The years Johan Santana spent with the Mets are mostly a blur at this point, but I still remember the day they got him like it was yesterday.
Johan Santana
Look closer: SportsAngle revisits Mets Opening Day at Citi Field
Despite the fact that I’ve been a Mets fan since I was nine, I waited 21 more years to attend my first Opening Day game of any sort, as an appetizer for Duke’s national title game that night. Being jaded, I never saw the need to get to an Opening Day game, but I have to admit it was pretty cool. And since Johan Santana pitched, the Mets actually won. After going through some pictures I took that day, I figured I’d share some images from Citi Field.
Something for nothing: Rare lazy baseball afternoon works out just fine
I understand it’s en vogue at the moment to either drip with sentiment that “it’s good to have baseball back,†or to write “above it all†type stuff about how none of it matters anyway. I was determined to do neither. But then came today, when I gave in to the fact that maybe enjoying some baseball that doesn’t count isn’t such a bad way to spend an afternoon.
It’s the pitching, stupid: Nathan’s injury reiterates no hurler is safe
There’s always this stunned feeling when you hear about a solid performer like Joe Nathan going down with a terrible injury, but it’s just one more reminder that there is no pitcher not constantly at risk of injury.
Santana’s Final Destination demonstrates hard truth of pitching contracts
Other sources – like Baseball Prospectus – have started to pick up on our idea of the Mets’ season being like a horror movie. Being that we are horror movie historians of sorts, we’ve specified the movie Final Destination as a direct parallel. And following with that theme, whatever demonic force has targeted the Mets claimed Johan Santana’s valuable left elbow and Oliver Perez’s somewhat less valuable right knee this week.
Sidebar: If there’s anyone out there who thought 150-year-old malcontent Gary Sheffield would outlast Santana, much less Wright, Beltran and Reyes, he or she should promptly begin playing the horses.
Regardless, neither Santana and Perez will pitch again this season, bringing to an end a series of injuries that veered into the land of the occult.
However, these two most recent maladies, particularly that of Santana, brings to attention a couple of shortcomings of the Mets’ organizational strategy.
- Pitchers are too risky to make big-money investments in.
- There is great monetary value in a successful scouting department and farm system.
Final Destination? Fate – with assist from WBC — has it in for the Mets
Never have I seen a team as cursed as this year’s Mets. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve brought it on themselves in certain ways, and GM Omar Minaya’s press conference where he called out a reporter will go down as one of the most notorious moments in New York sports history.
But it’s simply incredible to see a team completely decimated this way by injuries. It’s sad to see during the first season at a new stadium. They’re resembling the early-90’s version of this team in terms of the product they put on the field, but those teams weren’t ravaged by injuries as much as what we see here.
It’s almost like the movie Final Destination, where some sort of bad karma is picking off the Mets one by one. I’m not quite sure what they did to deserve this – Minaya’s conference came after the majority of these injuries – but God help me if I ever do the same.
To recap the grim details, here are the various appendages that have malfunctioned:
Future shock: Feliz causing happy thoughts in Arlington
I have seen the future of pitching, and it is Neftali Feliz.
You can keep your Strasburg, if you can sign him. Give me Rangers rookie right-hander Feliz, whose Major League debut was more like a coronation. I’ve seen some dominant pitche
rs make an instant impact the past few years – Cole Hamels, Tim Lincecum, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer come to mind – but I don’t think I’ve seen anything like Feliz’s stuff. The guy is a force of nature.
Basic baseball physics is like this: The bigger difference between your fastball and off-speed stuff, the harder you are to hit. Johan Santana remains great despite the fact that he no longer throws in the mid-upper 90s. He can work down around 89-91 mph, as long as his motion is the same and that magnificent changeup comes in around 80-84.
Now what if I told you that Neftali brings his fastball right around 100 every time? While watching his debut on Monday night, when he came on in relief against the A’s, I was impressed when he hit 99 on the gun no fewer than eight times. Fangraphs has the whole thing mapped out – check it out, impressive stuff.
I was even more awed when Neftali hit 101 on his final pitch. But listen, you can’t just throw fast in this game. Bobby Parnell threw 100 this year but has no out pitch. Joel Zumaya, I believe, got up close to 104, but he couldn’t really pitch, and he couldn’t stay healthy. He was a gimmick. Neftali is the real deal.