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.