Is Johan Santana already in decline?
Posted on May 24th, 2008 – 11:36 AMBy Joe Christensen
ESPN’s Buster Olney led his blog with a Johan Santana item Friday that had some folks buzzing in the Twins’ clubhouse.
Santana was not only a star pitcher in Minnesota, he was a gentleman. First-class all the way. On a personal level, nobody with the Twins wants to see him stumble, but there were some wide-eyed looks about this report. Olney’s blog requires a subscription, but here’s the part on Santana:
After the item on Johan Santana’s diminished velocity was posted here yesterday, some scouts from other teams chimed in, indicating through e-mails and phone calls that they were seeing the same thing. “The Mets were asking around about that in spring training, about what his true [velocity] baseline was,” one talent evaluator said. “They were concerned.”
Said an AL scout who has seen Santana this month: “His stuff isn’t even close to what it was [with the Twins].”
How much has his diminished stuff affected him? We have less than two months’ worth of starts to consider from 2008, a very small sample, and keep in mind that except for last season — when Santana suffered a significant statistical decline in the last six weeks — he has often done his best work in the second half.
With that said, here are the primary indicators:
- His ratio of strikeouts per nine innings over the past six seasons has been 11.38, 9.61, 10.46, 9.25, 9.44, 9.66. This year: 7.79.
- His strikeout-to-walk ratio over the past six seasons: 2.80, 3.60, 4.91, 5.29, 5.21, 4.52. This year: 3.87.
- Opponents’ OPS over the past six seasons: .607, .642, .564, .594, .616, .678. This year: .723.
As I wrote a lot about during the winter of Santana trade talks, rival talent evaluators saw a noticeable — not dramatic, but noticeable — decline in his stuff after his 17-strikeout performance against Texas on Aug. 19. He’s made 17 starts since then, and here are his primary numbers:
- Innings: 111
- Hits: 109
- Earned runs: 50
- Home runs: 20 (By comparison, Paul Byrd has allowed 21 during the same span)
- Walks: 28
- Strikeouts: 102
- ERA: 4.05
(Since the beginning of the 2007 season, Santana has allowed 44 home runs — most in the majors.)
Look, Santana is still obviously among the better pitchers in the game, and his remarkable ability to change speeds means that he probably is going to age better than a lot of his peers. He is smart, dedicated and seriously competitive, so if there is something to figure out and there are adjustments that can be made, he’ll get there.
This question remains: Will he be worth to the Mets what they will pay him over the duration of the contract? We’ll see.
But it’s probably not a good thing that rival scouts are seeing signs of diminishment fewer than two months into a seven-year deal.
My thoughts?
Hard to argue with the numbers, but I believe a scout saying Santana’s stuff isn’t even close to what it was in Minnesota is referring to the Santana of 2003-2006. The times I’ve seen him pitch this year — in spring training and on TV — he’s looked very similar to last year, by my estimation. His velocity was down a couple ticks last year, and as Olney notes, there was a slight drop after that 17-strikeout game.
Still, New York needs to give Johan the benefit of the doubt. Keep in mind, even in his best years, Santana was a slow starter who turned into Sandy Koufax by the All-Star break.
The Mets could come to regret the back end of that seven-year, $137.5 million contract, but Santana is only 29. I believe he has three or four All-Star-caliber years left in him, and I think he has enough pride, intelligence and skill to adjust to the inevitable decline, allowing him to remain a solid pitcher into his mid-30s.
If the Mets get a few seasons of dominance and a few seasons of Tom Glavine-esque craftiness, they won’t regret the contract. As for the trade itself, Carlos Gomez and Deolis Guerra will have a lot to say about that legacy.
Gomez, 22, already is an electricifying big league player. Phil Humber, 25, is 1-5 with a 5.89 ERA at Class AAA Rochester, and Kevin Mulvey (who turns 23 on Monday) has cooled for Rochester after a hot start, leaving him 2-6, with a 4.36 ERA. Guerra just turned 19 last month and he is 5-1 with a 4.56 ERA at Class A Fort Myers.
57 Responses to "Is Johan Santana already in decline?"
The Twins will look awefully smart if Santana has dropped from great to good.
So far, from the general consensus from my buddies and I, the trade has worked out in our favor. Gomez has been great, Guerra has a chance to be awesome, and Humber and Mulvey are great additions to our depth and also have potential to be good pitchers.
I’d like to see Humber/Mulvey turn it around. We have so much pitching depth that we could trade for some infield depth.
“The Mets could come to regret the back end of that seven-year, $137.5 million contract”
Ignoring the trade altogether or projecting Gomez, Humber, Mulvey and Guerra to be busts (which I highly doubt), just imagine the Twins being chained to that contract, instead of the Mets.
$20 million per year would be tied up in one pitcher and subtracted from a payroll which has to pay for Mauer, Morneau, Young, Nathan, and 20 other MLB players.
Even if the Mets could survive a Santana downslide, the Twins could not.
“Said an AL scout who has seen Santana this month: “His stuff isn’t even close to what it was [with the Twins].”
However, it isn’t his “stuff” that makes Johan, Johan.
It’s his change-up and the ball concealment in his delivery.
If he doesn’t lose that, he will still be tough.
Nothing in there about the slider. After the 17K performance, he threw maybe 30 sliders in his remaining 10 games last year. As a two-pitch pitcher, he’s good. As a three-pitch pitcher, he’s great. I wonder how often he’s throwing the slider now. I saw enough in the last two months of last year to be concerned about his long-term dominance.
I’ve said it before, there’s no way the Twins would get players of the caliber of Gomez and Guerra via the draft. So they’re already ahead of what they would be had they kept him for a year and let him walk. And I believe that was their only alternative the way Santana and his agent handled the trade. This way, they get an extra year to develop those two and get them ready for a serious run in 2010.
Even if Santana is in decline,, he will still have dominant outings and an era in the low 3s for the next couple years. I’d be bummed as a Twins fan only if he was still 2003-06 Santana still.
I think the Twins have a good look at it in 2009.
>My thoughts?
>
>Hard to argue with the numbers,
Well, I am not so sure. Joe even does it. Johan has always gotten stronger as the season progresses, so you are comparing full seasons to weakest part of seasons. What are his April/May splits? Have THOSE numbers declined?
One of Mariner anouncers once said: If you want beat Johan, do it before the All-Star break.
I think part of Santana’s decline has to do with his reluctance to throw his slider. There was a story in the Strib last summer about Johan having a blister that made throwing the slider painful to him and that the blister had been an ongoing issue.
2004 he was 6-6 with an era in the mid fours come June
Sorry for the rant… but….
A “good Santana” is still better than the majority of the pitchers in Baseball. I say that they’re just jumping the gun on this one because it’s a New York team and they want to stir up controversy some way or another. The guy’s playing in a brand new city, a drastic change from Minnesota and just changed leagues. Sure people feel the N.L. is worse than the A.L., but it is different and they seem unwilling to give him a grace period before writing him off.
Plus, since when is a 5-3 record with a 3.36 ERA on a sub-.500 team a cause for worry? I’m actually a little sick and tired of this. Sure the numbers speak for themselves, but it’s two months into the season.
His career numbers actually suggest that he’s been better this season than in the past. His career numbers from March-May are 25-19 with a 4.01 ERA with a 3.57 K/BB ratio. This season, he has a 3.86 K/BB ratio.
I just think that ESPN or the “Eastern Sports Programming Network” is just trying to talk about a New York team anyway that they can and if it’s calling out Johan Santana (which I understand he brought on himself after signing a monstrous deal), then they will.
With that said, his best years probably are behind him, but who in their right minds thought he’d keep those kinds of numbers up? As good as he is, that’s pretty ridiculous to think that. That’s why I was opposed to the Twins signing him to a long-term deal at that price. I think the majority of people with general baseball knowledge figured that he’d start tailing off as he got older.
just look at his numbers after 10 starts this year compared to his 1st 10 starts in each of his Cy Young years. It’s way too early to be concerned…
2008: 67.0INN 64H 25ER 11HR 15BB 58K 5W 3L
2006: 68.1INN 62H 26ER 8HR 14BB 75K 4W 4L
2004: 54.2INN 66H 34ER 10HR 17BB 48K 2W 2L
A pitcher notorious for being a “second half” pitcher is 5-3 with a 3.36 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP in May and people are concerned about this why?
If Johan was still a Twin, everyone would be saying he’s off to a pretty good start all things considered, but New York fans are far to impatient and demanding. The Mets are a sub .500 team and they’re very grumpy right now, but Santana is not one of their problems.
There is no question that Santana was not the same in 2007 as before. The team was .500 when he was starting. He had his usual slow start, but the expected formidable second half never came. Hard to make sense from comparisons in NL in 2008 vs previous years in AL. Time will show whether 2007 has been just a dip or the beginning of a decline. Way too early to determine. He is still a very good pitcher and within the top 10 in NL. I still think that the Twins got the best of the deal
I just noticed last night that Hunter’s only hit 6 homers for the Angels (comparred to Gomez’s 4 just to get that outta the way)
But I’m wondering how his numbers have lokoed comparred to not only his contract year but the rest of his career.
T,
i looked at Hunter’s numbers a couple of days ago. He is tracking OBP and SLG wise with his bets years.
However, SLG wise Gomez is not far behind.
If he is on the decline a lot of fans in NYC are going to be out for blood.
Are you ready to get DUFFED Mets? Oh Yeah!
hard to think of santana even pitching 6 years from now, say nothing about doing it effectively…..i lost my faith in him last year when i acutally thought silva outpitched him for the most part….im glad him and that huge contract are gone-gomez and guerra alone are worth a ton more than santana today, and the humber and mulvey will at the very least make good bullpen people, and god knows we need that now….
I think it’s the newness of the situation for Johan that has caused this situation. I’m throwing out the starts from post Aug. 19th because I think his thoughts were beginning to get cluttered around then with him knowing more and more his time as a Twin was ending. It could be he had, possibly, some hurt feelings and some irritation, and then thoughts about his uncertainty of the future became more and more for him, too. Essentially, he had much on his plate besides thinking about getting someone out, and I think that affected him. I’d look at this at the end of September, not now.
repair the bullpen, get at two bats hitting a few homeruns consistently, preferrably young and michael(slumper)cuddyer, and this division , as silly as this sounds, can be taken, and be taken by these very minnesota twins…now, how is that for optimism..i never will give up….hopefully the game lamb played yesterday will be his springboard for the rest of the year…his hits yesterday were finally what i had been thinking about since we signed him…its not too late to start now….leave harris at short and let him hit and make the routine plays and casilla looks like hes come around finally at 2b, so if he stays good, it can be a nice infield, offensively and defensively….now just wake up that bum in rt field or put monroe out there and let him have the damn spot……
Despite being traded to the Mets, Johan is one of my favorite players. He is class personified. I agree with Sid that Johan struggled after the fifth inning time-after-time in recent years. Falling off a couple ticks off the radar is nothing Johan can’t adjust to. Look at Hernandez. Johan is very smart, he will adjust and be just as effective as ever (I hope). Wasn’t that open letter to Twins fans last winter pure class? You betcha.
Remember the first time a pitcher and batter see each other it favors the pitcher. Let’s see what happens when Santana faces some of the NL teams a 2nd, 3rd or 4th time. His numbers might get even worse not better later in the year.
mj1,
the Twins can win this division. There are good signs that the bats are waking up and their 3 best starting pitchers arguably (Slowey, Liriano, Baker) are on the come back trail. The bullpen could be an issue, esp. since Neshek is out for the year, but I think that Guerrier can be an excellent set up man, Boof a decent long man and Mariano Gomez and Danny Graves potential options from Rochester. Rincon’s gotta go.
i am with you thrylos and i was just looking at the standings, damn chi and minny could start creeping away with this thing every day now as cleveland is all of a sudden 4.5 back in 3rd….yes the bullpen needs repair and we cant kill guerrier, we need to get him some help with graves, and yes rincon is done i believe, maybe one more shot with him and then hes gone–i dont think you can count on tolbert this year, but thats okif casilla stays decent-they just cant lay and egg tonite and get into that rut….they have a chance- im not sure why they just dont make the call for graves now….
Nobody cares or even mentions santana or hunter in mn anmore at all.
what we got in the trade was another theft job by mn braintrust. gomez is the most exciting player in the game. the deveopment of the other pitchers in the deal is mere icing on the cake. twins won this deal big time.
johan who?
does gardy start macri after the nite lamb had or do they award lamb a shot with the left hander…this guy robertson is a pain in our ass every time out it seems, so hopefully they can get at him early, with some speed and more speed
ill bet silva wishes he was still in minnesota and ill bet he would be having a pretty decent year with the twins…he was a battler and i liked his fire…there were many times last year i thought he was more dependable than santana….
update and lineups are up
I wondered about Santana late last season, to the extent that when the trade was confirmed I thought it was a good one. Gomez has borne this out and I think the others will as well. Methinks though that a “crow banquet” might be in order as I remember how shrill the objections were after the trade…strange how Gomez has silenced them! 
Even if Santana wins 20 games in each the next 4 years the Twins would not be able to pay Santana what New York is going to pay him. He’s a great athlete but to play in New York in front of 50K people every outing is not easy for anyone.
The risks involved to pay anyone that much is crazy stupid. The mets are selling tickets but they won’t win if they pay one player of a team made up of hundreds of players this kind of money. Even the dumb yankees weren’t stupid enough to make this trade. They have already bankrupt their team for several years to come. Team Sports saleries are jacked way out of control.
I agree with the general consensus here; I saw Johan pitch at Yankee Stadium and loved watching him give hitters fits. I saw the slider a few times … it’s always been more of a sweeping waste pitch anyway, and it looked good. Generally, Johan is a good pitcher who throws strikes, wins games and gets guys out. Any team would and should pay good money for at least the next five or six years.
If you are going to bring up Santana’s past nunbers, keep in mind he’s in the NATIONAL LEAGUE this year. The far more pitching friendly NL. His nunbers would be even “weaker” if he were still in the AL. Can’t forget to factor the different leagues in.
Why is it that MN fans always beg for all-stars to stay, but rip on them when they leave? Typical Minnesotans. Johan was a great pitcher there. If he was still in a Twins jersey, everyone would love him. He has more talent than the Twins starting rotation right now. But, because Johan went for the big money elsewhere, MN fans rip him. Minnesota fans expect players to sign $4 dollar contracts because you expect them to be loyal - but players don’t need to be loyal to a losing franchise. Twins suck - the most boring team in baseball - the only reason you can even compete if because you play in a weak division. Minnesota is nothing but Loserville USA. “Wait til 2010″ to watch the Twins have another .500 season, but in a new stadium. Losers.
Hmmm…well Kirby, if the Twins had kept Santana, then I bet you they wouldn’t have signed Livan Hernandez. Not saying Hernandez is better than Santana, but the Twins would be just about where they are right now if they had Santana intead of Hernandez. And at the end of they year I doubt Santana would mean anything more than 3 or 4 additional victories when compared to what Hernandez will probably do. And the Twin would also be on the hook for a long financial commitment and would have no Gomez or Guerra.
If you want beat Johan, do it before the All-Star break.
Johan was 5-7 with a 4.04 ERA after the All-Star break last year.
Simply giving Twins management credit for an astute move with the Santana trade does not mean Santana is being bashed. Au contraire…he was a fine player, of good character, and exciting to watch. But the bottom line…like it or not…is that baseball is a business. Oh…and by the way…although my roots are in Minnesota I live in New Mexico…hence NOT a typical Minnesotan! Go crack a brew and chill Kirby17!
Numerous pitchers across the league are not looking as good this year…I don’t know, but could it be STEROIDS or the lack thereof?
No dome…smaller strike zone…plays home games outside…he won’t be as good. His stuff has fallen off a little now that he is with the Mets. I posted the same type of comment in the KFAN forum when he was traded and every said they were more stupid for reading it. Well guess what…looks like I wasn’t so dumb after all.
Santana was worthless last year. I bet if you look at his statistics from only the games he lost, you’ll find that his era was above 4.50. People claim he should have had better run support. But it was his own fault that he didn’t win as many games as he would have liked last year.
All I can say is, good riddance to that guy. He was way overpriced and the rest of his career will be only downhill.
I will say that a vast majority of “superstars” that get a huge raise in pay go downhill. Case in point…Barry Zito.
I wonder how much the thin roster and poor play of Rochester has affected Humber and Mulvey’s performances. It’s been kind a disaster there this season.
The Twins move to trade him was a smart one. Much like the trade that sent AJ to the Giants. The Twins are always thinking about the future
Johan’s record was nothing to be all that excited about in 2007.
This comes as no surprise to Twins fans who watched one fastball hitter after another last year deposit Santana’s best in the seats. Even so, he’s still better than anything the Mets had on their roster which makes him invaluable even if he is in decline (which he obviously is). The numbers were something Bill Smith should have taken a harder look at though before turning down the Ellsbury/Lester deals…either of those proposals (as long as Lowrie and Masterson were to be included in them) would have been an absolute coup d’etat if Santana keeps this up.
Guerra’s ERA, as well as his K’s to innings pitched ratio, is troubling for A ball. This is the same league that both Slowey and Garza dominated.
(FYI if I could put this in 1,000 size font I would) BOOF SUCKS!
I have been trying to keep track of Johan this year with the Mets. His bullpen lost two games for him and he lost another game 1-0. The Mets are about the same as the Twins were offensively last year and definitely not as good defensively. The only game he really got rocked — until Thursday’s game in the 7th inning against the Braves — was against Milwaukee early in the season. I don’t think he has pitched all that badly, but he is still giving up a lot of home runs.
Never mind about Santana. That’s water under the bridge. On a more current issue: Boof Bonser should have his ass kicked off the team. He’s the worst pitcher the Twins have ever had. He sucks.
While it would be nice to see better numbers from Guerra, it’s not apples to apples comparing him to Slowey and Garza since he is still just 19, while Slowey and Garza both came out of college. His youth means it’s still too early to know what we’ve got in him.
Didn’t Johann start off slow every year? After the all-star breaks he was unbeatable.
Who is worse? Boof, Rincon, or that time Dan Gladden pitched?
I said it here first Santana has lost some zip and will be lucky to go 15-15 this year.
Santana has always been a slow starter and I feel that he’ll eventually rebound and have excellent numbers at the end of the 2008 season.
Kevin, Guerra’s only 18 years old. Lets wait until he physically matures before we compare him to those Slowey and Garza.
While it does look even wiser now that the Twins didn’t take on the long, risky contract it would have taken to sign Santana, it doesn’t necessarily make the Gomez trade brilliant. It’s quite possible that’s the best they could have gotten. But if it’s true they could have had Lester, who just threw a no-hitter, or Ellsbury, who has 80 points higher OBP than Gomez, along with Masterson, who’s looking at least as good a prospect as any of the pitchers they got, and Jed Lowry, who would be starting for the Twins’ sorry infield right now, it’s hard to say the Gomez trade looks so brillian, no matter how good Gomez turns out to be.
[…] history. Joe Christensen covered Buster Olney’s ESPN Insider article on Saturday and gave his own view on Santana’s […]
[…] velocity, reported at the start of the weekend by espn.com’s Buster Olney and discussed on Joe C’s blog, are borne […]
