Mike Bauman, of www.mlb.com, says the question is not whether Johan Santana is good enough to merit the largest pitching contract in history. The question is whether the New York Mets are going to be good enough to fully benefit from Santana's presence.
In a real-world sense, nobody deserves $137.5 million over six years unless he or she is discovering a cure for cancer.
(This is a real good point, which puts everything into perspective. All athletes are overpaid, so when people start calling WFAN, screaming that Santana’s salary should provide better than a 7-7 record, think first. Every pitcher needs run support, Santana’s stats lead Met pitchers in virtually every category, and Santana is performing a lot better than his teammates. He can’t strike out 27. He needs the defensive support of his teammates. He can’t hit 1 through 9 in the lineup. This Met offense has frequently been brutal.)
But in a baseball sense, this is what the market allows Santana to make, and it is not his fault for being able to make it.
Is it money well spent for the Mets? It is impossible to know that three months into a six-year deal. But this much is certain: Nobody would spend that kind of money for a pitcher to perform on a .500 team. The Mets obviously expected much more of themselves this season, but at the moment, with the mathematical midpoint of the season one game away, they are 39-41.
(The Mets are in a catch-22. They should be sellers, get rid of spare parts, and acquire whatever level prospects they can, to invigorate a woefully inadequate farm system. However, with Citi Field opening next year, they are desperate to be perceived as playoff competitive, and are terrified to admit they may be sellers, even if it is the common-sense thing to do. If they get rid of the proper players, and acquire the proper prospects, they can rebuild quickly. All they need to do is look around baseball. There are many teams, the Rays, Diamondbacks, Marlins, among others, who have rebuilt successfully by getting younger, and giving prospects the opportunity to play.)
The problems with the Mets-Santana marriage were on display on Saturday for Game 5 of the 2008 Subway Series at Shea Stadium. Santana -- and this has been a repeating theme -- pitched well enough to win, but the Mets could not support him properly. The result was a 3-2 loss for the left-hander and the team to the Yankees.
(He showed frustration two starts ago when the team’s defense was inadequate. Yesterday, and in other starts, the lack of offense hurt him. The current cast of characters is not working, and not having prospects to trade, leads to “scrap heap” pickups of Trot Nixon & Andy Phillips. It’s time to trade spare parts for prospects, and rebuild for 2009. It’s more entertaining to see kids on the upside, rather than veterans on the downside.)
Andy Pettitte, on the Yankees' side of the pitching equation, deserved plenty of credit for pitching superbly in the 210th victory of his career. But the truth is that Santana's job was significantly more difficult than Pettitte's, the Yankees' lineup being significantly better than that of the Mets.
(Great point, as the Yankees’ lineup does a great job of being patient, running up the opposing pitchers’ pitch counts, and getting them out of games sooner than expected. The Yankee lineup also has more depth in quality hitters.)
There is no question that Santana has been more good than great this season. True, his 3.01 ERA deserves a better record than his current 7-7. But there had been a theory that, after being a dominant pitcher with the Minnesota Twins and winning the American League Cy Young Award in 2004 and '06, Santana would be even more dominant against the less robust offenses of the National League. That hasn't happened.
But it's all relative. He's a much better buy than the pitcher with the second-biggest contract of all time -- Barry Zito, who is 3-11, with a 5.91 ERA for the Giants this season.
(Imagine if the Mets signed Zito, heavily publicized to be reuniting with Rick Peterson, for two years, before he filed for free agency ? In the words of Joe Beningo, “what a disaster !”)
But if Santana has not been quite everything he was advertised to be, he has still been all right. He is not the problem.
(Bingo ! Best point in the whole article. Maine’s been solid. If Pelfrey pitched all season, the way he’s pitched since May 31st, if El Duque was healthy, if Pedro was healthy, or effective, Nelson Figueroa ? Claudio Vargas ? the bullpen ? Alou ? Church ? Matt Wise ? Valentin ? Too many injuries to remember. The lineup. Starting bench players 3-5 days per week. If everyone performed like Santana, this would be a first place team.)
One thing that is a problem is a Mets offense that ranks ninth in the NL in runs scored. Maybe the return of outfielder Ryan Church on Sunday will be something like a cure-all.
Another issue would be the extraordinarily bad play, such as the one that occurred in the fifth inning on Saturday. Trailing, 2-1, the Mets had runners on first and second with two outs and David Wright at the plate when Jose Reyes was picked off second by Pettitte. It was an inexcusable lapse by Reyes, but unfortunately for the Mets, not a completely atypical gaffe.
If you're going to get picked off in that situation, even the presence of Santana in your rotation can't help you. In fact, if you're going to get picked off second base in that situation, Santana becomes a luxury item you can't fully utilize.
Santana has not won in his past five starts, with four losses and a no-decision, but he has pitched more than well enough to win at least four of those games, giving up nine earned runs in 32 innings. Over those five games, the Mets have only scored 10 runs.
(An ERA of 2.53, with zero wins. This is not Santana’s fault.)
"He has been able to go out and give us the opportunity to win ballgames," said center fielder Carlos Beltran. "We haven't been able to get anything going for him. It's a bad feeling."
Asked about the Mets' struggles to score runs while he is pitching, Santana responded: "I don't know, man. I'm trying to do my best to give us a chance to win every time I go out there. I'm battling. At least I know that I'm giving my best."
Santana worked six innings on Saturday, allowing three runs on four hits, striking out eight and walking an uncharacteristic four. Two of the walks were points of contention between the Mets and the strike zone of home-plate umpire Mike Everitt.
Santana cruised through the first three innings, giving up just one single and striking out five. But walks to Derek Jeter and Bobby Abreu beginning the fourth led to two runs and a lead the Yankees would never relinquish.
"We thought the pitch was thrown the way it was supposed to be thrown, and we didn't get the call," Santana said.
None of that would have been a problem had the Mets found sufficient run support for Santana. It's a problem that extends beyond his starts.
"We've got to find a way to score some runs," Mets manager Jerry Manuel said. "I mean, it's been somewhat of a struggle. We're better than what we're showing. We will score some runs at some point."
(Maybe after July 31st, if Minaya can trade some of the over-the-hill and hanging on for the paycheck, parts of his 25-man roster.)
Manuel expressed satisfaction with Santana's work, as well as confidence that the victories would come for his prized left-hander.
"I thought Johan had some of the best stuff this time around," Manuel said. "He seems to be getting better, so I'm very happy with that.
"I think it will turn around for him, I really do. I think at some point he might not pitch as well and win five straight games. I believe that's just the way baseball is. I really anticipate him at some point going on a real nice streak as far as winning games.
"I don't know if he can pitch any better than he's pitched. The stress and the pressure of us not scoring runs put a lot of stress on every pitch. You feel like you can't make a mistake. That's quite a demand over the course of 100-plus pitches.
"He's doing the things to keep us in games, and we're just not doing the job offensively. That's it, point-blank."
(That’s it in a nut shell, folks !!!)
And that is the current status of the Mets' $137.5-million pitching expenditure. Santana has not been untouchable this season, but he has generally held up his end of the deal. The Mets, on the other hand, are not producing enough support for the presence of this ace to make a real difference.
The gap here is not between the expectations for Santana's performance and his actual work. The gap is between the expectations for this team and the current 39-41 record.
(The expectations have been out of touch with reality, since the start of the season. This was a team that’s played .500 ball and worse, since June 1st of last year. Stop misleading the fans, by saying we’re in buyer’s mode, and pushing for a playoff spot. They should be sellers, getting rid of declining players, and rebuilding a barren farm system.)
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