So the news just came down that Johan Santana has a serious elbow injury that will require surgery, and is likely done for the season.  Added to the news that Jeff Francouer has a torn ligament in his thumb, it is just ridiculous how injury-bitten the Mets have been this year.

But the bigger story here is how horribly the Mets have mismanaged Santana.

Last time I checked, Johan Santana is under guaranteed contract for four more seasons after this one, to the tune of a whopping 98.5 million dollars. But even though Santana has been experiencing sever pain in his elbow since at least June, the Mets have continued to allow him to keep pitching all the way to the end of August, even thought this season has been a total lost cause for at least two months now.

Jerry Manuel admits that he has been “terribly concerned” about the pain in Santana’s elbow. But apparently not concerned enough to take the obvious step of shutting Santana down for the season and protecting his team’s massive $100 million plus investment.

Santana never complains, so he just kept pitching through the pain, and Manuel never shut him down until Santana himself begged out of a start. And if Santana himself begged out, you know it’s got to be crazy amounts of pain. It should never have even gotten close to this point, especially in a completely lost season.

Look it would be one thing if there were vague mentions of “discomfort” or something, which Manuel just wrote off.  Even that would have been bad, but in this case we hear in a direct quote from Manuel himself that “He has not been throwing between starts for quite awhile. I would say since before the All-Star break.”

Your ace is not even throwing at all between starts for two months, your ace who is under contract for four more years, and yet you keep running him out there? Rob Neyer recently wrote a column calling Jerry Manuel a “medieval manager,” but it turns out we really had no idea!

But ultimately, blame for this ridiculous situation has to go all the way up the chain to Omar Minaya and ownership. No matter which way you slice it, there is some serious idiocy going on here, because how dumb do you have to be to not take steps to protect an investment like that, in a lost season? Whether they knew about the injury and did nothing, or somehow are so oblivious that they didn’t know about the injury, Minaya and the front office have been totally negligent.

Since 1999, there has been an annual tradition among a group of my friends whereby I name a preseason list of “Unquestioned Aces” and then everyone questions my list.  This year being the 10th anniversary of this tradition, I thought I would share the list with UmpBump as well.

My personal definition of an “unquestioned ace” differs from the typical usage of calling the best pitcher on each team that team’s “ace” by default, even if they are not that good. “Unquestioned aces” are true number-one starters: pitchers a manager would gladly start against anyone, anytime. In any given year there are only a small handful of such pitchers in all of baseball.

Being named an “unquestioned ace” is about more than just numbers. A pitcher has to have a certain extra something that strikes fear into the hearts of batters.  However, an unquestioned ace is generally a pitcher who can be relied upon to pitch at least 200 innings, win at least 16 games, and post an ERA of at least 3.75 or better.

The “unquestioned” part is the most important criterion, however.  There must be absolutely no question in anyone’s mind that the said pitcher is a true ace.  Even a rumor of injury or loss of velocity in spring training is enough to bump someone from the list, as long as there are any questions about their ability to dominate in the upcoming season. It generally also means that a pitcher has pitched at least two superlative seasons in a row,  as otherwise there will almost surely be questions as to whether the previous season was a just fluke or not.

This years unquestioned aces are:

Roy Halladay
Tim Lincecum
Roy Oswalt
CC Sabathia
Johan Santana
Brandon Webb

So what do you think? Did I leave anyone out? Did I include someone undeserving?

Aces from previous years after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a loyal UmpBump reader (thanks!) then you would know that the staff likes sabermetrics. Well I would include myself in that bunch, except I’ve been slacking on the mathematics of it all, and don’t really know much about PECOTA, Runs Created, etc, except to say that it’s dense stuff.

Well, since I’m scheduled to pick my Cy Young candidates, I figured I might as well take a crack at this saber stuff and do some calculatin’ to backup my claims. So as to not diminish the value of my own criteria, I’ll take stats into consideration, but I deem it important to consider the overall success of the team. How will I determine this? Well, simple really, did the team make the playoffs, and/or what percentage did the pitcher’s wins constitute of the overall team victories.

National League

I decided to take a look at the senior circuit first, and from the start, there’s a handful of names constantly atop the stat categories: Tim Lincecum, Johan Santana, Ryan Dempster, Brandon Webb, and near the periphery, Dan Haren and Cole Hamels.

In my (humble) opinion, ERA and Wins (with a 200 IP minimum) are obligatory stat criteria to make a preliminary evaluation of pitchers. So looking at the top three in each, we narrow the list to: Santana (2.53, 16), Lincecum (2.62, 17), Dempster (2.96, 17), and Webb (3.30, 22). To further thin the list, lets take a look at some sabermetrics: Only Webb and Santana are in the top three in positive WPA (with Lincecum at a very close fourth), and in overall Win Probability Added, Lincecum lead the NL with a 4.59 index, followed by Santana, Dempster, and Webb.

With those two breakdowns in mind, we can take Dempster out of the list, and by looking at one more sabermetric, the player leverage index, we can eliminate Santana since his pLI is below 1. And lastly, lets look at each players win total and what percentage of his team’s wins it represents: The Giants won 72 games, meaning Lincecum’s 17 are equivalent to 23% of the wins. The Diamondbacks won 80 games, and Webb’s 22 have a 27.5% share of their wins.

Brad Lidge is my stud pick for NL Cy Young

Now, taking relievers into account, and paying close attention to the closers, out of those with more than 30 saves, only the Phillies’ Brad Lidge cracks the top 3 in WPA (5.37); meaning he’s the only one worthy of Cy Young consideration (again, IMHO).

It’s a close call. For one, neither the Diamondbacks or Giants made the playoffs, and the Phillies did advance to the NLCS, thanks in part to Lidge closing out the Brewers. Lidge did have a 1.95 ERA and pitched 69.3 innings, and even though his 41 saves didn’t lead the league (Jose Valverde had 44), they’re good for a second-place tie with the Giants’ Brian Wilson (oh, and by the way, he blew zero save opportunities).

If we follow our sabermetric gut instinct, he beat out Lincecum in overall WPA, so I think we’ve reached the conclusion that makes the most sabermetric sense: Brad Lidge gets my vote for NL Cy Young, with Lincecum second and Webb third.

American League

Cliff Lee was just that good; he's the AL Cy Young in my camp.

Keeping the dense matter to a minimum, let’s do the math for the junior circuit. So filtering the top three in ERA and Wins we get: Cliff Lee (2.54, 22), Roy Halladay (2.81, 20), John Lester (3.21, 16), and Mike Mussina (3.37, 20). It’s safe to eliminate Lester from the list based on the fact that the other three starters won 20 or more games. To further filter the list, only Lee and Halladay cracked the top three in WPA with 5.96 and 3.47 respective indexes.

Let’s not forget percentage of wins: Lee’s wins represented 27% of the Indians’ wins this year (81-81) while Halladay’s accounted for 23% the Blue Jays’ victories.

Again, to keep relievers in the mix, I’ll take a look at the top closer this year in the American League, Francisco Rodriguez. He set the record for saves in a regular season with 62, had a 2.24 era (only good for fourth best among relievers), but his WPA barely puts him in the top five, with a 3.33 index.

The Angels did make the post season, while the Indians had a very disappointing year, but Lee’s numbers were extremly good, far above the best; he only lost three games and won 71% of his starts. Had it not been for that sheer dominance I’d vote for Rodriguez, but Cliff Lee gets my vote for Cy Young in the AL, with Rodriguez second and Halladay third.

Like I said before, I hadn’t really used sabermetrics to gauge my appreciation of player performance, and considering it was my first time really looking at traditional stats mixed with sabermetrics to make an evaluation, I have to say I’m sold. That stuff does not lie.

Yesterday, I wrote about what I had seen and felt at Shea last Thursday when the Mets came from behind against the Cubs and won it in the bottom of the ninth. This post is going to cover my second-to-last time at Shea, which also was the second-to-last game ever at the Stadium. September 27th against the Marlins. The Johan Santana game.

I was in my usual seat – Mezzanine level, Section 19, Row L, Seat 2. Thanks to my brother, I’ve had this seat every Saturday home game for the past two seasons, and he usually occupied Seat 1 right beside me. But like I mentioned in my previous post, he was unfortunately unable to come so I brought a friend to join me. I really enjoyed sitting there, as I was surrounded by the same faces week-in week-out. There was the father-son duo just a few seats down. The three seats to my right were always occupied by guys who appeared to have grown up together, and their snide comments always made the game that much more fun. Right in front was a young dad who had just had his first child prior to last season, so over these two years, I’ve seen the kid get bigger and bigger. And there are others who I used to see on Saturdays but with whom I never interacted. Yet, I think I’m going to miss them too just because I knew that they loved this team just as much as, if not more than, I did. And baseball is just better when you feel you’re part of a group.

The night before, the Mets had put themselves down one game in the Wild Card standings. Having lost 6-1 to the Marlins, the Brewers were now ahead. However, the crowd was surprisingly upbeat. Perhaps it was because we all knew that playing the blame game at this stage was a useless exercise. Maybe Mets fans actually enjoy being underdogs. Or it could have just been because we knew that Johan Santana was taking the mound.

It wasn’t his turn in the rotation as he was scheduled to pitch in the final game. But according to manager Jerry Manuel, Santana asked for the ball one day early since tomorrow may not even matter. I hadn’t realized how rare this was for Johan. This would only be the second time in his career that he’s starting on three days’ rest (the first was back in 2004). However, he was Johan Santana, the best bet to guarantee that the Mets would be alive for at least one more day.

While I don’t think that he’s the most deserving candidate for Cy Young this year, I still wholeheartedly believe that the Mets have the #1 pitcher in all of baseball. And best of all, he pitched like one.

Lefty, righty, patient, hack, power, scrap, lowball, fastball. It didn’t matter what type of hitter you were on September 27th, 2008. Johan was going to beat you, and that’s exactly what he did. 117 pitches. Nine innings pitched. Zero runs. Six base runners. Nine strikeouts. And all of us there were loving every second of it. Was it the most dominant pitching performance in Mets history? Not remotely. That probably belongs to David Cone for his outing against the Phillies on October 6, 1991. But it felt like we were witnessing something special.

To his credit, Marlins starter Ricky Nolasco was nearly as good, racking up 10Ks over seven. But the Mets were able to score two runs – in the first via sac fly from Delgado and in the fourth off a Ramon Martinez double – which was one more than we needed.

And as the game progressed, we all took glances at the scoreboard in right field to check on the score of the Brewers-Cubs game. And every time those numbers changed, a loud roar would arise from the crowd. 2-0 Cubs. Then 4-0. It was going to happen. The Mets would get one more chance tomorrow to at least force a tie in the Wild Card standings for that one game playoff at Shea. And although we knew that Santana would be unavailable after this gem, our confidence was riding high.

The Mets had won 2-0, and as I gathered my belongings to leave, I said goodbye to those with whom I sat in the same section the last two years. One of the three guys to my right handed me his business card asking me to contact him when I’m buying Citi Field tickets next year. I think I’m going to take him up on it and hope he did the same for others too.

Walking down the ramp towards the subway after the game, I got a phone call from my brother who asked the simple question: “Could we have asked for any more out of Johan today?” Well no, we couldn’t.

Before the season started, Peter Gammons predicted the Mets were the team to beat in the NL East, “because the Mets may have the best four-man rotation in the National League East or perhaps the entire National League, period.”

Here was his reasoning:

Johan Santana is arguably the best pitcher in the game. Pedro Martinez has had a very encouraging spring, with Saturday’s outing against Washington more proof of his recovery. Pedro is not going to ever throw 95 mph again, but he is looser than he has been in years (he still doesn’t have to ice his shoulder), his command of four pitches is outstanding and he is so intelligent that he doesn’t have to throw harder than 88 mph to win. Oliver Perez is up in the 93-mph range with a very good slider.

Perhaps the most encouraging part of the mix for the Mets this spring has been John Maine. Two years ago, GM Omar Minaya, who stole Maine in the Kris Benson trade, predicted Maine would be a top-of-the-rotation starter. Two years of working with pitching coach Rick Peterson and Maine may be just that. The Indians faced him Wednesday night and thought he was the best pitcher they’ve seen all spring. Where he was essentially a one-pitch, 92-94 mph fastball pitcher, Maine has been throwing 94-96 this spring with an improving slider and changeup to go along with his ability to command the fastball on all four quadrants of the plate.

Until they know what’s going to happen with El Duque, who for now is still throwing no higher than the low 80s, the fifth spot is in flux. But a fifth starter is usually a work in progress, and remember this — without Santana or Pedro and with Maine a work in progress — the Mets starters last year led the NL in wins and quality starts. So with the Phillies pitching in some question and John Smoltz and Mike Hampton set to leave Florida with slight physical questions, there seems little doubt that the Mets will head north with the premier starting pitching in the National League East.

That evaluation seemed entirely reasonable at the time, but now one has to wonder what Gammons would have predicted if somebody told him that Martinez would alternate this season between injured and awful, that Maine would take a major step backwards and sit out the last month of the season with a bone spur, that El Duque would miss the entire season, and that Oliver Perez would start slowly.

I’m guessing he’d probably give the Mets zero chance of winning the division.

Just goes to show that even the best made plans sometimes go awry — and sometimes things still work out. Thank god for Mike Pelfrey, eh New York?

This is one of a series of posts in which we grade each team’s wily hot stove maneuvers and tragic offseason blunders.

So yes, the Twins finally succumbed to the inevitable and traded Johan Santana to a contender. But prior to the deal going through, common sense had the Mets giving up a boatload of young talent in return for the veteran hurler and multiple Cy-Young winner. Of all, one prospect came across as the centerpiece of the deal; alas, Fernando Martinez is still a member of the Mets organization and the four prospects that were sent over are not necessarily tickling the collective pickle of Twins fans across the board.

Last year, the Twins were facing arbitration with six core member of their starting nine, Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, Michael Cuddyer, Nick Punto, Juan Rincon and Lew Ford; eventually they reached deals with all of them but at a price. Though the resigned Joe Mauer to a 4-year, $33 million deal, 2006-AL-MVP Morneau agreed to a one-year deal only. There was legitimate concern that Morneau would be priced out of reach for the Twins, a small market team, and thus they would have to face a situation similar to the Santana sweepstakes.

Well, in case it got lost in the Santana hoopla, and fortunately for Twins fans, Morneau resigned for a whopping 6-year, $80 million dollars – the biggest contract in Twins history –avoiding the gloomy prospect of losing two of its biggest stars in the same offseason. (Oh yea, Cuddyer also cashed in at a cool $24 million for a 3-year deal).

So on the surface, the Twins spent the offseason trying to take the lesser of two evils: trade one their superstars, and sign one of them longterm, instead of letting both of them go.

But if you look close, new GM Bill Smith made a flurry of moves to revamp his lineup.

After a subpar 2007 by Nick Punto, the Twins signed Mike Lamb for a frugal $6.6 million to handle third and to provide an offensive boost to the lineup. But don’t pencil him in just yet, Punto is better defensively, so he’ll get his share of ABs.

Jason Bartlett, the team’s “shortstop of the future” was traded in November (along with SP Matt Garza) for Delmon Young (who’ll likely start in left field) in a six-player deal that also brought in infielder Brendan Harris. Smith signed veteran Adam Everett to take Bartlett’s place and the team hopes Harris will be able to take over second base.

With left field in the hands of Young, and right field safely in the hands of newly resigned Cuddyer, there’s that center field crater, void, hole, ditch, etc, that was left vacant when Torii Hunter skipped town. Carlos Gomez, who comes over from the Mets as part of the Santana deal is a good candidate, but Smith made sure he had plenty of posibilities for the job, so he signed Craig Monroe.

The bullpen is again anchored by closer Joe Nathan; though that may not be for long as Nathan enters the last year of his contract and may be traded to a contender if the Twins fail to make any noise in the AL Central.

And then, there’s the rotation. The departures of Santana, Garza, and Silva sure seem to leave behind a decapitated corpse. The return of Francisco Liriano might be cathartic for Twins fans, but for a while, all that remained beyond the #1 spot in the rotation were a handful unproven young arms (Carlos Silva left via free agency). So in hopes of avoiding the potential of having all starters under the age of 26, the Twins singed veteran hurler Livan Hernandez to add some experience to what may be a very inconsistent staff.

Many of the Twins woes have come about due to their “small market” status and the lack of big money that comes with it; the construction of their new stadium has hit various obstacles along the process but is set to open in 2010, when bigger (and more consistent) crowds may help secure funds to sign future stars.

From now until then, though, all the Twins can do is battle it out with what they’ve got.

Projected lineup, rotation and Closer

1. LF Delmon Young – .288 .316 .408

2. 3B Mike Lamb – .289 .366 .453

3. C Joe Mauer – .293 .382 .426

4. 1B Justin Morneau – .271 .343 .492

5. RF Michael Cuddyer – .276 .356 .433

6. CF Carlos Gomez – .232 .288 .304

7. 2B Brendan Harris – .286 .343 .434

8. DH Craig Monroe – .219 .268 .370

9. SS Adam Everett – .232 .281 .318

LF Francisco Liriano – DNP in 2007

RH Livan Hernandez – 11-11, 4.93 ERA

RH Boof Bosner – 8-12, 5.10 ERA

RH Scott Baker – 9-9, 4.33 ERA

RH Kevin Slowey – 4-1, 4.33 ERA

Closer: Joe Nathan – 37 sv, 1.88 ERA

Acquisitions: Mike Lamb, Adam Everett, Delmon Young, Craig Monroe, Carlos Gomez, Livan Hernandez

Losses: Johan Santana, Torii Hunter, Carlos Silva, Matt Garza, Jason Bartlett (both in the Young deal).

Offseason grade: C

The Santana trade was a nasty affair and the Twins came out looking more like losers than winers; if we were to grade on that, they could not get higher than a D. But the fact that they managed to sign Morneau to a long-term deal was significant enough to upgrade the perennial D to a C.

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

New York Times sportswriter, George Vecsey, penned a wonderfully ridiculous article in today’s edition, essentially playing the role of party pooper in the Johan Santana celebration. Why? Quite frankly, I’m not sure. And I’m not convinced that George knows either. He writes:

Omar Minaya may ice the deal for Johan Santana any hour now but, until further notice, the Mets are still the team that fell apart last September, disastrously.

The Mets still have to report to their legion of self-appointed probation officers, that is to say, Mets fans, on a regular basis from now until October to prove they are not recidivists in the worrisome habit of folding.

Actually, George, in case you didn’t notice, the majority of us Mets fans (rightly or wrongly), are quite happy at the moment. If we really are the “probation officers”, then the ex-con just dropped off James “Whitey” Bulger on our front doorstep.

I would strongly advise giddy Mets fans to envision the Marlins and the Nationals whacking them around in the final two weeks of last season. That should neutralize the euphoria, assuming Minaya and the family Wilpon sign the Twins’ star lefty to a six-year contract.

Why would we want to do that? That sounds about as much fun as punching yourself in the groin repeatedly just to prevent yourself from making a move on that incredibly cute girl standing across the room and giving you that ‘come hither’ stare. It’s completely irrational.

Essentially, the Mets are front-ending their pitching staff — Santana for the departed Tom Glavine. That upgrade does not necessarily make them a better…

And this is where Vecsey’s logic supernovas into a blackhole. Is he really arguing that keeping Tom Glavine may actually have been preferable to adding Johan Santana? Do I even need to post comparative statistics to prove how inane that suggestion is?

Even if Santana stays healthy, he is 28, and pitchers can fall apart in a heartbeat. For that matter, he did not have such a wonderful September himself.

See, George, you were so freaking close to making a coherent statement with that first sentence. Yes, pitchers (moreso than hitters) are a fragile bunch. But “he is 28″ is your argument? 28 is too old for you? I’m 27 and am still waiting to hit puberty for god’s sakes (any day now…). And picking one freaking month – 5 games – out of a pitcher’s 251-game career (that’s less than 2% of games he’s appeared for those who care) simply doesn’t make sense.

Besides, he can start only once every five games, or somewhat more than 30 starts a season.

Do I need to continue? Fine. I’ll keep going. By this logic, no starting pitcher in MLB is worth much of anything since they “can only start once every five games”. But Jon Rauch is more valuable because he pitched decently in 88 games.

Let’s say (Santana) wins 20 games. He is still taking up a certain number of starts that would have been made, and perhaps even won, by another regular.

I’m not even going to talk about VORP to get my point across. But this is like trying to minimize the impact of Alex Rodriguez by making a case for Wilson Betemit. Had the Mets not landed Santana, they would have trotted Mike Pelfrey – or even worse, signed Livan Hernandez – instead.

Little has changed since last September. Paul Lo Duca is being replaced by Brian Schneider at catcher, maybe an upgrade in defense and comportment but a downgrade in hitting, and they now have Ryan Church in right field, not necessarily a big deal.

Um, have you forgotten what you were writing about in the first place? Isn’t the whole point of this article to talk about the Mets trading for Johan Santana? That’s a “little change”?

The core of the team remains the same. Moises Alou was a rock last September, but he turns 42 this summer. David Wright is terrific, but not yet the assertive leader he may be someday. Carlos Beltrán has his moments.

You know something’s wrong when Moises Alou is described as “a rock” but Carlos Beltran – arguably the best all round centerfielder in baseball – is diminished to a “has his moments”.

On a team constructed with veteran players, many of them Latino, no critical mass of leadership emerged to shake Reyes out of his walkabout… It appears that nobody took Reyes into the back room and said, “¿Qué tal?”— what’s up?

See, now you’re just guessing to make a point. And not only that, what does being Latino have anything to do with anything?

Ultimately, you can make the case that the Mets shouldn’t have traded away their future. I disagree given the supposed talent levels of the prospects headed to Minnesota, but at least it’s a plausible argument. You can make the case that no pitcher deserves such a lengthy guaranteed deal and logistically speaking, you’d be right. But for a big-market team like the Mets – with their own cable network and a new stadium opening in 2009, the financial damage isn’t completely crippling.

But what doesn’t make sense is trying to argue that the 2008 Mets are not a better team now than they were last week. It doesn’t make sense to insinuate that keeping Tom Glavine instead of acquiring the best pitcher in baseball may have been the right move. And even Vecsey himself can’t believe that Carlos Beltran is simply a player who “has his moments”.

AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See what you did, George? You reduced me to doing a terrible Lewis Black impersonation. I hope you’re happy, sir.

If you’re a fan of the New York Mets, you’re probably pretty excited about the team’s trade for Johan Santana. This is a big day for you. Enjoy it.If you’re a fan of one of the other NL East teams, particularly the Braves or Phillies, you’re probably pretty bummed that one of your rivals just landed a two-time Cy Young winner. But allow me to throw a little sunshine down on this seemingly dark news.There are a number of ways that the Johan Santana trade could mean more bad than good for Mets fans. Let’s count them:

1. Santana, after signing a seven-year $140 million extension, could get hurt. Moreover, he may already be hurt. The Twins’ ace didn’t have his usual stuff down the stretch in 2007. That could be indicative of an injury. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Buster Olney had to say about Santana’s 2007 finish:

I talked with evaluators and scouts with three other teams since then, and they all saw the exact same thing in Santana: diminishment in velocity, relatively few sliders thrown, subpar (for Santana) performances. But two of the three believe the regression could be attributed to the Twins not being in the race, Minnesota not playing in a high-adrenalin situation, and Santana coping with a cracked nail. The third evaluator wonders, too, if Santana is OK. “If a deal is made, you could see there would be a complete physical, given the money involved,” said the evaluator.

So, there’s that to look forward to — the possibility that Santana could be in line for a major surgery. Oh, if wishing made it so!

2. Santana eats his way out of town. Can’t you just see it? He works hard all his life to finally land that fat contract. After he gets the contract, he relaxes…and gets fat. It’s happened to so many ballplayers: Fernando Valenzuela, Curt Schilling, El Guapo…the list goes on and on. Have you seen Pedro Martinez lately? That guy looks like he landed a Krispy Kreme endorsement. If Johan starts eating meals with Pedro, watch out. Before you know it, Santana will be wearing a mumu and won’t be able to fit in any of the seats on the team’s private jet.

3. Santana pulls a David Beckham, invents a mysterious, nagging injury, and then dedicates himself to embracing his status as a gay icon by spending all his time going to fabulous parties and modeling underwear. What’s that you say? You didn’t know Santana was a gay icon? Well, he’s a Met, isn’t he?