Johan Santana - 2008 salary - $19M. 2009 salary - $20M: There’s not much to say about Santana. There’s no bit of last year’s collapse on him short of the comic relief of giving up a grand slam to Felix Hernandez. Santana was a bad bullpen away from being 23-7 with 200+ strikeouts and a 2.53 ERA. The stories about Santana slowing down his last year in Minnesota were apparently greatly exaggerated. Or he moved to the NL… one or the other.

Prediction: With the new bullpen, I’m going to pencil in the Cy Young award for Queens. I don’t think Lincecum’s going to repeat this season and Webb’s due to finally slow down. With CC out of the NL again and Cole Hamels with a possible injury, I don’t see anyone beating Santana this year.

Oliver Perez: 2008 salary - $6.25M (arbitration). 2009 salary - $12M, new contract guaranteed through 2011. Ollie wasn’t exactly the Mets first option in the offseason and finally picked him back up almost as an afterthought when the Derek Lowe deal fell through. Considering the price, I’m going to assume that teams were put off by the idea of getting Evil Ollie as a throw in when signing Good Ollie. With what pitching is going for, the Oliver Perez deal is about what he is worth and I’m glad Scott Boras realized it. Now, the issue seems to be that he spent most of the WBC getting fat instead of pitching, so we’ll pencil him in for a DL trip by mid-May. He’s currently getting lit-up in Spring Training and, while that’s not a huge deal, it indicates there’s going to be a problem once real games start in, you know, a few days.

Prediction: Ollie pulls a serious muscle some time in late April due to the idiotic placement of the WBC and doesn’t get back until late June. While on the DL, he finds Duaner Sanchez and Sanchez teaches him all about the killer eats down in Miami.

John Maine - 2008 salary - $450k. 2009 salary - $2.6M (arbitration): I really have no idea what will happen with Maine this year. He’s one of those guys who tends to pitch through injury so you really can’t tell if he’s going bad because he’s hurt or because he’s bad. The disconcerting bit about Maine is that he lost a decent amount of velocity last year and it caused his K/9 rate to go down from about 8.5 in 2007 to about 7.9 in 2008. Accompanying this was a more disturbing rise in his BB/9 to 4.3 from 3.5. Neither trend is particularly settling. If Maine’s injuries are behind him, we’ll get a good year out of him. If they aren’t, it’s going to be another rough year watching him try to nibble corners instead of blowing guys away with two strikes and being pulled after five innings. ESPN’s projections have him coming in at 14 wins, a 4 ERA, and 178 K vs. 78 BB. Really, that seems about right. If it isn’t, he’s a DL trip or two from being the 7th inning guy. All that said, his spring has been encouraging and his velocity is returning. It’s a matter of finding his control again.

Prediction: Maine winds up being a much better starter than Perez this season. He ends up winning 16 with a sub 3.5 ERA as Dan Warthen finally manages to fix his mechanics.

Mike Pelfrey - 2008 salary - $450k. 2009 salary - $475k: I’ve spent the last few weeks convincing myself to not be excited over Pelfrey’s well-above-expectation 2008. Another guy who suffered for lack of bullpen help last year, Pelfrey went 13-11 in a season where a significant chunk of his losses and no decisions featured masterful performances where he gave up three runs or less. Pelfrey is a good example of why Mets’ fans are a bit too crazy sometimes. The guy spent barely 33 starts in the minor leagues. They brought him up and he got rocked in his early starts. Instead of sending him back down, the organization made him work on his stuff at the major league level. Everyone was ready to trade him before he figured it out. He went on to have a terrific season. The only worry I have is Pelfrey hitting the 200-inning wall. It didn’t seem to effect him TOO much last year, but now we still have to see if he can bounce back and do it again.

Prediction: Pelfrey continues to improve in 2009. I get to find out what happens when the walk year of a minor league deal happens after a guy’s been brought up.

Livan Hernandez - 2008 - Minnesota Twins/Colorado Rockies. 2009 - $1M: As a five-starter, I’ll definitely take a guy who almost always gets to 200 innings and 10 wins. Even if I am signing up for the occasional 15 hit, 7 run nightmare — I also get the occasional 7 inning, 2 run masterpiece. Whatever, I have it with Ollie Perez, too, so what’s having it with a second starter?

Jon Niese - 2008 - minor league. 2009 - minor league: Niese was given 3 starts down the stretch run as part of the aforementioned Operation: Triple-A Is Pointless. One was brilliant and two were the opposite of brilliant. He’s in a good place right now. Livan will eat innings for this year and keep his spot warm. I expect Niese will probably be brought up sometime during Ollie Perez’s second DL stint after the league catches back up with guys like Claudio Vargas.

Prediction: 7 starts, 2-3, 5+ ERA.