How Two Hall of Fame Voters View Johan Santana’s Cooperstown Resume

Johan Santana was one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball during his prime, collecting two American League Cy Young Awards and helping define an era of Twins baseball. Despite those accomplishments, his path to the National Baseball Hall of Fame came to an abrupt end after he received too little support in his first year on the Baseball Writers' Association of America ballot.

Santana's career presents an interesting Hall of Fame debate. His peak performance stacks up favorably against many pitchers already enshrined in Cooperstown, but injuries limited his career longevity and overall statistical totals. Those factors have left voters divided over how to evaluate his place in baseball history.

To get a better understanding of Santana's candidacy, I reached out to current Hall of Fame voters Dave Brown, an MLB reporter with Pitchers List, and Dan Szymborski, a senior writer for FanGraphs. Both writers offered perspectives on Santana's Hall of Fame case, including the accomplishments that make him worthy of consideration and the obstacles that ultimately kept him off the ballot beyond his first year.

Twins Daily (TD): If Johan Santana were eligible for the Hall of Fame ballot today, would you vote for him? Why or why not?

Dave Brown (DB): This is a great question, and I'm not sure you want me to answer it. Because as a ballplayer, he deserves it. I give a lot of consideration to the sexual assault allegation made against him in 2010. For me, it's disqualifying (even though men are, can be and will be, falsely accused). I need to know more about the story, and more about Santana, before I can give a definitive answer. I never had a chance to vote for him, so I never dived into it thoroughly.

Here's an example of how this kind of thing has influenced my voting for other players. Andruw Jones was credibly accused, and arrested, for assaulting his wife on Christmas one year. I never voted for Jones. People who are credibly accused of acts like that—I won't celebrate them.

Dan Szymborski (DS): Absolutely. I occasionally rant about writers not voting for him on social media. Basically, he's 90% of [Sandy Koufax] with the same type of peak. I don't accept that being 10% less than Koufax is the difference between a no-doubter and someone who gets five-and-outed.

TD: Knowing what you know about Santana's career today, do you think the 2.4% of the vote he received in 2018 accurately reflected his Hall of Fame case?

DB: Big-time fumble by the voters. Sort of like a pitching version of Kenny Lofton. Maybe his comparison isn't apt. I'm not saying Santana was as good as Koufax, but the deference given to Koufax for having a shortened career should be applied to other players. I do it all of the time. I have voted for David Wright for basically this reason.

The longer we go in time, the better Santana's HOF case will look, because starting pitchers are going to have fewer and fewer career innings by comparison. Santana clearly was one of the best pitchers of his generation, and he got hurt. If another voter wants to DQ him for that, OK, but Koufax is an important precedent to me.

DS: No, I think he had a very strong case, and while I concede it's not an absolute slam dunk, it really annoyed me how little he was even discussed. A little like Lance Berkman, in a sense.

TD: Has your opinion of Santana's Hall of Fame candidacy changed since 2018? If so, what changed your thinking?

DB: See my answer for [the previous question]. Our expectations for pitchers have changed. They need to change for the HOF too.

DS: Not really, since I felt about the same eight years ago! If anything, I'm even stronger on him, as we've seen innings continue to go down in baseball. Guys like Felix Hernandez are getting looked at more for their peaks.

TD: Has the way you evaluate starting pitchers for the Hall of Fame changed over the past decade?

DB: I definitely give more credit to just pitching innings. It's just so valuable. Strikeout percentage is a great way to evaluate pitchers in the present, but for a long career it's harder to look at strikeout totals because pitchers aren't pitching as much—and strikeouts are also much more common in general. What do you do with these paradoxes?

DS: Not really, simply because I've always been on the "we have to evaluate players in the context of the time they played" bandwagon. Now, I'm surprised just how quickly win totals have dropped. I thought 200-win pitchers would be a regular thing for a while, but they're really not going to be. The ZiPS projections at least don't have a single player who doesn't already have 200 wins as being at least 50% to hit 200 wins. I wrote a piece about this with Chris Sale last year, and I'm on record that my intention is to vote for Jacob deGrom.

TD: How do you balance peak performance against career longevity when evaluating a starting pitcher for Cooperstown?

DB: That's the thing with all of these evaluations, isn't it?. There is something to be said for being a valuable player over a long period of time, and deserving of HOF consideration—even if you're not elite. For example, Mark Buehrle is a low-end Hall of Fame person to me, because he was above average for a long time, like Jim Kaat or Tommy John. Buehrle also had a perfect game and a no-hitter, and he helped the Sox win a World Series. I give Buehrle and Kaat credit for longevity, but I don't take it from Santana. Could be tortured logic.

I just don't judge Santana the same way. The great part of his career is most of what I give him credit for, and his longevity (such as it was) is a smaller consideration. His WAR and length are weak because he pitched two years in his 30s. Not because he was a bad pitcher all of a sudden, but because he was hurt and wasn't on the field.

DS: Basically, his peak is his case. I don't understand why writers stray so far from peak arguments. Take Miguel Cabrera. He only had passed the 400 HR mark and 2,500 hits as of 2016. His case is no better with 511 HR and 3,174 hits, because he was an awful player after 2016. How does being a bad player enhance someone's greatness?

Going back to Santana, add Jordan Lyles's career to his numbers. He now has 3,500 innings, 210 wins and a 113 ERA+. He almost certainly wouldn't have been one-and-out with those numbers back then. But if you slap on 1,500 bad innings, are you actually making Santana greater?

TD: What is the single strongest argument for Johan Santana being in the Hall of Fame, and what is the single strongest argument against him?

DB: For: He was the best pitcher in the league from 2004-2010, and second to Halladay from 2002-2010. Three-time ERA champ, three-time strikeout champ. Cooperstown credentials.

Against: Other than what happened on the golf course [where the sexual assault allegedly took place]? Santana didn't perform for long enough, no matter the reason. 

The Bottom Line

Santana's Hall of Fame candidacy remains a fascinating debate about peak performance versus career longevity. His two Cy Young Awards, dominance during his best seasons, and place among the defining pitchers of the 2000s make a compelling case. However, his injury-shortened career and traditional counting statistics created obstacles for voters evaluating his overall resume.

When Santana appeared on the ballot in 2018, he received just 2.4% of the vote, falling short of the 5% threshold required to remain eligible for future BBWAA consideration. That result closed one door, but it did not necessarily end the discussion.

The perspectives of Brown and Szymborski offer an opportunity to revisit the arguments surrounding Santana's candidacy and consider how voters should weigh a pitcher's best seasons against the length of his career. For Twins fans who watched Santana dominate the American League, the question is about more than statistics. It is about how baseball remembers one of the franchise's greatest pitchers and whether his peak deserves a place among the game's all-time greats.

Santana's case may not have an easy answer, but it remains worth discussing. Should a pitcher who reached such extraordinary heights during his prime receive another look for Cooperstown?

How do you view Santana’s Hall of Fame credentials? Leave a comment and start the discussion. 

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