For Your Consideration: Johan Santana

The Baseball Writers’ Association of America is casting its ballots this month for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Class of 2018.

La Vida Baseball will weigh in with the pros, the cons and the betcha-didn’t-knows of the Latino candidates. There are 33 players eligible, including Omar Vizquel, Édgar Martínez, Vladimir Guerrero, Sammy Sosa, Johan Santana, Manny Ramírez, Liván Hernández, Carlos Lee, Carlos Zambrano and Andruw Jones, who we include because he hails from Curacao.

Previously, we looked at Vizquel, Martínez, Guerrero and Sosa. Now we turn our attention to the mound and Santana.

139-78/3.20 ERA/1,988 K — 51.4 WAR — 48.1 JAWS

By Efraín Ruiz Pantin

Born in Tovar, Venezuela, Johan Alexander Santana Araque was destined to be great, just not for very long. The Houston Astros first recognized his talent — signing him as a 16-year-old free agent in 1995 — then failed to promote him, losing him in the 1999 Rule 5 draft to the Marlins. But don’t give the Marlins credit for engineering a steal —  that same day, they traded the left-handed Santana along with cash to the Minnesota Twins for righty Jared Camp. Somebody clearly whiffed. Camp never got past Triple-A, retiring after the 2002 season.

Despite all his injuries, Santana pitched until 2012. A four-time All-Star, he threw hard and threw strikes. During a five-year stretch, he won two Cy Young Awards and finished among the top five the other three occasions. He led the league in ERA and strikeouts three times each and in innings twice. In 2006, he became the second Latino after Pedro Martínez to win the pitching Triple Crown, going 19-6 with a 2.77 ERA and 245 strikeouts. And in 2012, he closed out his career by throwing the New York Mets’ first and only no-hitter in history.

Sadly, it might not be enough to keep him on the ballot after the first year — a cruel one-and-done for an extraordinarily talented hurler. As of Jan. 9, Ryan Thibodaux’s BBHOF Tracker — which counts ballots publicly revealed before the HOF’s official announcement — Santana had only three votes out of a possible 178, or 1.7 percent. Way below the minimum of 5.0 percent required to stay on the ballot, Santana risks suffering the same ignominious fate as José “Cheo” Cruz, Dagoberto “Bert” Campaneris and Julio Franco, all legendary Latino All-Stars who never got to make their HOF cases beyond the first year.

The case for Santana

From 2004 to 2008, no pitcher was better than El Gocho, and that counts for something. During that five-year stretch, Santana notched 86 wins — tying Roy Oswalt for No. 1 — while leading the rest of the majors with a 2.82 ERA and 1,146.2 innings. His career compares favorably with that of Sandy Koufax, another lefty whose brilliance was cut short by injuries. Santana threw 2,025.2 innings over 12 seasons, finishing 139-78 with a 136 ERA+, a metric that accounts for ballparks and opposing teams and is adjusted so that 100 represents the league average. In the same number of seasons, Koufax threw 2,324.1 innings, finishing 165-87 with a 131 ERA+.

In a larger context, Santana owns the fifth-best ERA+ among lefties in history, behind Clayton Kershaw, Lefty Grove, Chris Sale and John Franco, who was a reliever. Strikeouts and control, that was Santana’s calling card, one that places him in an exclusive club. Santana, Martínez and Roger Clemens are the only pitchers with 2,000+ innings and an ERA+ above 130 who averaged more than eight strikeouts and less than three walks per nine innings.

The case against Santana

Injuries, that simple. Santana’s career was hindered by elbow, knee and shoulder surgeries and he retired with totals way below those expected of Hall of Fame candidates, like 250 wins and 3,000 strikeouts. And unlike Koufax, who helped pitch the Dodgers to four World Series — winning three — Santana never got a chance to shine on the big stage. The four times that the Twins made the playoffs with Santana, they got as far as the ALCS only once.

Taking it a step further, Koufax becomes a double-edged standard for Santana. In his also brief career, The Left Arm of God threw four no-hitters, including a perfect game, and won three Cy Young Awards, three Triple Crowns and five ERA titles while being voted the National League MVP in 1963 and the World Series MVP twice. That’s how you get into the Hall of Fame on a short résumé.

What the metrics say

When we say no pitcher was better than Santana from 2004 to 2008, we’re not kidding. He led all hurlers with a 35.4 WAR during that period, way ahead of runner-up Brandon Webb’s 27.4.

But Santana’s career 51.4 WAR doesn’t compare favorably to the 62 starters enshrined in Cooperstown, who as a group average 73.9. The same happens with his JAWS rating — which averages career WAR with a player’s 7-year peak WAR. Santana weighs in with a 48.1 JAWS, way below the HOF average of 62.1.

Greatest moment

June 1, 2012, the day the Mets finally recorded their first no-no. Santana, who had missed the previous season due to shoulder surgery, was pitching on borrowed time. Against the St. Louis Cardinals, he labored through nine innings while striking out eight and walking five. He threw 134 pitches, the most in his career, refusing to come out despite concerns about his rehabbed shoulder.

“I was doing my job and, in my mind, I was not going to come out of the game under any circumstances, even if I got to 200 pitches,” Santana said. “I wasn’t thinking about my shoulder, nor about anything else apart from the game. It was an important moment, the first time in my career that I found myself in that situation. I was not going to let the opportunity pass by.”

Fact you probably don’t know

While his no-no is his greatest moment, his best individual performance was most certainly the afternoon of Sept. 27, 2008, in his first season with the Mets. With the team fighting for the playoffs, Santana took the mound against the Florida Marlins, pitching under the pressure of a six-year, $137.5 million contract and on short rest — four days after throwing 125 pitches in eight innings in a must-win game against the Chicago Cubs.

When Santana got to the clubhouse, the first thing he did was go the blackboard and write, “It’s time to be a Man.” The Marlins had no chance. Santana mowed through them, pitching a masterpiece — a three-hit shutout in which he struck out nine in a 2-0 victory. It would be in vain, because the Mets were eliminated the next day. But Santana’s stature only grew in defeat, because several days later it was revealed that he had pitched a complete game with a torn meniscus in his left knee, an injury that required an arthroscopy to clean up. Santana was certainly The Man that day.

Featured Image: Patrick McDermott / Getty Images Sport

Inset Image: Brian Bahr / Getty Images Sport