Loyalty to a player with his ferocity is great but not a good business practice! When you play with fire…you get burned as we all know too well.

Are we gonna beat this to death too! GET A LIFE GUYS

I hope he goes 14-1 by the trade deadline and we can deal him to a contender, (even if WE are contenders), for a top-tier centerfielder/leadoff man type major leaguer or AAA top prospect. We certainly cant get caught up in the Reyes predicament and keeping him until the end of the season w/o any compensation for him after he walks away.
Who knows, maybe SF has a SP go down in July, is in contention, & needs to replace that pitcher w/an ace, for Hunter Pence.

the question was, if he finishes the year with the Mets (or actually any team) and becomes a FA, would you give him a 3/25 (2.33 AAV) contract to be the elder statesman in the rotation.

I most likely would not, since while the $ are not all that high (basically what you would pay for that role on a 1 year deal each year), too good a chance of the arm falling off.

They wouldn’t pay a younger and more needed OFer the money he wanted, there is no way in hell they will take the option @25Mil for a chance to pay him later to a multiyear deal and at CHEAPEST, the kind of money bourn got to a guy who has the injury he had and is significanty older…

Especially not considering all this pitching in the Minors we keep hearing about….

I think there are only two ways this plays out…
He pitches well and he gets something in trade at the deadline….
He doesn’t and they refuse the Option in the offseason….

If you want a third option best I could think of he starts off struggling, Making him unattractive to anyone at the deadline and then finishes really strong where he might get traded to someone who will pick up the option late in the season or right after the season is done and the Option decision needs to be made….And thats the least likely to happen becuase why trade for him? Just wait till we let him go and sign him for whatever price you want without giving up a thing except exclusivity and the risk someone else will bid his price up on you.

Of course theres reason to be optimistic:

A- Every single MLB player focus’ more & tries harder during their contract year(sad but true)
B- In his contract year, He WILL find out whats the newest undectable, or not yet illegal, PED, and then use it.

He threw 130+ pitches in that game and then had his routine all thrown off kilter by being held back 2 days if I recall. It might have had nothing to do with it but I sense that routine is very important to SPs. Too much rest is often as bad as too little rest.

Of course, this is all speculation. There is no telling why Johan was so terrible after the no-no. It could have been one thing or a buildup of many things.

Let us just hope he is much better in 2013.

Maybe Tipping his pitches might but not the Ankle….

He got shut down due to back stiffness and thats not something the Ankle would cause….
What is more likely is he overcompensated with his body to protect the shoulder and put excess strain on his back in the proccess….

Pretty sure in that game he was doing fine, then got trampled, and gave up all the runs (HRs?) after they for some reason did not take him out.

so MHO is that like you said, the ankle snowballed into the other problems.

So I expect even a moderatly successful season means Santana gets traded….
I don’t expect much back from it but he will go at the deadline and what we get will depend on what else is available in the Pitching dept at that time.