Pretty aggressive Carlos Santana Projection..

[whammer]

I have C Santana, -all the chatter I have read out of Clev - wrist, inexperience, signed Redmond, that he is looking at Sept...found it interesting that you guys see 200 plus ab's for him.

[Todd Zola]

I haven't seen anything from the Cleveland brass other than the report on 1/22 when they signed Redmond, I will do some due diligence, but I don't see Marson/Redmond/Toregas blocking Santana if he is ready.

Taking Toregas off the projections shows how we feel that battle will go.

Chris Gimenez is still around to catch in a pinch.

We are thinking more of a post All-Star break call up for Santana and basically full time after that.

This assumes he recovers from the hamate issue.

[Kelly_Leak]

As long as Santana comes into Spring Training healthy, hits in AAA, and shows continued improvement behind the plate I agree with Todd's time table. The Cleveland catching situation reminds me a bit of Baltimore's catching situation last year. The O's got by with what they had for about 2 months - delaying Wieters' service time - then called him up at the end of May. I could envision something very similar with Santana (except with a call up closer to the AS break). Let's face it, Cleveland is not going to be very good this year (kinda like Baltimore last year). I expect to see some youngsters given extended looks throughout the season (again like Baltimore in 2009).