Tag: Johan Santana

Post Game: Mets 7 Marlins 2

Johan Santana gets the win in his first start as a Met. Hopefully, that’s the first win of many.

The crowd was about 60-70% Mets fans. We had the “Let’s Go Mets” chant going for most of the game. As expected, Dolphin Stadium is much nicer than Shea. There were no traffic problems even though the crowd was over 38,000.

I wish I got to see the replay of Jose Reyes stealing second. It looked like he was safe from my angle.

I was surprised how many Johan Santana shirts have been sold already. There were a ton of them out today. I’ll have to try to find some jersey sales statistics. If you know where I can find that, let me know.

I got a lot of great pictures to post on this site. For starters, I’ll show you this one.

Johan Santana Warming Up

Packing My Bags For Florida

I’m on my way to Florida for the road opener in Miami. It’s amazing how easy it was to get field level seats. $28/each to sit right behind the Mets bullpen. If I get there early enough I’ll get to see Johan Santana warming up right in front of me!

I’ve been looking at the weather for Monday and it’s calling for the usual south Florida mix of sun/clouds/rain. It would be the ultimate disappointment to have opening day rained out. I’ll keep checking the weather websites for continual updates. At this point, I should probably even put them into my browser’s favorites.

It’s a far cry from getting seats to the opener at Shea Stadium. The Mets only offer that game as part of a seven game package at minimum. Certainly, the Florida Marlins team is a far cry from the Mets. I’m wondering, after Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla, how many of their players that I’ll even recognize. There’s no more Dontrell Willis or Miguel Cabrera to see. The Marlins sent Cameron Maybain down to preserve another year without arbitration even though he’s one of the best young players in the organization. It’s a shady move, but I guess the Marlins have that luxury if they know they’re going nowhere this season.

I’ve never been to Dolphins Stadium before either. I’m thinking that it’s nothing special… The typical multi-purpose stadium built more for football than baseball. The Marlins have been talking about moving out of there for years. But I’m sure that it’s nicer than Shea Stadium. It’s only been in use since 1987. I’ll find out when I drive down Dan Marino Boulevard into the parking lot.

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The best part about seeing the opening day game: I’m guaranteed to see Johan Santana’s first game as a Met! Santana’s presence here could transform the franchise the way Mike Piazza did when he arrived in a trade with the Marlins ten years ago. The next six or more years will be remembered as the Johan Santana years without a doubt.

I’ll be sure to take some pictures and post them on the site as soon as possible. If anyone else will be in Miami this week give me a shout. I’d love to hear from you.

Baseball Predictions Galore!

It seems like every baseball column that I’m reading today is filled with fearless prognostications. Personally, I think it’s silly so I’m not going to get into it. Predicting a team’s record after 162 game season?

You may say “Hey, you’ve linked to columns and videos with season predictions!”. Why? I’ve added a few links to prediction columns but I’ve been selective about it. I only link to my favorite columnists. I only add links to the writers that usually “get it right”.

I will say this: I’ll be moderately surprised if the Mets don’t win the East. The Phillies are pretty good, but not that good. Everyone else in the division looks like a sub-.500 team to me. It’s amazing how many people are picking the Braves to win the division or more this year!

Anyway, the reason for this post is that I found a good prediction column on Yahoo. It encompasses all of their baseball columnists at once. That’s the way to do it. Nice photo of Johan Santana in the column too.

The Mets Won’t Show Braves/Marlins Starters

Willie Randolph announced today that he won’t start Johan Santana and Pedro Martinez in their final scheduled spring training games. Instead they’ll start in minor league spring games. Randolph also said that John Maine probably won’t start the final spring game, the Civil Rights Game in Memphis either.
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This strategy is less about caring for the pitchers than it is hiding them from the Marlins and Braves. Three of the last five games are against these two teams. The first two series of the regular season are in Miami and Atlanta before coming home for the last opening day at Shea against the Phillies on April 8th.
The “hiding starters” strategy is standard operating procedure for the Mets. Frankly, I agree with it. I’m sure that Major League Baseball isn’t happy about it because they’re trying to make money at these last few games with marquis names. There’s no sense in showing starters to the division rivals before opening the season. Good job Willie.

Starting Pitchers Ground Ball and Strikeout Categorization

I’ve mentioned Baseball Analysts before as a tremendous site if you’re into heavy statistical analysis. Their post today is somewhat revealing about starting pitchers performance from last year. They looked at the percentage of ground ball outs and strikeouts per batters faced. One of the statistical outliers was Johan Santana.

Santana had a higher than average strikeouts per batters faced but below average ground ball percentage. We’ve heard from the mainstream media, since he was traded to the Mets, about his performance last season. Specifically, that he gave up 33 home runs which is by far the most of his career. Hopefully, it’s not the beginning of a trend.

It was also interesting that Steve Trachsel was a statistical outlier in the area that pitchers don’t want to be in. He had a lower than average strikeouts per batters faced and ground ball percentage. They should have also docked him for taking two minutes between each pitch.