My Night of Many Emotions
Last night was one of many emotions for me, all of which happened to coincide with the Phillies-Mets game. Johan Santana took on Phillies newcomer Joe Blanton in a contest that would eventually result in a sole owner of first place for the time being. While my night got off to an exciting bang thanks to a Jayson Werth RBI single in the first inning, it quickly turned sour when the Mets tied it up and pulled ahead thanks to a blown call from the umpire two run homer from the ever-so-torrid Carlos Delgado. The deflation quickly shifted to awe as Santana once again just cruised through the high-powered offense of the Phillies. Eventually that awe turned back into some form of sadness as Ramon Castro added to the Mets’ lead, before pulling a complete 180 to elation as the Phillies scored six runs in the ninth inning once Johan was taken out.
After the game, however, the baseball fan and analyst in me angered at the audacity of some mainstream writers to suggest, in so many words, Johan doesn’t have that “it” factor anymore, or that he isn’t nearly as good and seems to be on the decline. And the major reasons for these opinions stem from last year’s 15-13 W-L record and this year’s mere 8-7. From reading some of these articles or listening to some Baseball Tonight analysts you would think that Johan would struggle to cut it as the #3 option on most teams.
Frequent Fangraphs commenter Bill Baer wrote a great piece at Crashburn Alley that echoed my feelings last night during the game, that Johan has been incredibly unlucky this year, just like Phillies ace Cole Hamels. My feeling was that if Santana’s record was 11-3 or even 10-4 that most people would feel very differently about his performance this year. But then I looked at his numbers and calculated his projection over the remainder to see what his end of season statistics might look like… and my anger that he has lost something based on his W-L shifted to surprise.
See, even though his record doesn’t do his season justice, Santana does appear to have lost some semblance of effectiveness. Entering this season his projection called for around a 3.26 FIP, 1.10 WHIP, 2.24 BB/9, 9.23 K/9, and a 4.12 K/BB. Here are his 2008 numbers, his projection over the remainder, and what his overall numbers would be should this projection hold true:
2008 to date: 3.75 FIP, 1.21 WHIP, 2.47 BB/9, 7.79 K/9, 3.16 K/BB
Second Half: 3.45 FIP, 1.17 WHIP, 2.41 BB/9, 8.58 K/9, 3.57 K/BB
2008 Overall: 3.64 FIP, 1.20 WHIP, 2.44 BB/9, 8.08 K/9, 3.31 K/BB
If his season ends up like this, it would mark his worst K/9, BB/9, WHIP, K/BB, and BAA since becoming a full-time starter in 2004. Don’t confuse this with ineffectiveness, however, as he has been very productive this year, ranking in the NL’s top ten in several pertinent categories. As I mentioned above, if his record were 11-3 or something along those lines most of these conversations would cease to exist because most fans are usually quite content in believing a pitcher with a record that good is impervious to luck.
In his seven losses this year, Johan has pitched 45.2 innings and surrendered just 17 earned runs, good for a 3.35 ERA. That’s an extremely solid ERA for games in which he received a loss. In these same seven games, he has received only nine runs of support. Nine. That’s 1.77 RS/9 in these games. Of course he’s going to lose some of these if his team fails to score any runs. While I was shocked to see his strikeout numbers decline and baserunners increase, he is still among the elite in my eyes and the eyes of many others, I’m sure. If someone wishes to poke holes in his production this year it would make much more sense to note some of the aforementioned numbers, not to say his record is a disappointing 8-7, especially when considering how well he has pitched in some of these losses and how little support he has received.
He may not be the 2004 Johan and his true talent level may have changed a bit, but he is still a darned good pitcher.
Print This Post
Thanks for the mention, Eric. Your feelings about Santana basically match mine about Francisco Rodriguez. Both are having great seasons, but not by their standards.
Just curious, where do you stand on the issue of Jerry Manuel not allowing him to take the mound for the ninth inning last night with a pitch count of 105?
As a Phillies fan, it was the right move…
I’ll echo Mitch Williams’ post-game thoughts, though. This is your prized acquisition, the highest paid pitcher ever, and since 105 pitches isn’t 125 pitches, I see no reason why he couldn’t have gone back out.
Especially considering Billy Wagner wasn’t available and that Santana had been mowing down the Phils offense, AND that this was a very important game, I fail to understand why he wasn’t out there in the ninth inning. Really makes very little sense to me.
What’s interesting to me is that while Santana is having a down year, for him, he hasn’t had the huge drop off that so many high-profile pitchers have when they switch teams. My fear is that he will return to form next year. Gulp.
I think I may be the only Mets fan who was in favor of the decision to take Santana out. With Wagner unavailable, it was important to
a) improve the chances of scoring an insurance run or two (Santana’s spot came up in the bottom of the eighth)
b) give the bullpen the best possible chance to succeed (assuming that if Santana went out for the ninth, he probably would have been pulled as soon as he allowed a baserunner, and bringing a reliever in to start the inning just seems like it would have a better chance of working out than bringing him in with a runner already on base).
Had the Mets been leading by a couple more runs, I probably would have been in the “leave Johan in” camp, but in that particular situation I thought taking him out was the right call.
Dave Cameron spoke a few weeks ago about the excuses teams make for a change in performance. The “it” factor is BS, I agree completely. But as far back as last season, scouts noticed a change with him. I remember reading about how he seems reluctant to throw his slider, and he seemed to be masking either an elbow injury or elbow wear and tear. His ERA after that 17 strikeout game was 5.11, and the ~4.75 FIP wasn’t pointing in his favor either. Something was probably actually wrong, and we see it showing up more this season.
He’s throwing his fastball slower (almost 2 mph) the past 2 years than he did in 2005-2006, and he’s also throwing his slider less than he did in previous seasons. In other words, I think this is a trend, and not a blip on the radar.
Maybe he is trying a different approach since he is in the NL now.
Nice post. And the offense isn’t the only reason Santana’s “wins” are down, the bullpen has blown a few large leads late for him.
Definitely. I remember watching a game against the DBacks where he went something like 7 shutout innings with 10 K, and the Mets lost 5-4. I can only imagine how Jessica felt during that debacle.
Jessica, I can see the merits to your points in favor of lifting him but the way he was going their best chance may have been him back on the mound. You know the Mets bullpen better than I do, so if you think an insurance run was much-needed then yeah, hitting for him was appropriate.
I just know as a Phillies fan, even with how good their bullpen has been, if it’s a 5-2 lead and Lidge is unavailable, I want Hamels back out there in the 9th with under 115 pitches coming into that inning.
“I remember watching a game against the DBacks where he went something like 7 shutout innings with 10 K, and the Mets lost 5-4. I can only imagine how Jessica felt during that debacle”
I was there. It was my birthday. Oh, and as if that weren’t bad enough, the scorecard being sold at Shea during the month of June had a cover article about how “Billy Wagner has been practically unhittable in 2008,” which was a wonderful thing to look at as Wagner delivered a ninth inning not unlike what the Wagner-less bullpen contributed the other day.
That doesn’t sound like a very fun birthday at all. My slightly late birthday present a couple years ago was Allen Iverson getting traded, which was pretty fun.