Jon Lester announces his retirement

[Kliq]

Good example. Santana could/should have won 3 straight CYs. Probably the best pitcher in baseball for 5 years, but he got hurt and it cut short his career and counting numbers. He also had little post-season success.

The latter point helps distinguish him from someone like Puckett, whose career and counting stats were also shortened by his eye condition. But Puck‘s first ballot induction also supports the narrative that voters have been more generous toward hitters than pitchers.

Separately, if Lester gets in because he had 200 wins, then he better be going in with Wake!

To your point, he should have three straight CYAs. Colon wins it in 2005 because he won 21 games, when by every other metric, Santana was the vastly superior pitcher and way better than anybody else. It's one of the worst award decisions of the past 20 years, there is no real defense for it. And if Santana won three straight CYAs, would he have fared much better in the Hall of Fame? Only Maddux and Johnson ever won three straight, and of players to have won at least three, only Clemens, Kershaw and Scherzer are not in the Hall of Fame.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/awards_2005.shtml#all_AL_CYA_voting

I think he gets in one day, because I think over time his career will not be seen as short as it was when he first came on the ballot as we shift to a different era of baseball where pitchers rarely throw 200 innings.

 

[Daniel_Son]

Semi related but it’s still kind of surprising to me that Johann Santana got no HOF support at all. I’m not saying he belongs, but I think it’s at least debatable, and he got 10 votes.

Just highlights the relatively impossible standards voters have for pitchers. Guy had 2 CY Awards and finished top 5 theee other times (with two of those being top 3). Yeah, his career was a little short but man, only 10 votes? Talk about a victim of a stacked ballot.

It surprises me too. He was such a dominant pitcher for the better part of a decade. The lack of support he got (2.4% on his first ballot... that's it) is nuts.

I read a good article the other day comparing his career to Koufax - while Koufax is the better pitcher, it's really not as big of a difference as I had imagined. I agree with the other posters that as baseball comes to terms with the changing role of a SP (regular 200 IP seasons, 300 career wins, 3000 SO seem to be antiquated benchmarks), Johan will eventually get in on a veteran's committee. He had such a crazy-good peak that I don't know how you could argue otherwise.

 

[Bergs]

Good example. Santana could/should have won 3 straight CYs. Probably the best pitcher in baseball for 5 years, but he got hurt and it cut short his career and counting numbers. He also had little post-season success.

There's an understatement. Fairly or not, the best years of his career will always be lumped in with a Twins team that that was hilariously bad in the playoffs. He was an outstanding pitcher for a 5-7 year stretch. Don't know why anyone would think that was HOF-worthy.

 

[Leather]

There's an understatement. Fairly or not, the best years of his career will always be lumped in with a Twins team that that was hilariously bad in the playoffs. He was an outstanding pitcher for a 5-7 year stretch. Don't know why anyone would think that was HOF-worthy.

He was outstanding for an 8-9 year stretch, and because his regular season record compares very favorably to Koufax (and I realize that's not the entirety of Koufax' resume).

As I said, it's at least reasonable to say he deserved serious consideration, not 10 votes. It's hard to think of an analog for a hitter, but I suppose the closest I can think of would be is if Bryce Harper retired right now, except that's not fair to Santana because he has 10 more WAR (and a lot more black ink) than Harper. But I don't think Harper would fall off the ballot in the first year.

 

[Jason Bae]

There's an understatement. Fairly or not, the best years of his career will always be lumped in with a Twins team that that was hilariously bad in the playoffs. He was an outstanding pitcher for a 5-7 year stretch. Don't know why anyone would think that was HOF-worthy.

Koufax was outstanding for only 5-6 years and didn't provide much value outside of 1961-66 (whether you go by fWAR or bWAR, and he had a 100 ERA+ prior to 1961)

 

[AliceRobin]

"It might be hard to believe, but as difficult as cancer was, in some ways it was good for me." John Lester words
Years of hard work and success and now it is time to rest.

 

[Devizier]

Santana had the peak, but his career really was too short. I can’t believe he’s basically my age.

 

[CarolinaBeerGuy]

Santana had the peak, but his career really was too short. I can’t believe he’s basically my age.

Considering he had a higher BWAR than Sandy Koufax in 30 fewer starts, I think he’s at least worthy of consideration.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/santajo02.shtml

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/koufasa01.shtml