasn't a huge bullpen move.

It was just get some fresh arms before the break.

And I cannot believe, really, how many people were quote-tweeting and replying and reposting saying Dennis Santana has finally been DFA'd.

It's like, no, this wasn't the move for that.

Konnor Griffin is very clearly going to go on the 60-day IL and it will probably be Cam Sanders who gets DFA'd because he can't be optioned anymore without being exposed to waivers.

Seems like a pretty understandable move.

Dennis Santana wasn't DFA'd.

And, candidly, I don't think he's right on that line of being DFA'd right now.

I think the team wants to give him a little more runway.

They want to see what he can do.

Because up until that Brave series, he had been on a streak of 10 outings, 10 scoreless outings out of his last 12 outings.

And Don Kelly had been talking about how he felt the stuff was playing better, how he had looked better.

And then he had just a horrible series against Atlanta.

That ninth inning in the series finale, that 3-1 pitch to Mike Yastrzemski, that was about as predictable an outcome as I think I've seen from a pirate reliever this year.

He was forced to go in with a fastball and Yastrzemski was not going to miss it.

And it went a long way, and it was a game-clinching grand slam.

And that's disappointing for a multitude of reasons.

The biggest being, I actually agreed with Kelly.

Up to that point, I thought maybe he was building a bit of a head of steam.

We were seeing him use his slider more, the sinker a little more.

It's like, okay, that's a combo that can work.

Whenever he was at his best last year, he was throwing his slider over 50% of the time.

He really hasn't done that this year.

We're finally seeing the four-seam usage dip down a little bit.

Slider usage goes up.

Sinker, he's basically thrown as much as the four-seamer this month.

It's like, okay, this is a little different.

I don't know if this is the right mix.

I don't know if he's executing properly as is, even if he had the right mix.

But, man, I'm just looking for something at this point.

Because the Dennis Santana we saw last year, he was their best relief pitcher.

And I'm convinced the Pirates would not have made the David Bednar trade last year if they didn't think, okay, we have someone internally who could pitch the ninth.

And Dennis Santana took over those ninth-inning closer duties the last two months of the year.

And outside of Colorado, looked pretty good.

Then this winter, I thought, okay, he might be the closer.

And then they signed Gregory Soto.

It becomes like a, maybe he, it's a roaming closer.

bullpen by committee.

Play the matchups.

And that's what we saw the first month.

And for the first month, he looked like 2025 Dennis Santana.

Then the Cardinals came to town at the end of April.

And he just has not been the same guy since.

Last year, 179 batting average allowed.

This year, 244.

Slugging percentage goes from 297 to 455.

And you can look at, well, wait a minute, the exit velos are about the same.

he's, the whiff rate is about the same.

Why is it such a drastic drop-off?

And yeah, to address the elephant in the room, he outperformed his peripherals in 2025.

But by a pretty significant amount.

217 ERA, an expected ERA of 351, according to Baseball Savant.

Now, at the end of the day, a 351 ERA for someone you claimed off waivers, that's a fine pickup.

If Dennis Santana had a 351 ERA right now, he would probably still have the ninth inning.

But his balloon to 580, the expected ERA is five, so you can't even be like, oh, he's just unlucky, really.

Like, he is not pitched well.

And looking at it, the biggest change I see, he's not in the zone.

Last year, 54.9% of his pitches were in the strike zone.

This year, it's 44.1%.

And you can see the walk rate, it's gone from 6.3 to 11.7, nearly doubled.

And that's a big part of this equation.

But I also look at the slider.

And it has the same whiff rate as last year.

It has the same expected slugging percentage.

But the exit velo has gone from 86.2 miles per hour to 91.6.

I think that is still his best pitch.

I think it's still the pitch that he can throw the most and try to craft something out of it.

But this last homestand, I saw a lot of belt-high sliders.

He had an 0-2 pitch to Brice Turang, who nearly took one out.

Like, it's a problem.

So it's, his best pitch isn't getting soft contact.

He's never been a huge whiff strikeout guy.

He's always relied on getting some quick contact occasionally.

Whenever he does it's usually soft or right at a fielder or something like that.

But whenever you add the walks on top of everything, that's a big part of this equation.

Not only are these at-bats going longer and he's facing more batters this way, he's putting on more base runners.

So he could allow a gap shot last year and if the bases are empty, okay, you just got to pitch around the runner on second.

This year, there's a runner on first, he scores, and now you have to pitch around the runner on second.

The inning is already snowballing.

We're going to take a quick break.

We'll be right back.

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So is there a path out?

So is there a path out?

Maybe?

I did notice this year, every month, Dennis Santana's arm angle has been going down.

Now that could be a deliberate choice.

That could be just a product of new mechanics.

Maybe it's something that is subconscious.

I don't think it would have gotten this far without it at least brought to his attention at this point.

That the arm angle keeps going down.

And it's only a handful of degrees at the end of the day, but it's still enough that it's like, look, if these pitches are performing like we have seen in the past, you have to look at where your arm slot is too.

That could be part of this equation.

I think throwing more sliders is part of this equation too.

I think leaning into the sinker could be.

I wouldn't mind seeing more cutters.

That was 2024 Dennis Santana.

Whenever he came in.

And he had, a pretty good slider in these fastballs and he had no intermediary pitch.

Say that five times fast.

To bridge the gap.

And that cutter became an interesting tool.

I don't think it was a great tool for missing bats, but like that rebooting of Dennis Santana in 24, whenever they claimed him off waivers and it was like, let's see if there's anything here.

That was their kick the tires pitch and it worked.

And then we saw it less than 25 and he had a really good year in 25.

So I don't think it's necessary.

Like he doesn't absolutely need it to be successful, but we have seen him once lead into this pitch whenever he's struggling here and it worked out.

I wouldn't mind seeing that, try out again.

I really don't have a lot of faith with the four seamer at the moment.

It's just not landing in the zone enough and I think that puts extra pressure to put the slider in the zone and we have seen a couple sliders really get left right up the middle and that's why they get hit harder.

The number one thing for Dennis Santana is he needs to get in the strike zone more.

I really think that is the path here.

He has to right the ship mechanically, whether that's finding a way to fall closer to the mound instead of, towards first base, whether that's getting the arm slot in the right spot.

I really don't know.

I really don't know.

I'm not at the end of the day, a major league pitching coach.

I just throw out ideas and this is one where it's throw stuff up against the wall and see what sticks.

But I don't know how much runway he has for that.

Because while I didn't think that they were going to cut Dennis Santana whenever they brought up Thomas Harrington for a day or two.

If they do make a couple additions to this bullpen.

You have to wonder if his spot is going to be one of the ones on the chopping block.

Carry eight relievers.

Carmen Mijinsky is in the spot where whenever he's active or available, he'll have one of them.

Yohan Santana.

I know it's been messy and it's been some ups and downs, but he's actually had a really good month and change.

Gregory Soto is not going anywhere.

They just traded for Brandon Eisert.

Whenever Evan Sisk comes back, Mason Montgomery.

Like there aren't a lot of you need a long man.

And probably Wilber Dotel, I would imagine, since they optioned Antwone Kelly and Wilber Dotel has had a couple rehab starts or appearances.

It's one of those like, Dennis Santana, I wonder how rock solid his footing is come the end of the month if the Pirates do make some reliever trades.

Right now, though, you've got to keep plugging away.

You've got to try to see if you can find something because getting 2025 Dennis Santana back at this bullpen would be huge.

And I don't think he's completely gone.

I had a chat with a league source a couple months ago whenever I asked, about Bubba Chandler's mechanical things.

And I got some suggestions.

And then I'm like, OK, I'm also thinking about Dennis Santana.

And they were like, yeah, he had a pretty good run for a waiver claim.

And maybe that's what it was.

Maybe it was just a really good run for a guy who was claimed off waivers.

But I still believe there is useful baseball in Dennis Santana's right arm.

That he could figure something out.

I'm not ready to give up on him yet, but he is on the clock.

He has to show something pretty definitive in the not so distant future because this team needs to bring in new blood to this bullpen.

And there are other people who need to have their spots locked in first.

Thank you so much for listening to OffBeat here on North Shore Nine presented by FanDuel.

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We'll talk again tomorrow.

All right.

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