Johan Santana

By Dalton Del Don

I was already extremely wary of Johan Santana, but with news he’s out “indefinitely,” and his availability for the start of the season is in serious jeopardy, I’ll be avoiding him altogether now.

Apparently ramping up to pitch in the WBC, Santana has developed tightness in his elbow. If he feels it again after throwing a light bullpen session Sunday, he’ll fly back to New York for extensive testing, which doesn’t sound too good. Plenty of pitchers will develop soreness during this time of spring, but Santana has more than one red flag going against him.

Despite moving to the National League last year, his 7.91 K/9 IP mark was his lowest ever since becoming a starter in 2002. His post All-Star break numbers certainly looked good on the surface – 2.17 ERA, 1.10 WHIP – but he also combated the decrease in K rate with an increased walk rate, which is never a good combination. Moreover, while many consider his 2008 season unlucky since he finished with just 16 wins thanks to a shaky Mets bullpen, quite the contrary actually occurred. In fact, the difference between his ERA (2.53) and his FIP (3.51) was the fourth largest in baseball, with only Armando Galarraga, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Joe Saunders getting luckier. Additionally, his xFIP (which is an even better future indicator of ERA than FIP since it “normalizes” the home run component) was 3.83.

Don’t get me wrong, a 3.83 xFIP is still very good (he ranked first in ERA last year, 15th in xFIP), and Santana isn’t all of a sudden going to fall off a cliff as far as skills go. But his velocity took a dip last season, something that’s especially troublesome for a pitcher who threw the third most changeups (28.7 percent) in baseball. Over the last two years, Santana has thrown the seventh most pitches in MLB. This latest injury, combined with a very real drop in skills last season, is enough to take other SPs like Dan Haren and Josh Beckett ahead of him in upcoming drafts.