The WGOM

I've never read anything Johnette Howard has written before, and after reading this, I probably won't read anything she writes in the future.

Rather than go blow-by-blow, FJM-style, I'll list the two main points I got from the article, and why I think they're crap.

Point: At the beginning of the 9th inning, in a game where the Mets were leading by three runs, Santana had thrown 105 pitches, and Billy Wagner was unavailable, Santana should have gone out to pitch the 9th inning.

Why I think that's wrong: Given a set of average pitchers and average hitters, a team in that spot wins 92.6% of the time. Santana usually leaves the game after about 100 pitches. Or at least, that was the standard operating procedure in Minnesota that kept Santana's arm in one piece. The bullpen could blow that lead, sure--but so could Santana.

So, sure, you could improve your chances of winning that game by 4-5% by putting Santana in, but is that really worth it? Johnette Howard gets the financial incentives here all wrong. She suggests that because he's the $137M man, he should be expected to do more--or something like that. Where she misses the point is that for the Mets to get their return on that investment, he has to be healthy and in the rotation for the next five years. Break him now and you're probably out for a season, then it'll take some time for him to get back to 100%, if he ever gets there at all. That's a lot to risk for an extra 4-5% chance of winning the game.

One thing that I think the save has done is that it's poisoned our minds into thinking that a 3-run game requires the best of the best on the mound. It doesn't. A 3-run lead, for one inning, is a rather huge lead. Take the recently-maligned Brian Bass for instance. Bass is not a very good pitcher. (And if the Mets couldn't find a more talented pitcher than Bass in that situation, then they deserved to lose.) Bass has pitched 60+ innings for the Twins and has allowed 3 or more runs in just 4 of those innings. And Bass has been absolutely terrible. On top of that, the Mets are at home, so even three runs in that spot doesn't lose the game for them. This is how guys like Todd Jones and Joe Borowski are allowed to let their ERAs balloon to ridiculous heights before they are replaced as the closer--a lot of saves are just not that difficult to nail down.

Even considering that they were playing their division rival, there's over two months of baseball left and that's a pretty safe lead. There are times when you need to push your players and times when you need to pace them, and that was a perfectly appropriate time to pace Santana and go to the bullpen. They made the right decision and it didn't work out--it happens.

Point: Santana should have been lobbying to stay in the game.

Why I think that's wrong: Jerry Manuel is the manager. It's his job to make the pitching changes. If Manuel thinks he's done, then Santana's done--it's just not his call. It's certainly happened before, and baseball is full of stories (probably a lot of them that are more than a little exaggerated) about the pitcher who just wouldn't let the manager take him out of the game. In the 7th game of the World Series, maybe that makes you a hero. On July 22nd, in my book, that makes you a nuisance, and if I'm managing you, I'm telling you to shut up and sit back down on the bench, because I call the shots around here. (And then I go out to the media and tell them it doesn't matter what Santana thinks about my call--that's my call to make.) I'm not letting Nick Punto tell me whether or not to pinch hit for him and I'm not letting Santana tell me he doesn't trust the bullpen with a 3-run lead.

Johnette Howard is a reporter and she wants a story. She wanted a statement game out of Santana and she didn't get it. I understand that, I suppose. The boring truth is that Jerry Manuel took one calculated risk instead of another calculated risk and it didn't work out. That's not a very sexy story, though, so I guess she needed to go and question Santana's manhood and will to win. Which I guess is pretty easy, since her job's not on the line if Santana becomes the new Mike Hampton.