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Buster Olney reports in his blog for ESPN.com that Johan Santana’s velocity is down 3-4 miles per hour from a couple of years ago – according to some talent evaluators. 
Olney further explains:
“He is short-arming the ball more than he has in the past — and this is after some red flags appeared in the physical examination he underwent before signing with the Mets. Sources say his shoulder showed some wear and tear, which is not unusual for a pitcher of Santana’s age. This is not to say Santana is not an effective pitcher now, but all of this information makes you wonder how effective he will remain during the course of his multi-year deal.”
…I can’t say that this is breaking news to me…i mean don’t most pitchers begin to lose velocity at some point in their career…at this point in the season, the only thing that matters is that johan continues to break up losing streaks…
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Talk about a great exaggeration. His average velocity in 05 on his fastball was 92.4 mph. This year? 91.1 mph.
“Talk about a great exaggeration. His average velocity in 05 on his fastball was 92.4 mph. This year? 91.1 mph.”
Furthermore, I wouldn’t be surprised if his average FB velocity is lower in the first two months of the season anyway.
Please, no need to panic with Johan. He dialed it up to 97 when he needed to against the Reds.
Sounds like Pedro in his first year with the Mets.
Buster, Kick my dog and before you leave sleep with my mom…..ahhhhh I cant take all this bad news
GIVE DELGADO A DAY OFF!!
delgado after off days…
4/5 2-4, 2R, 1 2b
4/8 2-4, 1R, 1 HR, 1 rbi
4/15 0-2, BB
5/2 2-4, BB, 1 rbi
5/10 3-4, 2 r, 1 HR, 1 2b, 1 rbi
5/17 2-5, 1 rbi
5/20 0-4
11-27, .400
So would you like to have him rest every other day?
I think he should rest everyday.
Here! Here! Seconded.
How about we platoon him with Mike Carp. Carp will get the start against pitchers, and Delgado can go clean the clubhouse bathrooms during games.
We’ll allow Delgado to take batting practice, so long as none of our young players are around to take notes.
great. next time you want to post something like this, just come over to my apartment and shoot me in the face.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Or you guys can imitate Pettitte and Clemens and shoot each other in the butt. Talk about beating a dead horse to death.
my thoughts exactly when I saw this
…at this point in the LOSING STREAK the only thing that matters is that Johan continues to break up losing steaks.
Let’s Go Mets.
I blame Willie… Johan was obviously just trying harder when he played in Minnesota. He signed his deal and is just mailing it in. He deserves to be booed.
You’re a tool…Johan is the only reason to watch the mets right now…
I’m pretty sure Mackey was kidding…
Thank you. At least someone has been paying attention.
Him and John Maine.
exactly. He must’ve thought Willie Randolph was still with the Yankees, because he obviously wanted to go there more. that’s why he’s throwing softer.
or maybe shea/sny’s radar gun is as antiquated as the home run apple.
and once again, we come full circle.
this is bill webb’s fault.
its sad that his role is to stop losing streaks. God forbid they used him to sustain a winning streakl..
Make it better, Daddy. Make it better…
Yea, I completely agree.
I think Aces help you sustain winning streaks. I would call him more of a Jack for stopping losing streaks.
Ive taken dumps bigger then Buster Olney..he states the obvious just as much as madden does.. And his blog is worthless
Buster Olneeee is a Yankee lover. Period. I wouldn’t bother with his nonsense.
So true. He and Klapish paint everything about the Mets negatively. “Winning the WS would be bad business for Mets.”
He must have been really upset this weekend!!!
That would have sounded better on Monday, before we decided to get spooked out by The Ghost of Turner Present.
ESPN reporting that COO Jeff Wilpon is mum on Randolph’s future, issuing a ‘No Comment’..
here we go, boys
Wow…that story is interesting, especially this part:
“When asked why Mets ownership didn’t return Randolph’s calls, Jay Horwitz, the team’s media relations vice president, told 1050 ESPN Radio’s Andrew Marchand on Thursday that “Omar Minaya returned the call on behalf of Mets’ ownership.”
you don’t think Wilpon declining comment is a signal at all?
I don’t know why you read that into my comment. I definitely see it as a signal w/r/t Willie. But I also see it as a signal that Omar is firmly on the ownership ‘team.’
I don’t know. It just feels contrary to the reports the other day where Omar told a fellow GM that Willie is going nowhere.
Is tonight a must-win game or what? Certainly a loss tonight and losing 2 of 3 in Colorado will do it, no?
What is Omar supposed to say? “Yeah, Willie’s head is on the chopping block. He’s not gonna make it through the month.”
I think you also need to realize that the Wilpon’s probably don’t want to eat Willie’s contract, in addition to embarrassing him by firing him before he takes his position on Clint Hurdle’s staff as an All-Star Coach (deserved or not).
The so-called comment of Willie not going anywhere is another one of Heyman’s so-called anonymous sources. Heyman has lots and lots of off-base “anonymous” sources. Maybe it’s the same source that told Heyman Vladimir Guerrero was going to sign w/ the Mets.
so when is silence news?
ESPN is really as cutting edge as it gets.
Fantastic….the hits just keep on comin….what’s next?
Perhaps an earthquake on the imaginary fault line that Citi Field is built on, sending brick and debris to the pavement and clouding up the air around Shea and allowing no sunlight in for the next 30 years?
When they knock down Shea, I fully expect it to ruin part of Citi Field.
It is way too close not to!!! Maybe that’s why all of the players are sucking so bad this year. When they knock down Shea, they are going to “blow” the dust adn debris away.
It’s the best I could come up with.
they can’t knock down shea or implode it. They are going to take it apart piece by piece. This has been said about 500 times
I thought that by the latter third of his contract he wouldn’t be so dominant. However I figured maybe he could learn to adapt with the guidance of Peterson. The way others have adapted including Glavine.
Most players have already had their best years by the time they are free agents. So you always take a risk with a FA contract, which this essentially was. This risk was worth taking.
Imagine where the Mets would be today without him? Now it’s up to Omar or his successor to plug the holes on the team and give Mets fans a true championship-caliber team in the near future.
Changeup pitchers have the best longevity as far as being effective. See Pedro and Trevor Hoffman. As long as the fastball is enough of a differential from the change up, it will be effective. Santana’s change up is 76-78MPH, so a 91 mph fastball is more than enough.
Why don’t I just give you $100, you kick me in the balls and we’ll call it even…
That’s hilarious!
I’ll take it!
feh, in Idiocracy they will just kick you in the balls repeatedly and you are a tv star
anyone can see that Willie has only a few days left.
Mets are literally playing for his job.
5 losses out of 7 will seal the deal.
This was obvious. Which is why New York fans are monkeys. They got excited about Santana when he was signed without thinking about the fact that he is 29 and has given up the most homeruns in the AL last year.
They were probably thinking that he’s the most dominant pitcher of the last five years, by a margin so wide it’s ridiculous.
Santana’s arm was treated pretty gently in his years in Minnesota. They’re a pretty smart organization.
I don’t know. I’m pretty happy with the acquisition.
Pardon me while I reach for my banana…
Nice.
When you’re 29, you’re in the prime of your athletic career. How is that bad?
Curt Schilling gave up a gazillion home runs every year when he was with Arizona and the Sox. That didn’t stop him from winning 20+ games and a low 3 ERA did it?
The fact your nickname is Chan Ho Parking Lot just made my day.
Your argument is ridiculous on so many levels I don’t even want to address it. Many great pitchers have given up a lot of home runs. Great pitchers pitch in the strikezone and challenge hitters. Santana can give up 50 homeruns this year for all I care. All I know is the Mets have only lost 2 games that Santana started. That is good enough for me.
He is also getting 7 runs of offense per game. Lets see how he does if the Mets don’t score.
I guess you have not checked his ERA.
who cares as long as 95% are solo homeruns
Read who wrote the article. Buster Olney makes stuff up ALL the time. His “sources” he heard this from are probably the Shea Stadium janitorial crew. He’s been banned from several teams’ clubhouses.
the exaggeration is that Santana threw 95+ all the time, which is a total falsity. He threw that hard when he first came up, and he had very little control, which was why he was in the bullpen. After a couple years he learned to tune it down, and learned that he didn’t have to throw that hard to get hitters out, and that he could rely on his uber-change up and a 90+ mph fastball, that he could dial up ( like he even does now, surprise!) when he really needed to. This is just a non-story I can’t even believe it. Buster knows how to pile on at points like this, gets his blog more hits.
Lets criogenicly freeze him and thaw him out when we actualy have a team that can content. I really hate to see him waste his arm for such a sorry line-up.
“Yankees ready to make offer [for Santana] that includes Phil Hughes”
By Buster Olney
11/30/2007
topic closed. just olney making **** up again.
hahhahahahah thank you!!
Don’t know how Olney was making stuff up. .He went with the latest information. Trade proposals change by the second. Olney worked for the New York Times, so I’ll believe him more than a lot of other reporters out there.
If Santana was on the Yankees Olney would be writing articles about a miraculous 1-2 mph gain on Santana’s fastball making his changeup more devastating.
Have you read the Times lately? There is never one positive word written about the Mets in that stinkin rag. How about that 2008 “Baseball Preview” section they put out, where the entire first three pages were filled with Yankee Propaganda? Loved it. Throw out the NYT Sports section if you are a Met fan.
you can throw out the other sections as well.
one word sums up that paper: kindling.
I don’t quite get how Johan has lost 3 – 4 mph off of his fastball? I have watched every start and he consistently hits 92, 93, 94 and even 95 on the gun. I didn’t watch him pitching in Minny, but I’m pretty sure he was not throwing 98 and 99. This is just more garbage. Santana is just fine, his shoulder is fine and everyone needs to shut the hell up. I’m getting sick of all the Mets bashing from every single media outlet.
…and like I said yesterday after the Piazza thing came out, I am boycotting ESPN from now on.
Yea, only we are allowed to bash the Mets
jose reyes
.277/.340/.792 25r 49h 9d 5t 4hr 19rbi 14sb
carlos gomez
.279/.308/.726 25r 46h 8d 3t 3hr 16rbi 16sb
Not quite sure what your point with this post is, Gomez was blocked here by a far superior Carlos Beltran. And we got our best pitcher for Gomez. If youre trying to say he’s a better hitter then reyes, that .308 obp as a leadoff hitter isnt helping your case.
i don’t have a point. just thought it was interesting.
reyes is my favorite player. i think the expectation set for him last year were unrealistic. if you take the average of the 2005-2007 seasons he’d be a hall of famers with 13 more years at that pace including 3,000 hits
i’m frustrated by these stats…..but to me they are demonstrative of a few things: playing in NYC really sucks and is soooo hard, gomez was a better piece that minny got, reyes is slightly better than a guy who is basically the same exact player (and possibly secret lover)……
You can’t be serious about saying playing in NYC really sucks and is hard. Can you please explain yourself?
Proof: Gomez in Minny is heralded as being the most exciting player on their team, and is beloved there already……with similar but slightly better stats, people here say “Reyes sucks”…..NYC is very very hard to play in, and for a young player, THAT SUCKS….
Who here is saying Reyes sucks? He’s just having a tough time of it. Those are the facts. A lot more is expected of Reyes because he is an established player already. Gomez is not.
Ouch. Pouring salt on the wound…
Gomez is pulling further ahead after today…
in the bottom 7: 3-3, 2 1B, HR, 3 RBI, R, HP
But I still love Reyes and CarGo equally.
Jose’s numbers are very middle of the road. There are 22 shortstops in the majors with more than 145 plate appearances and here is where the most exciting player in baseball stands…
13th in average
10th in OBP
5th in Slugging
8th in OPS
10th in Runs
8th in Hits
9th in RBI
7th highest in strikeouts
Not real impressive. If you were to compare him to leadoff hitters it would be even worse. He does lead all SS in SB’s with 14, but is also second in CS with 5.
If you look at the MLB league leaders Jose doesn’t show up anywhere on the radar screen except for SB’s where is a 7th, and again 2nd in CS.
This guy could be awesome, but the key word is “COULD” be.
that he is playing below par in everyones mind, has just started to get hot and is in the top 10 in every important offensive category (batting average is for poop) and more importantly that the Mets have struggled to get him in when he is on for the better part of a year is fantastic.
Reyes will be fine he can’t hit for Wright, Beltran, Alou and Delgado, only for himself.
Currently Reyes ranks 6th among all ML shortstops in Win Shares. Not bad, and he can easily improve that ranking as the season goes on.
I think Win Shares is the best way to rank players at their position.
Among the shortstops he ranks ahead of are Rolline, Escobar, Drew, Crosby, Renteria and Ecksein.,
I won’t keep it a secret…I despise Olney. He doesn’t exactly lie (if he did, he’d have no job), but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t stretch the truth like saltwater taffy. It’s like his Oakland/New York rumors…in the extreme technical sense, he’s right. What do I mean by that? Well, with Heilman/Milledge for Zito (or any number of other Oakland pitchers) that he constantly flapped his gums about, yes, the way he wrote it, they may in theory have been talking about it. In this case, Johan Santana’s velocity is down…and has been down every year since about 2003 and probably 2004. Olney thrives on misleading information (note: not DECEIVING information…there is a mile of difference) and this is just one more example of it.
Reyes has a 900 OPS in May.
He ain’t the problem.
anyone assuming he is, is just stuck in the end of last year only
Reyes has been hitting the ball very well of late.
Olney is a certified Mets hater and Yankee fan. I clearly remember him posting on ESPN that Carlos Beltran had agreed to a contract in principle with the Angels. He also made up rumors every day about where Johan was going (never to the mets). He has no credibility with me whatsoever. Anyone who follows baseball knows Johan picks up his entire game in the 2nd half. What are these official radar gun stats? The same guns that say Joe Smith pitches 98 mph?
How are his “made up” rumors any different from what anyone else speculates? Olney has hundreds of contacts in baseball. Maybe the contacts mislead him? I don’t know. Plus, it wasn’t Olney who said Santana’s velocity is dropping, it’s scouts who are saying that. A lot of you people need to get a clue about how sports journalism works.
Fire Johan.
Why is this news to everybody, anybody logical knew that it was a bad idea to give a pitcher that much money and years, especially one with a lot of innigs on his arm that we were signing into his late 30’s. Johan is a big bandaid for this team, something I have been saying since the winter.
this is his 5th full year starting. he is 29. the twins treated his arm like gold. if you dont like having johan on the team go root for the twinkies. car-go went 4-4 today.
that sound you hear is brian bannister coming back down to earth. he was slammed again today (5.1 ip 12h 5r). his era has hit 4.65 for the season.
That was inevitable. Hopefully our ’stars’ stepping up is similarly ineveitable, but Im not holding my breath.
Most major media = kick you while you’re down.
non-story