The Arizona Diamondbacks have quietly made one of the smarter low-cost moves of the offseason, agreeing to a one-year, $2 million deal with veteran switch-hitter Carlos Santana. This is not a splashy headline grab. This is a savvy front office filling a specific need with a player who has 335 career home runs and 16 big league seasons under his belt. If you are building your fantasy roster or eyeing D-backs futures, you should pay attention.
Why This Signing Makes More Sense Than You Think: Arizona has been hunting for a right-handed complement to Pavin Smith at first base all winter. Smith, a lefty, posted a solid .258/.362/.434 line with eight homers in 87 games during 2025 before a quad injury ended his season. The problem is his splits are brutal against left-handed pitching, carrying just a .597 OPS against southpaws. That is a hole in the lineup that opposing managers will exploit every chance they get.
Enter Santana. At 39, turning 40 in April, he is not the player he was during his prime years in Cleveland. His 2025 numbers tell you that clearly: .219/.308/.325 with 11 homers and 54 RBIs across 116 games with the Guardians before a brief, forgettable stint with the Cubs where he hit just .105 in eight games. His hard-hit rate dropped to 37.8%, the third-lowest of his career, and his strikeout rate of 19.2% was easily a career high. Those are not inspiring numbers on their own.
But here is the thing about platoon players: you do not need them to be stars. You need them to fill a specific role. Santana still draws walks at an above-average clip, he has a career .344 OBP, and he is a switch-hitter who has historically posted better numbers from the right side. In a reduced role facing primarily lefties and providing some veteran presence for a young clubhouse, $2 million is essentially risk-free for Arizona.
Impact on Diamondbacks 2026 Futures Odds: Let's be honest, the Diamondbacks are not championship favorites this year. Their World Series odds sit at +7000 on most books, with FanDuel listing them at +6500 and their win total set at 79.5 at BetMGM. After going 80-82 in 2025, the market is essentially telling you Arizona is projected as a .500-ish team.
Does signing Carlos Santana move the needle on those futures? Not dramatically, no. This is not the kind of move that shifts a line. But it is the kind of depth signing that separates teams that hover around .500 from teams that sneak into the wild card picture. Arizona also traded for Nolan Arenado earlier this offseason, and when you start stacking these complementary moves, the cumulative effect matters. If you already liked Arizona's core of Corbin Carroll, Ketel Marte, and their pitching staff, this signing fills one of those small roster gaps that can mean the difference between 79 wins and 84 wins. And 84 wins in the NL West could be very interesting depending on how the division shakes out.
Fantasy Baseball Implications for Beginners: Should you draft Carlos Santana? Probably not in standard leagues. In a strict platoon with Pavin Smith, Santana is unlikely to crack 350 plate appearances. He is 40 years old. His power has faded significantly, dropping from 19 homers as recently as 2023 to just 11 in 2025. His batting average will hover in the .220-.230 range even in a favorable platoon. That is a fantasy headache you do not want on your roster when there are better options available.
However, there is a niche angle here. In deep AL/NL-only leagues (15+ teams), Santana has legitimate utility value. He qualifies at first base, and his walk rate keeps his OBP respectable. If Chase Field's hitter-friendly dimensions give him a few extra homers, he could be a sneaky streaming option against soft lefties. In daily fantasy formats like DraftKings and FanDuel, he could be a value play when priced in the minimum salary range against left-handed starters.
The Real Fantasy Takeaway: The bigger story is actually about Pavin Smith. With Santana handling the heavy lifting against lefties, Smith should see his fantasy value stabilize in a role where he is only facing right-handed pitchers. That .772 OPS against righties is perfectly usable in deeper formats, and the reduced exposure to his weakness could make Smith a more consistent fantasy contributor than his overall numbers suggest. If your league counts OBP, Smith in a pure platoon role suddenly becomes a sleeper worth targeting in the later rounds of your draft.
AI Model Take: Our projection models view this as a marginal win addition for Arizona, somewhere in the range of 0.3 to 0.5 wins over a replacement-level first baseman. That sounds small, but in a league where wild card races are often decided by one or two games, these roster optimization moves compound. The D-backs front office is not swinging for the fences this offseason. They are building a competitive roster one smart move at a time, and at $2 million with zero long-term risk, they got exactly what they needed.
For bettors, the lesson here is simple: when evaluating futures, do not just look at the headliners. The teams that outperform their win totals in the regular season are often the ones that filled every roster spot with competent players rather than leaving holes. Arizona still has questions in their pitching rotation and bullpen, but the lineup is starting to look like it can score enough runs to keep them competitive most nights.