Johan Santana Is In Danger Of Falling Off The Hall Of Fame Ballot After Just One Year And That's Bullshit

During his peak years, nobody was doing it better than Johan Santana. His changeup was one of the best pitches being thrown by any pitcher in the game, as we saw back in August of 2007 when he set the Twins single-game strikeout record with 17 punchouts.

We continue our series of players on the Hall of Fame ballot who likely aren’t going to get inducted either this year or ever, and in the cases of Scott Rolen and Billy Wagner, maybe those guys get in somewhere down the line. But from what information we have at our disposal, Santana is in danger of falling off the ballot entirely after just one year and that would be a goddamn shame. Out of the 159 ballots that have been made public, Santana appears on just 1.8% of them, and you need at least 5% to stay on for the next year.

Again, that’s not to say that Santana is a Hall of Famer. His injury-shortened career likely has robbed him of that. But in his peak years, nobody in the American League, maybe even in all of baseball, was better. On the newest episode of Starting 9, which dropped today, we had a discussion about active players who we thought could be Hall of Famers if they retired today. We listed a few names before this particular player came up, but I threw Corey Kluber’s name out there. I mean, he’s a two-time Cy Young award winner after this past season — that’s gotta give him a pretty decent shot, no?

Well, Santana is a two-time Cy Young award winner himself, taking home the honors in 2004 and 2006, finishing in the top five for the award in five straight years, won three ERA titles, led the league in strikeouts three times, innings twice, and WHIP in four consecutive seasons. From 2004 through 2010, Santana led the majors in ERA (2.87) and strikeouts (1,479) among pitchers who had thrown at least 1,000 innings. What’s that get ya? 1.8% of the vote. At least, on the ballots that were made public, but that’s still not a very good sign for what’s yet to be revealed on January 24.

In the end, do five dominant years and a couple of really good years outside of that five-year window merit a Hall of Fame induction? Probably not, no. But does Santana’s resume deserve at least more than one year on the ballot? Ummmm yes. A thousand percent yes.