13
2012
Is Johan Santana Becoming A Burden?
An article by 
With the decline of 2012 New York Mets, many fans have rightfully reset their sights on what the future holds. Even prior to the trade deadline, when there was still an outside chance of the team turning its free fall around, some fans sought additions for next season, 2014 and beyond. The notion is sound, but there are multiple situations impeding such moves. First and foremost, much of the team’s young, previously trade worthy talent, has limped through the past few months and immensely decreased their value. Then there are the players whose contract make them a fixture in the dugout. Jason Bay is no doubt the first player who comes to mind, however Johan Santana should be creeping up on that list as well.
To be fair, I would have gladly accepted a twenty start season from Santana when the year began. Fresh off what is often considered a career threatening surgery, Santana’s season got off to an encouraging start, but peaked with his June 1st no-hitter against the St. Louis Cardinals. Since then, by way of fatigue and injury, Santana has been as inconsistent as they come. In fact, he has not recorded a win since June 30th (only four starts) and given up no fewer than six earned runs per game during that span. Whether you’d prefer to cite his ankle, his shoulder or fatigue in general, this has been an alarming stretch for the sure future hall of famer.
Deciding whether or not Santana is a burden to the rebuilding process is not as easy as looking directly at his stats. Its been noted over the course of the season that Jon Niese is under Santana’s tutelage. Its reasonable to think that the likes of Matt Harvey and eventually Zack Wheeler could benefit from his presence next year. Also, its reasonable to think that there are still some very effective innings in that left arm. Santana would remain a valuable member of the organization next season, but does that justify the $30+ million dollars he’ll make over that time?
To a point this argument is futile. Johan Santana isn’t going anywhere, as the Mets would have to pay nearly all of his remaining salary if they were too offload him to another team. Furthermore its worth noting that Santana would have to struggle through at least a dozen more similarly ineffective starts before fans could, maybe, approach the level of frustration felt for Jason Bay. However, should he continue to struggle this season and get off to a poor start next year, fans will eventually grow tired of the situation.
So, maybe the question should be..When would Johan Santana become a burden? As noted, his presence alone amongst the young starters is valuable, but he’ll need to perform on the mound to fend off the boo birds that will arise in time. No matter how the remainder of 2012 goes for Santana, and regardless of what happens on the field next year, 2013 will be his last in Flushing. There is no long term plan for Santana here, as he enters his mid-thirties and continues to decline. So I suppose the answer to my original question isn’t that Santana himself is a burden, but his contract is.
The money spent on Santana next season could be spent a variety of ways. In reality, it could be spent on two, three or maybe even four players that could go a long way in rounding out this roster. Unfortunately that won’t be the case because that payroll for next season, just like the money owed to Jason Bay, is as good as gone. That should be bothersome to Mets fans because despite the fact Santana is a leader on this team, he is no longer the pitcher he once was and the organization will in effect, be burdened by that contract until the day it ends. So while its unfair to call Santana a burden to the team itself at this time, his contract, without much better performance going forward is definitely a burden to the future of the New York Mets.
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About the Author: Rob Patterson
Ultimately, I owe nearly thirty years of Mets related torture to my mother, who is the reason I became a fan. I was too young to remember the 86 run, but hope to see one I'll be able to recall much sooner than later. I enjoy writing about the team and welcome your feedback on my posts. Oh..and I am not with 28!
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The METS should offer to buyout the contracts of Bay and Santana now!! If Santana and Bay are true to themselves they would be willing to listen( maybe they could get another organization to invest in them next year). That is what they pay agents for. Then take the money saved and use it to get OF-Catching-and or Pitching. We need a plan not just BS.
Lol, WHAT???? Johan santana makes $25 million Dollars next year and has an option for 2014, i don’t think it will happen. not even sure it’s allowed to happen, it’s a shame we have to see this situation with johan, he’s a great person and for the most part was great for us during the first half, i think the mets should shut him down for the season, if anything i think he’s worn out more than anything, basically 2 years without pitching do that to you..
Jason bay just F’ing sucks, cut him and move on…
He’s the biggest position player bust in mets history.
I doubt they are buying either guy out. they probably won’t save enough to make it worthwhile.
and bay’s agent knows that he is going to be released, so they can just wait until that happens, take the full 2013 salary, then go find another team (if possible!).
Santana, who knows, but why would he leave 10mill on the table? or some big number?
more likely, they just keep him, and hope that another off season to rest/rehab will help him be stronger next year. Then, he can either help them compete, while leading by example the younger guys (the real pitching coach?), or if he is looking good, get traded mid-season to a contender if the team is out of the race.
I think most of this argument is moot because he’s getting paid no matter what. I still don’t feel like he will be a burden for a while yet either.
They have a ton of young arms that SHOULD be on the roster next year. Santana is still as smart and respected as anybody you will get to work with them. Every 22 year old pitcher looked up to him just a few years ago.
They should unofficially make him the 5th starter. What I mean is, let him start opening day as the “1″, but then treat him like the “5″ after that. Skip his turn when there is a chance, give him extra rest when they can. This will give him a chance to stay healthy and save face. It will also give the kids a chance to watch a true professional work at his craft.
If he does go into the tank and draw the ire of the fans it will take a while. If/when that happens, cut him. Like you said, the money is already gone, they may as well try to get something in return.
As a Met fan it would break my heart to give up on the guy who pitched our first no hitter. I say throw him out there when it is his pitching turn and solve this issue at the end of the season. My only concern is overuse of the pen if he can’t give you 6 or 7 good innings. This season is lost and we have to pay him anyway so save our future young arms and let him take his turn.
Lou, I agree with you, and Santana would have won a lot more games had the Mets scored when he pitched. I think the Mets should shut him down at the end of the month, and let him get ready for next year. Yes 25mil is a big expense, but it is Bay that I am done with. He has done absolutely nothing in a Mets uniform and his presence is killing the club off and on the field.
I know, it’s easy to predict or declaim Santana’s end.
Personally, when you look at his performance since the no-no, you just shake your head. It makes next to no sense. No question he’s in a really bad place right now, but there is no way the book is written on Johan yet. He’s 33, not 38. Look at the guy we recently gave up on, Beltran.
Santana needed more rehabbing. I think the goal for his next few starts should be innings. Let the coaches challenge him to pitch 3-4 good innings over next three starts. Into September see if he can go 4-5. Build on his strengths as he improves. Don’t expect a one-hitter and a CG every time he takes the hill.
I see light at the end of the tunnel he’s pitching from. And unless some big lies are being promoted all indications are that there’s nothing really wrong with him. I think something’s in his head.
Will he return to form as the Santana of 5-6 years ago? Maybe not, but there’s no reason to believe he cannot continue to be a very solid part of a good pitching rotation.
The great thing about hindsight is that it’s 20/20. I think the Mets made the smart play with Beltran, not that they gave up on him. Conventional wisdom said he wouldn’t rebound like this.. Unfortunately conventional wisdom was wrong.
WOW!!! What businesses do you guys run. Pay a guy $25M because he can give young guys advice or maybe pitch a few innings. Johan is done and if he is such a GOOD guy he would admit it. Let’s move on and begin to get the METS to a level where they can compete. They are a second rate team in NY and will always be with your attitudes. What would the other NY team do?
he was too good early in the year to claim he is done.
He is either injured, tired or having mechanical issues
In response to current comments,
WOW!!! What businesses do you guys run. Pay a guy $25M because he can give young guys advice or maybe pitch a few innings. Johan is done and if he is such a GOOD guy he would admit it. Let’s move on and begin to get the METS to a level where they can compete. They are a second rate team in NY and will always be with your attitudes. What would the other NY team do?
To be fair Rich – you’re paying him $25mil no matter what. Would you rather pay him $25mil to play for another team?
The other NY team might pay him to go away. This NY team won’t… If they’re not going to give Bay $18M to get outta dodge, they’re certainly not going to give Santana $30.5M to go away. Santana isn’t “done”, but he’s not worth his contract… The contract is the problem
but he’s not worth his contract”
Than again, Ike davis has 20 HR and 64 RBI… He’s making $500 K… Yet, he according to some, not worth it, he should be demoted etc…
He’s hitting .217 and when I said he should be demoted (which was a shared opinion from Rusty Staub when I asked him) he was hitting .169
Stop acting like April, May, didn’t happen. That’s when he should have been sent down just like Duda was sent down the second he slumped
Again, to be replaced by who??? Who else was gonna give us the kind of defense he plays? and the power threat he represents in the lineup??? Murphy? Rottino? who exactly were we gonna replaced him with????
since june 12 he’s hitting 266 with 15 HR and 41 RBI and a 564 slug %… what else do you want? it took him 2 full months to come around and he has… Be happy fpor a met at least once in your life…
In my opinion NY fans overrate their players.Johan is not our future. Yes, offer twenty million(cash) and remove 2014 option. We need to admit to get to the playoffs, possibly WS, we need to move on and get talent which is going to get us to our goals. Giving innings to a prospect is valuable to his development. Let’s have a plan. I am tired of Losing. Having said that I will be in PSL next march hoping for the BEST!!
Why on earth would Santana take $20M when he’s owed $30.5M??? Because he’s a man of integrity? #1 the players association would never allow it and #2 Santana isn’t a fool. That money is gone… If he’s healthy he’ll play.
You read posts selectively, Rich, or you simply don’t read carefully.
I’m going to disagree Santana is done, mainly because none of us has any way of knowing. And since the Mets owe him tens of millions of $, the logical step would not be to cut him. So what does a good business manager do?
As I stated, I think he tinkers a little to figure out how to get one of the most talented pitchers of his generation to pitch better. Right now the man is not a workhorse. A strategy that works has to be to get gradual improvement.
With effort and concentration, there’s no reason Santana cannot become a substantial contributor to Mets success from 2013-2015.
Well written article and I appreciate your balancing act.
Buying out Bay should be priority #1 and we know there is a precedent for it. However, there is no team in baseball, at least that I’ve ever heard of, that has bought out 2 huge contracts. Therefore, any realist knows that Santana is here next year.
Johan’s contract status is exactly why sports contracts in general are awful, and agents like Scott BorA$$ are at the heart of the problem. No other job, save many CEOs, can perform miserably or even fail and still get paid a ridiculous amount of money.
Go learn about free market economics and how supply and demand works. This site still attracts the dumbest Mets fans. If Giancarlo Stanton was a free agent today and the difference between getting him or letting him go to the Philadelphia Phillies is giving him an 8 year contract instead of a 7 year deal, these Alderson suckups would let him go. Idiots, you have no idea how the world works you morons. Why do people still read this moronic site? Are you a Georgia country boy?
So that’s kinda like when the Red Sox heard the Yankees wanted Crawford so they added to their offer right?
That worked out real well so far
How exactly did this article come across as an Alderson suck up piece?
I’ll go back to what I said before the season started…..
We should have considered putting Santana in the pen this year to allow him to build up his arm strength and give you the power to limit his innings and rest him when needed without upsetting the rotational cart.
You could always go back to starting him in 2014 after he has had a season to build up strength in the arm.
If our eyes were truly looking towards 2014-2015 then that would have been the smart play!
It certainly would have changed the situation in regards to resigning Capuano as there would have been space for him to make paying him the raise worth it.It also might have inspired us to not pay Pelfrey is Arbitration.
In regards to the comments on reaching Bay status that is not possible no matter how bad he is. Santana does provide something that Bay never has and never will. LEADERSHIP!
While all else from a baseball perspective might seem the same and Santana might seem as useless on a baseball field as Bay, he does bring something to the lockeroom.
In the end If he continues to fail as a starter then the Bullpen is his next stop.
Should have been his first stop but that milk is long ago spilt.
Lets just hope that whatever damage was done to his shoulder by trying to start him isn’t permanent and if you can get an inning every other game our of him it will be enough until his contract is up.
The Mets have some great pitching on the way. I am more concerned about the bullpen, actually. With Gee back, next year we should have a more seasoned Harvey to add to Dickey and Niese, with Wheeler and Meijia in the rotation by the end of the year. That’s a surplus of probably pretty good or at least serviceable starters.
I would suggest asking Santana for next year if he is willing to join the bullpen and share closer duties with Parnell. He needs rest this year is my guess. He doesn’t have the fastball he had before the injury, but as we have seen earlier this year he has tons more smarts on the mound than most quality pitchers in the league.
That would give us a bullpen of Acosta, Edgin, Rauch, Francisco, Ramirez, Parnell and Santana. I’d also consider moving McHugh to the bullpen this season so he’s ready to come up by the end of the year. A wild idea to be sure, but other great starters have converted to the bullpen and went on to have great careers after they weren’t at the top of their game in their later years.
I love Johan, he’s been a great Met and a great guy. But that contract is brutal. If he could just remain healthy for a season I can deal with him being overpaid. It’s being overpaid and hurt that makes the contract worse. Every team has bad contracts, if Johan is ours I’m glad it’s at least him.
BECOMING? 140M+ ID HUGE FOR 1 QUESTIONABLE NO-NO!
ONE 14W SEASON CONSTITUES HIS HIGH WATER MARK AS A MET HE HAS NEVER ONCE PUT TOGETHER A DOMINANT SEASON ala PEDRO,SEAVER,KOOSMAN WHILE HIS PAYCHECK TO ME CONSTITUTES THE MOST CRIPPLING WILPON DECISION SINCE THEY OPENED THEIR FIRST MADOFF ACC’T.
SANTANA + BAY = BANKRUIPTCY IN ANY ECONOMIC CLIMATE! 40M+ OUT OF 93M REMAINING FOR 2 INCONSISTANT ANCHORS/BALLAST.
THE ONLY POSITIVES THEY’VE COMBINED TO SUPPORT IS BLLOMBERG’S BUDGET WITH THEIR HUGE CONTRIBUTIONS YO NYC TAX COFFERS.
UNFORTUNATELY WE’RE ALSO STUCK WITH THE RESPONSIBLE PARTY FOR CREASTING THAT ALBAROSS OF A CONTRACXT, JEFF WILPON, WHO SINGLEHANDEDLY IRONED OUT THAT ENTIRE SANTANA CONTRACT SANS MINAYA INPUT AS JEFF HAD LOCKED OMASR OUT OF THE NEGOTIATIONS.
I MAINTAIN THAT THE ONLY AREA JOHAN SANTANA HAS EXCEEDED DURING HIS NYM TENURE HAS BEEN TIMES HE’S REQUIRED IN THE OPERATING ROOM UNDER THE KNIFE FOR KNEE,ELBOW,SHOUILDER ISSUES! HOWCAN ANYONE CONSISDER THE DISAPPOINTMENT AS JUST BEGINNING TO SET IN?
PLEASE SPARE ME ALL THE APOLOGIES ABOUT RUN SUPPORT WHEN HE’S NEVER SHOWN AN ABILITY TO PROTECT NARROW LEADS OR BUKLLDOG HIS WAY THROUGH 7+ IP Vs OUR BIGGEST COMPETITORS NAMED ATLANTA, OPHILADELPHIA OR YANKEES!