The WGOM

Checking in with Johan Santana

May 1st, 2008 by ubelmann

I hadn't checked up on Santana in a while, so when I heard about this, I figured I would take a peek at Santana's numbers.

Though I don't think that ERA accurately reflects how well a pitcher has pitched, it has been Santana's early-season ERA that spawned the belief that Santana is a slow starter. Let's take a look at his March/April ERA since he's been a starter full-time:

5.40 -- 2004
3.55 -- 2005
4.45 -- 2006
3.60 -- 2007
3.12 -- 2008

His career ERA as a starter is 3.11. There was a legitimate reason for his slow start in 2004--he had bone chips removed from his elbow in the offseason and there's normally an adjustment period after that procedure. So, other than that, 2006 stands out, and 2005/2007 are both worse than average...but I'm not seeing a very big effect here. Maybe Santana's something like a 3.50 pitcher in April, with one good outlier ('08) and one bad outlier ('06) and the surgery adjustment year.

Now for the good stuff:

9.6 K/G, 2.0 BB/G, 46.8 GB%, 3.14 xFIP -- Santana, 2008

Going by the numbers at fangraphs, I get Santana's career average to be 37.8% GB%. Santana was getting more ground balls in 2004-6 than he did last year, which I think was due in large part to his blister problems being worse than usual and preventing him from throwing his slider as often. Sure enough, he's back up to 14.7% sliders this year (15.0% career average) from 11.6% sliders last year. If his 3.14 xFIP (not adjusted for park or league, mind you) holds up, it would be his best xFIP as a starter.

As for info on other players mentioned in trade rumors (though not necessarily actual trade proposals), small sample size rules in full effect:

Phil Hughes -- As I alluded to at the top, he just went on the DL. Injury problems could help explain his rather wretched start to the season. Long-term, I still think he'll be a good pitcher, but I think the biggest knock on him in the off-season was the potential for injury, and this doesn't help.

Ian Kennedy -- 5.88 xFIP, more walks than strikeouts. Yikes. He was projected by PECOTA to have a ~4.30 ERA, and ZiPS had him at 4.38...something seems weird here. I'm willing to call this a small sample size mirage for now.

Jon Lester -- 5.11 xFIP, more walks than strikeouts. PECOTA had him projected for a ~5.30 ERA, ZiPS had him projected for a ~5.00 ERA. I still don't see what the big deal is. He's just slightly less overrated than Glen Perkins as far as I can tell.

Philip Humber -- 4.5 K/G, 3.8 BB/G, 0.7 HR/G for Rochester. Looks like he would be a total disaster in the majors right now with that line, since you'd figure the K/G to go down some, the BB/G to go up some, and the HR/G to go way up, since major league hitters have a lot more power than minor league hitters.

Kevin Mulvey -- 8.7 K/G, 3.2 BB/G, 0.3 HR/G for Rochester. (Roughly a 2.70 FIP.) Perhaps performing better than any non-Santana pitcher mentioned in Santana trade rumors, Mulvey has gotten off to a very good start in AAA. Projected to have a ~5.00 major league ERA this year by PECOTA, I wouldn't be surprised if Mulvey has just as good of a major league career as Jon Lester, if not better.

Justin Masterson -- 11.4 K/G, 3.3 BB/G, 0.0 HR/G for Pawtucket. Has been called up to the Red Sox and made one start. Masterson's right there with Mulvey--probably a little ahead of him--for early season performance. Long-term, I'd guess he has similar value to Mulvey and Lester.

Deolis Guerra -- Still pitching in High A. Still really young.

Melky Cabrera -- Hitting a robust .299/.370/.494, for an 8.7 VORP, which would be the best VORP on our offense.

Jacoby Ellsbury -- .280/.396/.440, for a 7.6 VORP, which would also be the best VORP on our offense.

Carlos Gomez -- .265/.279/.373, for a 1.9 VORP, which would also be the best VORP on our offense which is the 5th-best VORP on our offense. Okay, got a little carried away there. Now, VORP does take into account his stolen bases, so no giving him extra credit there, but he seems to be playing at least average defense in the field. If there was just one problem with the Twins in April (and I count more than one problem) Gomez was not that problem.

He's struck out 24% of the time he's stepped to the plate, which is a lot of strikeouts. But, for a little bit of context, he's not anywhere near the league lead in that category. Of 279 hitters with 50 or more PA, he ranks 27th in most strikeouts per PA. Of 234 hitters with 75 or more PA, he ranks 22nd in most strikeouts per PA. Some guys ahead of him on the list (and their K-rate):

34% -- Mark Reynolds
32% -- Ryan Howard
30% -- Jack Cust
29% -- Carlos Pena
27% -- Jack Hannahan
26% -- Jim Thome
25% -- Richie Sexson
25% -- Bill Hall
24% -- Jason Varitek

Meanwhile, Brendan Harris has been striking out at a nearly-as-awful 22% rate and no one seems to have noticed. It's clear that to succeed with a high strikeout rate, you've gotta have some power, and I think Gomez really might develop that power. His ISO is just as good as Cuddyer's so far this season, and the only regulars hitting for more power are Morneau and Kubel. (Certainly he's shown more power then Delmon Young.)

Anyway, I'm getting a bit off on a tangent. The trade really doesn't look any different today than it did when we made it. I still would have probably preferred Hughes/Cabrera/stuff⁽¹⁾ (especially if 'stuff' was halfway decent), but I'm not really sure what was being offered, and what we wound up with probably won't turn out to be a lot worse than that, and could turn out to be better. There's a lot of risk involved with trying to predict the future.

1. I'm not really sure that I think holding on to Hughes/Cabrera/stuff was the best move for the Yankees, though. The Twins more or less needed to rebuild after the way the 2006 offseason went, but the Yankees have such a huge payroll that it seems to me that it would make more sense to take their risks on running out of money than risk waiting for prospects to break in or risk that the prospects don't turn out at all. [↩]

Tags: Johan Santana, Minnesota Twins, ubelmann

This entry was posted by ubelmann on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 7:02 pm and is filed under Featured Articles, MLB. It is one of 640 entries by the author. We are no longer accepting Letters to the Editor on this post.