Bigger Bust: AJ Burnett or Johan Santana?

At first glance, the question posed in the title might seem a little strange. Though it can certainly be argued that AJ Burnett is stealing the $82.5 million that the Yankees will be forced to pay him through 2013 to lose games for them and turn what little hair Joe Girardi has grey, people don’t often talk about New York Mets’ ace Johan Santana as a bust. Truth is though, Johan was acquired from the Minnesota Twins in February of 2008 for a substantial haul of minor league prospects including the now rather successful Carlos Gomez and Phillip Humber and immediately handed a contract through 2014 valued well in excess of $100 million (I’m on a plane while writing this and the annual salary figures I have for Johan are difficult to add up so I’m approximating (turns out its $137.5 million)). Santana is a lefty armed with one of the best changeups ever and the winner of 2 Cy Young awards while with the Twinkies. He was stellar in 2008, his first year in New York, leading the league in ERA (2.53), starts (34), and innings (234.1). He finished third in the Cy Young voting and was in the top 15 in the MVP award race. In short, he was exactly the ace the Mets wanted and more. Since then however, Johan has spent parts of 3 seasons on the DL including likely missing the entire 2011 campaign. The Mets aren’t getting anything out of their expensive starter other than a lot of headaches, he’s not putting fans in the seats at Citi Field while he sits on the DL, and they’ve won nothing since he’s been there and are currently a below average major league team (no matter what their record says). So the question begs, who is a bigger bust, AJ Burnett of the Yankees or Johan Santana of the Mets?

The Yankees inked AJ Burnett to a ludicrous 5 year, $82.5 million (that’s $16.5 per) contract in the winter of 2008. The Yankees saw his record of success in the AL East (with Toronto) and his durability (he led the league with 34 starts in 2007) as signs that this could be a blockbuster deal that would provide the team with a sure number 2 and possibly even a number 1 starter for the next half-decade. Needless to say, that has not how it has worked out. In his first year in the Bronx, AJ went 13-9 but he had an ERA over 4 and led the league in both walks and wild pitches. (NOTE: the “league” refers to the AL. You know, the AL with that guy Tim Wakefield in it. The same Tim Wakefield whose team had to trade for a player it had already traded away a couple of months before because he was the only guy who could catch him.) Last season, Burnett was an embarrassing 10-15 with an ERA of 5.26 and a WHIP of 1.51. He also led the league in hit batsmen.  This season Burnett is 8-9 with an ERA of 4.54. He again leads the league in wild pitches and hasn’t won a game since late June. Last night, in a start on the road against the White Sox, Burnett was staked a 13-1 lead by 3^rd inning and could not get a win. He allowed 7 runs on 13 hits (I think it was 13, again, on a plane) over 4.1 innings. And New York is paying him $16.5 million a year to do this! Without a doubt, the Burnett signing has been a disaster. The fans can’t stand him. His stuff is electric and he is capable of dominating which, honestly, makes it even more frustrating. His problems are not physical in the sense that he can’t stay healthy. He’s got a consistently mid-90’s fastball and a slider that Russell Martin and Fransico Cervelli clearly have trouble catching, he just cant get his act together.  He misses spots and walks batters and then comes out 5 days later and does the exact same thing. Maybe if he spent less time at the tattoo parlor and more in the bullpen he’d win every once in a while (yeah, that’s a cheap shot but c’mon, did you see him last night?).

Out in Queens, it’s a very different story. Mets fans love Johan Santana, all you see are t-shirts with the number 57 on the back. Santana has been effective in his time on the field, I already talked about how good he was in 2008 when he went 16-7 but he was 13-9 in 2009 in only 166.2 innings after bone chips had to be removed from his elbow in August, ending his season. In 2010, he went 11-9 with a sub-3 earned run average before straining his pectoral muscle and subsequently having the shoulder surgery that has sidelined him this season. In all likelihood, Johan won’t throw a big league pitch in 2011. He threw in a minor league rehab game last week and suffered some discomfort a few days later that will likely shut him down. As I’ve said, Santana has been pretty good when he’s played but how important is that when he can’t even stay on the field? Given the Mets struggles as an organization, the money they’ve invested in Santana, the importance he has for their team (he’s definitely more important to the Mets than AJ Burnett is to the Yankees mostly thanks to CC Sabathia) it can definitely be argued that, due to his numerous and repeated injuries, he is at least as big of a bust as Burnett, if not bigger.

-Max Frankel