Player Focus: Johan Santana

Johan Santana is probably the most accomplished & dominant pitchers, under 30 years old, in the majors. Recently, though, he's been struggling. In his last 10 starts, he's 3-5 with a 4.23 ERA. He saw his season ERA go from 2.65 to 3.16 during that period. His only memorable outing was on 8/19, when he pitched a near-perfect 8 innings, allowing just 2 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks and had 17 K's against the Rangers. On 9/3, in his last start, he was out dueled by C.C. Sabathia, who tossed 8 shutout innings to beat the Twins 5-0.

I have to say that Santana is one of the most resilient players in the hobby. Even when he's slumping, his cards don't drop much in value. Collectors probably view him as a veteran future HOF'er who doesn't have to prove what he can do; just continue to rack up stats for the various career milestones that he's headed toward.

His top two rookie cards, 00 Bowman's Best #'d 2999 & 00 Finest #'d 3000, have been steady sellers at around $55-65 & $55-70 TAC, respectively, over the past few months. Expect to pay around $100+ for his 00 Finest Ref #'d 1000.