So yes. I do take requests for blog topics. If you have a request please tweet me, if you have a twitter, at: https://twitter.com/TheStelsnerd
Or just comment on any of my posts. Preferably the most recent one.
This one came from Trent Baird: "Johan Santana: is he done as an elite? Is he even above average anymore?"
A quick answer to these questions is "yes." As an elite he is quite done. As soon as he became an injury risk with his balky shoulder he forfeited that status. No injury risk (outside of Stephen Strasburg) can be called an elite. To be elite means not only "ace" status but also dependable (see Halladay, Roy; Kershaw, Clayton; Hernandez, Felix). You can't be elite sitting on the bench with an injury. It's that simple. Also, in terms of performance, "elites" don't give up 8 earned runs in just over an inning. box score here. They may have a bad outing where they serve up 5 or so runs, but that tends to be in 5 innings or right around there.
Now, the second part of this question is if he is above average. Honestly, when he's NOT injured, as he showed earlier this year when he went all no-no on a tough Cardinals team, box score here, he has the ability and the change-up to shut teams down. So yes, I would put him in the class of "above average"...given he's healthy. But that will change fast if he gets injured again in the next year or so. At that point he becomes "old" and a "name-brand".
And that's all I got.
I like what you have going on here Sir Steve. Only thought is I think you might be just a bit short and shallow with these blogs. Dude, go in depth! give some sabremetric analysis and such.
ReplyDeleteAlright! thanks for the input. I'd really like to go in-depth...I'm walking the fine line of making it understandable to sports rookies and making it useful for the pros. Still kind of finessing it. I'll try to add some deeper stats in future articles.
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