Enyel De Los Santos

De Los Santos didn't break camp with the Guardians, but was called up early in the season after a COVID-19 outbreak impacted several Cleveland pitchers. The right-hander pitched well enough to stick with the team from mid-May through the rest of the season, racking up a career-high 53.1 innings. Armed with a 3-pitch arsenal comprised of mostly mid-90s fastballs (61% usage), a slider (28%) and a changeup (11%) that he throws only to left-handed hitters, De Los Santos posted the best season of his young career, striking out 61 (28.4% K%) with a 14.4% SwStr% that was a top 40 rate among qualified relievers. He didn't see a ton of high leverage work, but managed five wins, a save and three holds in addition to his career-best ratios. De Los Santos has the potential to ascend Cleveland's leverage ladder, but his 2023 role is likely to remain in middle relief.

After pitching 19 innings in his debut season in 2018, De Los Santos failed to take a step forward last year, receiving just 11 innings at the highest level. He didn't do much in those innings to suggest he should have received more opportunities, allowing nine runs while posting a 9:5 K:BB. He was better but still rather unremarkable in 19 starts for Triple-A Lehigh Valley, posting a 4.40 ERA with a 5.32 FIP and a 21.0% strikeout rate. There's not a significant reason to be all that excited for the young righty at this point, as he hasn't looked all that interesting outside of a brief stretch at the start of 2018. He'll be just 24 this season, so further growth is still certainly possible, but he'll need that growth if he's to be something more than a sixth or seventh starter or middle reliever.

After coming over in a December trade for Freddy Galvis, De Los Santos began the season hot with Triple-A Lehigh Valley, posting an excellent 1.89 ERA through his first 16 starts. That earned him a mid-July promotion, and he bounced between Triple-A and the majors the rest of the year. He was unable to carry that success over to the big leagues, posting a mediocre 4.74 ERA in 19 innings, with an 18.5% strikeout rate and 9.9% walk rate which were both worse than the league average. His minor-league dominance looks less impressive when examining the underlying stats as well, as he finished his Triple-A campaign with a FIP 1.41 runs above his ERA. Still, De Los Santos has shown promise as a potential back-end starter. He remains stuck behind several young pitchers, so he's unlikely to get a chance in the Phillies' rotation right away, but he'll compete for a bullpen spot and could be one of the first pitchers called on when a starter gets injured.

De Los Santos was a little snake-bitten by his surroundings, at least towards the end of the 2016 season. Possessing a mid-90s fastball with downward movement that normally induces groundballs, De Los Santos allowed 11 home runs in 68.1 innings in the friendly hitting confines of the California League. By contrast, he had allowed just five home runs in the first 115 innings of his brief professional career. The 20-year-old right-hander posted a 4.35 ERA and 52:24 K:BB at High-A Lake Elsinore to end the year. De Los Santos continues to work on his lackluster secondary pitches, and without improvement, his future could be in the bullpen. Still, for now De Los Santos will remain in the rotation, and a return to High-A to begin the 2017 campaign is likely.