Johan Santana has to be on of the most frustrated players in sports. Granted, there’s no way to prove it and I’m sure there are other frustrated players in sports. Who cares that he’s making almost $17mm this season and will make more throughout his contract with the Mets, that’s besides the point. Check out this information provided by ESPN.com:
It was the sixth time in 24 starts this season that Santana came out with a lead and failed to win, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, and in six of those the collapse came in the ninth inning. He has seven no-decisions, and in six of those allowed three runs or fewer.
Add to that he’s ranked in the top 10 in the league for IP, K’s, WHIP, CG, and ERA. All this and he only has 9 wins this season. He could have been a Cy Young candidate if the bullpen wasn’t such a mess. And, if you would have asked me back in March what the Mets biggest weakness is, their bullpen wouldn’t have been on top.
Side note #1: We all know Cy Young as the player whose name is attached to the yearly winner of the best pitcher in baseball, one for the AL and one for the NL. Do you know who has the most losses of any pitcher in the Hall of Fame with 315? It’s somewhat of a trick question.
Side note #2: I was expecting the Mets Police to make some comments about this, but they seem to be concentrating on Favre becoming a Jet. I think the “Mets” Police might want to see a therapist about their personality disorder. 
OK – so the answer is easy, and I’ll defer to someone else…and here is the auditor in me…it is not 315 losses….it is 316. tsk tsk
Old-time stats intrigue me and I like ot look back to see how the game was different.
One thing which is hard to comprehend is Cy Young’s 1905 season, when he went 18-19 with a 1.82 ERA. How do you have an era of 1.82 and lose 19 games??? It’s hard to fathom.
The question is, who do you believe, Wikipedia or the Baseball Hall of Fame? Wikipedia shows Cy Young as having 316 losses and the Baseball Hall of Fame shows him as having 315.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cy_Young
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers/detail.jsp?playerId=124692
As a stats junkie, it bothers me that the number of career losses for Cy Young could be 315, or 316, depending on the source. Personally, I think at a minimum, mlb.com and the Baseball Hall of Fame should be on the same page, but they are not. I did a little research to see if I could pinpont the difference, and lo and behold, there are several differences in Cy Young’s year by year records!! (I promptly notified K).
To me, this is crazy. I am perturbed to the point that I have reached out to both Major League Baseball and the Hall of Fame to find out how this could be.
What’s the big deal you ask? It is the deal. Statistics are the foundation of baseball. In fact, if you have to ask, you don’t get it. (ha).
Anyway, I will keep you posted on amny response.
So here is the response I got from the Hall Of Fame….
– - -”Thank you for contacting the Hall of Fame library with your baseball history question.
– - – The Hall of Fame uses statistics provided by the Elias Sports Bureau, currently the official statisticians for MLB. Elias uses different sources from the sources used by mlb.com and other online services. Before roughly World War I, the “rules” for designating the winning and losing pitchers were more subjective and flexible than they are now. There are many cases where the official scorer awarded the win or the loss to a different pitcher from what the home-town newspaper might have decided. Some sources have gone back and applied post-WW I procedures to earlier games, and again different historians and publications choose to use different sources. Thus there are many discrepancies between the statistics reported on the HOF website for pre-1900 players and those reported on other websites. The same is true of printed encyclopedias. It’s unfortunate that there is no single agreed-on source for stats, but it’s tough to pin down what happened more than a century ago.
- – - I hope this answers your question. Any Mets fan born in 1969 deserves the best answer I can provide. If you have any other questions, please let me know.”
So there it is. Should I be satisfied? I’m not certain. Being that mlb.com has a direct link to the HOF on it’s site, I think at a minimum, they both should be in sync….
Also, I liked the little bit of patronization I got regarding being a Met fan born in 1969….spare me!……
Interesting how the Elias Sports Bureau is used for both mlb.com and the HOF, but Elias uses different sources when providing information to each. Or, mlb.com and the HOF request different sources from Elias. I wonder how that came to be? I wonder what sources ESPN uses when providing information?
Did you have to register at the HOF web site prior to asking a question? I’m wondering how they figured out your team and dob. And now everyone knows how old you are… old man.
Well, actually, I am 39 or younger……..depending on the site…