Baseball America on Clevelan Santeliz

Callis:

Santeliz flashes the pure stuff to become a closer, but his command still has a long ways to go. He also doesn’t have the most resilient arm, and the White Sox only used him on consecutive days twice last year at Double-A Birmingham. He did put up nice numbers, including a 0.96 ERA, 52 strikeouts in 56 innings and 10 saves in 11 chances after becoming the Barons’ closer in August.

Santeliz usually sits in the low 90s with his fastball and tops out at 96. At his best, he backs up his fastball with a plus slider. But his slider isn’t a consistent weapon, and he sometimes struggles to throw strikes. In 56 innings last year, he issued 35 walks. I suspect his more realistic ceiling is as a set-up man rather than as a closer, but he’s only 23 and still has time to improve.

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