Johan Santana and Pitch Counts

One thing has been made abundantly clear this season. The Mets bullpen hates Johan Santana. Santana has eight ND's this year, and in six of them he left the game in position to win. The failure of the bullpen to protect wins for Santana has intensified the debate over when he should be taken out of games. Many observers have criticized the coaching staff for not letting him go far past 100 pitches and some have even questioned Santana's desire to go deeper into games.

Surely, a $150 million ace can go more than 100 pitches! Santana can certainly go deeper into games because he has done it in the past! This is just another case of managers coddling their pitchers and over managing the games!

Except for one thing. Johan IS throwing more pitches than he has in his career.

Below is a chart of Johan's average pitches per start, games where he has thrown between 100-110 pitches, and games where he has thrown over 110 pitches since he became a full time starter in 2004.


Year    Pitches/Start    100-110 Pitches    Over 110 (120+)
2004            100.6                     15                            7 (0)
2005            100.8                     16                            5 (0)
2006            101.5                     17                            2 (1)
2007            101.1                     15                            5 (0)
2008            103.3                     10                            7 (0)

Santana is throwing slightly more pitches per start this season than his career average, but more importantly, he has already matched his career high in starts throwing over 110 pitches. He only needs to throw 100 pitches in four of his remaining starts to match his career average in 100 pitch outings. He has already thrown his typical one CG for the season and his average of 6.7 innings per start is in line with his career average.

Johan has never been the rubber armed, 120 pitch, Livan Hernandez type that some writers and analysts have made him out to be. It's absurd to expect him, at the age of 29, to suddenly become that type of pitcher simply because he has a big contract and the bullpen is terrible. Since Santana has six more years on his contract it would seem unwise to push him beyond historical limits out of fear of a bullpen meltdown.

Santana has left room for improvement. He needs to lower his contact rate, lower his line drive rate, and improve is K/9, BB/9, and K/BB ratio so he can make his pitch count more effective. The bullpen also needs to do their job and protect the leads that Johan gives them. But the answers to getting more out of Johan's starts lie in the ability of each pitcher to perform according to task and not in pushing Santana to the point of overuse.