By John Klima
February 14, 2009

Ervin Santana pitched for the fifth starter’s job last Spring Training, coming off such an atrocious 2007 season that the Angels considered trading him and, politely speaking, questioned his maturity and moxie.

One year later, Santana signed a four-year, $30 million contract extension with an option for a fifth year. The Angels avoided arbitration, which was probably a good idea considering how Santana wears his heart on his sleeve. Santana has proven two things in his short major league career: his stuff is explosive and his memory is long.

Santana’s stuff is what always saved him, even when he lost control. The 2007 season was a trying one for the right-hander and his club. Depending on which side you speak to, beat reporters goaded Santana and he fired back. Clubs don’t care if their players don’t get along with the press. Professional players are under no obligation to cater to the media. What clubs don’t like is when players take the angst they feel onto the field with them.

Only Santana can say if he let the writers into his head, but he’d never admit it if it were true. In his press conference, he addressed the reporters as “You Guys,” which is generally an athlete’s polite way of saying, “You assholes.” He’ll probably be guarded for the rest of his career.

It provided another textbook case of why athletes and the media don’t always get along. One party is asking sports writing questions, the other is answering in vague baseball terms, if at all. Something is lost in the translation, and sometimes, what is lost is more than words. Nothing is accomplished when egos interfere with baseball.

Privately, it was Santana’s fragile and sometimes ferocious ego that less than two years ago had the Angels seriously considered ridding themselves of him. His stuff is what saved him. The Angels – and this was probably Mike Scioscia’s call - could not bring themselves to do it because his physical gifts outweighed maturity issues.

If you were scouting Santana, the first thing you would write up is how his loose, blur-like action generates tremendous arm speed. He was too young and he had two power pitches, with a possibility for a third. The Angels always felt that Santana’s raw gifts were vastly superior to either the more polished Jered Weaver or Joe Saunders.

They wished he had Saunders’ composure and methodology. They wished he had the same cocky attitude that Weaver brought to the field with him, but not at the expense of Santana trying to do too much.

Emotions could get the better of Santana, and he was reminiscent of former Angel Ramon Ortiz. When Santana lost control, everything fell apart. He lost his delivery points and would start overthrowing, lose his downward plane, and his stuff became easy to hit. The dominoes easily fell on Santana and mental flaws quickly became mechanical flaws. The Angels weren’t immediately impressed with how Santana reacted. They felt like he showed no gumption on the mound. He lacked game presence. He fell into the worst trap that can befall a young player. Santana pitched like he was waiting to fail.

Somewhere, he grew up and decided that the best way to shut up his critics was to simply pitch. That, too, feels like Scioscia’s influence.

At the start of Spring Training in 2009, the Angels are gambling that Santana retains his composure and that he continues to develop as a major league pitcher.

What that development might hold is one reason the club was surely eager to lock him up. Not many pitchers have the ability to get better at the highest level. Santana does. And if he has peaked out, then they have just signed a relatively inexpensive annual 15-18 game winner. It would seem to be a win-win situation, and certainly better than taking a veteran free agent off the bread line.

Perhaps the lesson in all this is that every young player is different. Some players are ready to step in and make an immediate impact talent-wise, as Santana was in 2005, but sometimes success comes too soon. Some players need time for the rest of their personalities to catch up with their advanced physical skills. The skill comes in managing that player, when to push and when to be patient, when to rip him and when to tell him to let it rip. The rewards can become mutually beneficial.