Johan to Mets

 

The long-drawn-out trade talks of Johan Santana finally ended yesterday, and Johan owners should be ecstatic. A trade out of the Twin Cities was always going to give Santana's fantasy value a boost- it was just a matter of where he would land and how much of a bump. While wearing pinstripes or a pair of red socks would have certainly upped his potential Win total in '08, the move to Shea is the absolute best case scenario for mixed-league Johan owners:

1) He doesn't have to deal with the AL East bats... or even the AL Central where he went 1-8 last year against Detroit and Cleveland.
2) He gets the advantage of facing NL bats who've yet to have a taste of Johan (Why does the movie Billy Madison and an image of Adam Sandler terrorizing his elementary school classmates in a game of dodge ball come to mind?)
3) He pretty much gets an automatic out every 9 hitters (Goodbye DH; Hello NL pitchers; Hello career inter-league numbers: 182.2 IP, 16-4, 191 K, 2.27 ERA, 0.91 WHIP.).

Wearing New York orange and blue should do wonders for Johan's fantasy stats across the board- just see what Randy Johnson did in his move to the NL. Here are the updated TIPS projections for Johan:

TIPS Projection: 233.2 IP, 19-7, 259 K, 2.73 ERA, 1.01 WHIP