4 time All Star and 2 time Cy Young Award winner, Johan Santana is making a comeback. He was arguably the best pitcher in baseball from 2004 to 2010. He was second only to Roy Halladay in WAR in that time span, and Halladay only beat him out by 0.1. For those 7 seasons Santana looked like he was on the fast track to Cooperstown. Since then injuries caught up with him and have derailed his career. When he’s taking the mound he’s been effective, but it’s been a matter of taking the mound.
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This isn’t Santana’s first attempt at a comeback. After a shoulder injury ended his 2012 and 2013 seasons, he looked like he was done. Then the Orioles gave him a chance to make a comeback, but in June while still in extended Spring Training he tore his Achilles ending his comeback. Now 7 months removed from the injury Santana was healthy enough to take the mound in the Venezuelan Winter League where he retired all 6 batters he faced. While the competition isn’t exactly what he’ll see in the majors, according to a tweet from Jon Heyman, he looked pretty good.
johan santana began comeback w/ perfect outing for magallanes. 6 up, 6 down. 18 pitches. fastball 90 mph, changeup working
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 14, 2015
Originally only one team had been linked to Santana, the New York Yankees. According to the New York Post’s Dan Martin the Yankees were one of the team’s scouting his performance in Venezuela. With injury concerns littered all over their rotation with Masahiro Tanaka, CC Sabathia, Michael Pineda and Ivan Nova all suffering major injuries in 2014, Santana would be a good buy low candidate for them. Now, there are rumors that six teams are in the mix.
So what can be expected from Santana? With his litany of shoulder injuries and now questions about his Achilles it’s hard to project what he’ll physically be able to do especially at 36 years old and two and half years removed from pitching in a big league game. The best we can do is look at the last time Santana returned to the mound following a long layoff back in 2012.
Aside from 5 innings at the High-A level, he missed all of 2011. Coming back in 2012 he made 21 starts with mixed results. Looking at just his ERA of 4.85 you’d think the whole season was a struggle for Santana, but there’s more to the story. You have to look at his season in two halves. The first being all the way up to his no hitter and the second being after. Prior to and including his no hitter he made 11 starts posting an ERA of 2.38 with a FIP of 2.79 and a strikeout rate of 9.0 while allowing just 4 home runs. He found a way to be the pitcher he had always been despite all the injuries and long layoff.
Then after the no hitter, where he threw 134 pitches, his performance fell of a cliff. He made 10 starts with an ERA of 8.27 and allowing 13 home runs. He was striking out more than a batter less per inning while walking half a batter more. It was clear that whatever he had working for him before was no longer there. He would be shut down in August and then it was revealed he had a tear in the front capsule of his throwing shoulder. Many people blamed manager Terry Collins for over extending him in an attempt, albeit a successful one, for the first no hitter in Mets history.
Now after a longer layoff and 3 years of added age can Santana have the same success he did in the first half of 2012? Likely not, but that’s more due to age than anything else. If Santana can find a way to get back on a big league mound fully healthy I have little doubt he’d still be effective. He won’t be an All Star, but with a track record of nothing but success the entirety of his career it’s hard to bet against him.