Santana’s Starting To Look a Little Like Koufax

Minnesota’s Johan Santana is the best pitcher, and maybe even the best player, in baseball, and he’s reached that level where you can’t say anything bad about him at all.He ranks first in the American League in every important pitching category — wins, earned run average, innings, strikeouts, baserunners per inning, batting average allowed, and winning percentage. On top of all that, he’s been the key player in driving a team that was counted out of the pennant race into the wild card lead and a very real shot at winning baseball’s toughest division. And still more impressive, he’s done some of his best pitching with the most pressure on him — in August he went 4–0 with a 2.36 ERA, and this month he dropped his ERA by more than a run, to 1.21. Even after brilliant rookie Francisco Liriano went down, the Twins just kept kneecapping the opposition. It’s a testament to how good Santana really is.Maybe there’s one thing you can hold against Santana — for being the best pitcher in baseball, he isn’t much of an intimidator. He’s not only fairly short for a ballplayer, he seems to shrink into himself on the hill. It seems while he’s delivering the ball, that it would be impossible for it to explode in on the hitter in the mid-90s, as it so often does — he turns, with a low kick, plants, and whips the ball, all with the right sorts of rotation but in such a sequence and so smoothly that it looks as if he’s simply short-arming it up to the plate.That motion is unique, especially among great pitchers, who usually have some distinguishing physical trait that marks their greatness. There’s no fevered intensity, flailing limbs, odd arm angles, or astonishing symmetry in his motion — nothing that characterizes Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and Greg Maddux. Santana just wheels compactly, stops, and whips the ball, and it either explodes or simply stops, as when he throws his dead fish change-up — the most devastating pitch in the game. It’s wonderful to watch. Effortlessness is the only signature of what he does.It’s worth appreciating the man, because he’s on his way to being one of the greatest pitchers of all time, comparable in a lot of ways to another left-hander who relied mainly on two big pitches — Sandy Koufax.Santana is, of course, not a legendary figure like Koufax, and he’s not likely to ever become that kind of transcendent figure. Koufax is rightly revered above his accomplishments on the field for being an especially honorable man, playing through enormous pain and refusing to start a World Series game on Yom Kippur being the two signature examples. He’s also revered above his regular season achievement, substantial as it was, because of his legendary play in October. Santana will have his chances there, but it will be tough to match Koufax’s record — a 0.95 ERA in 57 World Series innings.That said, Santana’s regular season peak already compares quite favorably to Koufax’s. Because Koufax pitched in Dodger Stadium, an extreme pitcher’s park, during an extreme pitcher’s era, while Santana has pitched in a league with a designated hitter in an extreme hitter’s era, you have to let a bit of the air out of the numbers. One measure is ERA+, which is just park-adjusted ERA indexed on a scale where the league average is 100.In Koufax’s best year, 1966, he rang up a 1.73 ERA; in Santana’s 2004, he ran up a 2.61 mark. They’re not, though, really all that far apart — Koufax’s ERA+ was 190, Santana’s, 182. The comparison of their second- and third-best years is even closer—165 as against 161, advantage Santana, and 160-153, advantage Koufax. (Koufax’s ERA+ in 1964 was 187, but I’m not counting it because he missed a quarter of his starts.)Koufax did enjoy a substantial innings advantage, but of course he routinely started 40 times a year in an era in which pitchers didn’t have to exert themselves quite so hard on each pitch, knowing that shortstops weren’t going to hit opposite field home runs. In Santana’s three years as a starter he’s led the league in innings once (this year), and finished second twice. In Koufax’s three best years he led twice and finished third once. You can’t say that Santana’s been as durable — the game has changed, and pitchers simply pitch less, which makes them somewhat less valuable than they were 40 years ago. Still, Santana, like Koufax, is as durable as any of his peers.And, like Koufax, Santana is a tremendous pitcher when it counts. This year his post-All Star break ERA has been 2.51; last year it was 1.59; the year before, 1.21. He’s one of the great second-half pitchers, and on a contender. That counts for a lot.He isn’t — yet — one of the towering figures in the game’s history. But Santana is more than just another great pitcher. Watch him if you get a chance, and whether you’re a Yankees or Mets fan, worry about what he might do in October. He has a ways to go to equal Koufax’s postseason legacy — but I wouldn’t doubt that he can do it at all.

Santana’s Starting To Look a Little Like Koufax

Santana’s Starting To Look a Little Like Koufax

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