santana or oswalt?

[reiser]

Waiting for Zito is God or New Zealand to chime in with a negative Santana rant...

3...2....1......

NZ is down on Santana? I hadn't heard that.
just drafted him (3rd pitcher taken) so i'd like to hear the rant.

[Do the Smart-Man]

Oswalt

[prodpaul]

Oswalt

Ditto

[Freebird27]

I don't see how the comparison can be made at this point. Santana is where Oz was a couple years ago. He is the young stud on the rise..but he is not there yet and I think all the hype he has gotten around here already has him as a legite Ace. He is a great young arm but hasnt earned the tag Ace just yet...so he doesnt merit a comparison with the likes of Oswalt

[eli81k]

I'll take him over Oswalt. He looked fantastic pitching 2-hit ball over 5 innings on Saturday. Elbow surgery is a bit misleading. There was nothing wrong with any legaments or tendons. He just had it scoped to get rid of a few bone chips. Of course he's going to be a bit rusty after that but he appears to be back on track now.

Some people seem to think that Santana isn't even in the same tier as Oswalt? I don't think they've really paid attention to what Santana has done, but instead, see him as unfamiliar and write him off way too quickly. Why don't we just look at their 2003 stats as starters:

IP
127.1 - Oswalt (21 GS)
110.0 - Santana (18 GS)

Wins
11 - Santana
10 - Oswalt (and you're going to tell me Santana has better run support?)

Losses
1 - Santana
5 - Oswalt

ERA
2.85 - Santana (Johan plays in the AL and had the better ERA)
2.97 - Oswalt

WHIP
1.00 - Santana (and the 1 is rounded up from 0.996)
1.13 - Oswalt

K/9
8.89 - Santana
7.65 - Oswalt

You also have to understand why Santana wasn't allowed to start more games. The penny pintching Twins saw what happened to Javier Vazquez during his arbitration case before the 2003 season. ERA and strike-outs don't garner you as much money as wins do. If you noticed this offseason, keeping Santana, their best pitcher, in the pen as long as they could last season worked for the Twins, as Santana lost his arbitration hearing.

My favortie stat would be that Santana became a permanent fixture of the Twins rotation last season on July 11th, and took his turn every fifth game from there on out. Why is that interesting? The last regular season start he got a losing decision for was on July 23rd. From that point on he went 8-0. Shows you what he is capable of when given a long overdue chance to excell.

I think you can make a damn good comparison. Give me the man with the best change-up in baseball. It's his freakin' strike-out pitch for heaven's sake, and he rings up a batter an inning (and that's not just last season, in 2002 of any pitcher to throw at least 100 innings, only Randy Johnson had a better K/9 than Santana).

[warbird1]

Thanks guys...i am from MN and a crazy twins fan, so i will lean that way..

[fezzik]

I like both these pitchers, but would give the slight edge to Oswalt right now.

By the way, Gagne has the best change-up in the majors.

[eli81k]

Does Gange throw it from two different grips that yield different kinds of break?

[fezzik]

he doesn't need to...
he pinpoints his 98mph heater on the corners and his changeup is so deceptive that hitters have no chance (or at least very little). Basicly all he throws is fastball/change, with the occasional curve. I think his K/IP speaks for itself. He K's people just as much on his change as his heat. His changeup is around 86mph, which is faster than Nomo's fastball...something I find funny.

[eli81k]

I'm not knocking Gagne, he is unquestionably the best closer in the game, hands down. But he did flop as a starter, and the reason is that as a closer you can get by on just two pitches because you're never going to face the same hitter twice in a game.