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Cowboys-Celtics-Chisox said 08/29, 08:28 PM
All time?

Johan is a great pitcher, but top 5 all time is out of the question.

Remember Santana will be 30 when next season starts. So give him another 8-10 years of being very good assuming he stays healthy that long.

Just his contemporaries:

Pedro Martinez has a career ERA of 2.88 WHIP of 1.04 213W 96L

Greg Madduz has a career ERA of 3.15 WHIP 1.14 353W 225L and his ERA and WHIP rose substantially starting at age 37. Prior to that he was sub 2.75 and 1.10.

Roger Clemens career ERA 3.12 WHIP 1.17 354W 184L

Randy Johnson career ERA 3.25 WHIP 1.16 294W 159L

Johan would have to pitch at his current level well past his prime years just to match these guys. And that's just pitchers who have pitched in the same time as Johan.

You said ALL TIME.

Go back just a generation and look up the stats for:

Steve Carlton
Tom Seaver
Sandy Koufax
Don Drysdale
Nolan Ryan

Well...you get the idea.

Johan Santana is a very good pitcher and has several more productive years in his future provided he stays healthy, but he's not on any kind of pace to become a top 5 all time great by any stretch.

Cowboys-Celtics-Chisox said 08/29, 09:12 PM
Nah, that's not a complete list by any means, that's simply 5 guys off the top of my head who put up careers Johan isn't likely to touch. You want to talk all time?

Walter Johnson
Cy Young
Christy Mathewson
Grover Cleveland Alexander
Warren Spahn
Lefty Grove

I mean, I could list for days, here. There are FAR more than 5 guys he'll never approach. That's the point I was making.

Johan has as much chance of becoming a top 5 All Time pitcher as Madonna does of regaining her virginity.

The basic flaw with your reasoning is you can't just double or triple or whatever Johans numbers. He's in his prime years right now. 5 years from now he'll hit the age when pitcher tend to go into a precipitous downturn. By the time a pitcher is 40, he's done.

Santana is in his 9th MLB season. To just arbitrarily triple his numbers to get to Carlton, you've got to triple his years, too. Think he's gonna pitch for 27 years? Are we to expect a 47 year old Johan Santana is going to go out there and post a 3.15 ERA in the year 2026? Carlton himself only pitched to the age of 43 and was downright awful after turning 40, which is typically the the age where a pitcher is just done no matter what.

Cowboys-Celtics-Chisox said 08/29, 10:24 PM
Win % is a horrible stat. It's too dependent on who the pitcher plays for. Johan was just 15-13 last year, for example, because the Twins were...well...not very good.

You do realize you yourself have conceded:

Koufax
Ryan
Johnson
Mathewson
Maddux

And you had to do some awfully creative tripling of a nearly 30 year old pitchers stats just to touch Carlton.

You had to manipulate numbers better than an Enron accountant to claim superiority over Cy, Lefty, Seaver, Drysdale, and Spahn.

You also didn't address Pedro, Rocket, or Randy.

Look at the criteria you are using:

ERA - 3.15

The top 100 career ERA's are 2.80 or below

Wins - 8 pitchers (soon to be 9) have won more than 350 games. Santana won't sniff the 300 achieved 23 times thus far.

BAA - meaningless since he hasn't reached 2000 IP yet, but still would only rank 9th all time.

Yes, I am very confident in saying Santana is in his prime. The prime years for a baseball player, almost without fail, fall somewhere between the ages of 25 and 35. Santana is half way through his expected prime years. If you want to reasonable double all of his numbers, go ahead. He won't make anybody's top 50, let alone top 5 in that case.