Cristian

Santana

Santana was a notable prospect roughly a half-decade ago with the Dodgers when he launched 24 homers at High-A Rancho Cucamonga basck in 2018. The 27-year-old never wound up reaching the big leagues and hasn’t appeared in affiliated ball since a stint with Triple-A Louisville as a member of the Reds organization back in 2022. He’s back with Los Angeles after batting .423 with 13 homers in 35 games for the Lancaster Barnstormers of the independent Atlantic League.

Cincinnati has 47 players left in big-league camp. Santana and Dowdy were in Reds’ camp this spring as non-roster invitees. They’ll open the upcoming regular season as organizational depth in the upper minors.

Santana spent the last seven seasons in the Dodgers’ minor-league system, slashing .311/.331/.44 with eight home runs across 347 plate appearances at Triple-A Oklahoma City last season. He’ll give the Reds some additional position player depth in the upper minors in 2022.

Santana also doubled. The homer was the 22nd of the season for the 21-year-old third baseman, and the double the 16th. This is also the second four-hit game for Santana in the past three, and four-of-six games have been multi-hit games for the right-handed hitter. The approach leaves a lot to be desired as seen in his 132/18 K/BB ratio, but Santana is extremely talented, and if he can “put it all together,” he’ll be a starter at the highest level.