Carlos Santana: Great Indians catching prospect

Posted on March 31, 2010

Rookie catcher Carlos Santana of the Cleveland Indians works out during spring training camp on March 4, 2010 in Goodyear, Arizona. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

 

I recently returned from my favorite assignment of the year: covering spring training in Arizona for a few weeks for Sports Illustrated. My job is usually to photograph a Cactus League game every day to shoot veterans who have changed teams in the off season and hot rookie prospects. My first day in Arizona found me driving over to the Cleveland Indians camp in Goodyear to shoot their 23-year-old catching phenom with a familiar name: Carlos Santana. It is rare that I get a chance to shoot one player at camp like this, and it was really fun to follow around such a highly-touted prospect as Santana for a few hours on Thursday morning March 4, 2010.

Shooting a morning session in camp can be both fun and frustrating at the same time. You never know what drills the players are going to do next and just when you think that no good photo opportunities are going to present themselves something cool happens and you get a bunch of great stuff you have been waiting for. This is what happened in Goodyear when I was there to shoot Santana. I wanted to get him looking like a catcher, but the first half of the morning only saw him hitting in the cage and doing base running drills.

After awhile Santana finally put on his catchers gear to catch some bullpen sessions and go through some blocking and throwing drills on one of the back fields. One of the final pictures I needed to complete my assignment was to get some moments with Santana working and talking with coach and mentor Sandy Alomar, Jr. It was obvious that Santana was working closely with the former great Indians catcher when they got together after all the drills had been completed to talk and go over a few things. I was excited that I had the final pictures I needed. When I was done the two of them approached me and asked if I would take a picture of the two of them together (see below). You gotta love spring training!

After I shot the Indians camp I went on to shoot 10 games over the course of the next few weeks. I never had the chance to shoot the Indians again, thus I did not see the switch-hitting Santana play. Before he was sent down to the minor league camp Santana got 16 at bats in 8 games, hitting .250. He impressed manager Manny Acta with his game-calling improvement. “But he’s not a finished product. He needs to work on every part of his game, and we have to compete with the guys we have here,” Acta said. “But he’s so talented. He’s gifted.

“Calling the game is not a big issue for him; he did great here. It’s pretty clear what we expect. There’s no timetable for [his promotion]. It’s up to him.”

I will be rooting for Santana to do well in the minors and earn a quick trip to the big leagues. I can’t wait till I get the chance to shoot him in Oakland in the near future.