Entries RSS
River Ave BluesWith Yanks out of race, Santana lands in Queens
Posted by: Ben K. in Hot Stove League. Tagged: Johan SantanaUpdate 4:17 p.m.: The Mets have acquired Johan Santana, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today.
Based on reports from sources close the teams, the Twins have accepted the Mets’ offer of Carlos Gomez, Kevin Mulvey, Deolis Guerra, and Phil Humber in exchange for the All Star lefty. The deal will be complete pending both a physical and a six- or seven-year contract for Santana. The Mets have a two- or three-day window during which they can negotiate.
At this point, I don’t really see this deal falling apart, and if Johan couldn’t land in the Bronx for the right price, seeing him in Queens instead of Boston is a huge positive.
======
Two well-connected baseball writers - Buster Olney and Jon Heyman - are reporting the same news on the Johan Santana front: The Twins have their final offers in hand, and the Yankees are not one of the suitors.
Olney writes:
In keeping with a request from pitcher Johan Santana, the Twins have fielded offers from all interested parties by a mid-day Tuesday deadline, and Minnesota is expected to make a decision soon on whether to keep the left-hander or trade him, perhaps to the Mets — who appear to be strong front-runners — or the Red Sox, sources say.
The Yankees do not appear to be engaged in the Santana talks.
Santana, who completely controls his fate because of the full no-trade clause that he possesses, asked the Twins to make a decision, which is why Minnesota imposed the deadline for offers from the interested team.
Heyman notes that the Yanks informed the Twins that Minnesota could not have Phil Hughes, and the Twins don’t appear interested in other packages that the Yanks could potentially put together.
Meanwhile, despite the Santana-enforced deadline, a trade is not a forgone conclusion. If the Twins don’t like the Mets’ or Red Sox’s final offers, they could sit on Santana until the middle of Spring Training. Olney notes that myriad circumstances from injury to steroid distraction could present themselves to the contending teams that might make them up their offers. Either way, this story should peak this week.
For now, it looks like the Yanks are out of it. While we’re opposed to trading young pitchers away for Johan Santana, a lot of fans are on the fence about the deal. Only time will tell, of course, if the Yanks, showing rare restraint, made the right move here.
so we might be days or hours away from officially having saved the big three… one time I’ll be rooting for the Mets(to get Santana-go mets)
I hope they trade him to the Long Island Ducks for Danny Graves.
Bill Smith will probably go down in baseball history as the GM who foolishly turned down a deal that included Phil Hughes. As they say in the real estate business, “you snooze, you lose.”
What I still don’t get is why the Yankees haven’t commoditized Igawa into something else (a reliever, B prospects, whatever).
Commoditizing Igawa seemed like a good way to start amassing chips the Twins may want (perhaps by sending Igawa and - say - an Allan Horne to another team, they could come up with a position player which the Twins actually liked).
Probably because Cash has used the posting fee as part of Igawa’s valuation, and every other team’s valuation is limited to his salary.
The posting fee is a sunk cost, no matter how you look at it.
Perhaps Cashman thinks he can sell high after spring training, but it looks like my comment is irrelevant, since Santana seems to have gone to the Mets.
Unless Sabathia AND Teixeira are on the market after 2008, the Yanks will have lots of money to play with and nobody to spend it on next off-season….
(Arguably, this Santana trade increases the possibility that Pettitte will be in the Bronx for 2009).
I realize that it’s a sunk cost, but when the Pads claimed Igawa on waivers during the season, it was reported that part of the reason that Cash and Towers were having trouble completing a deal was that Cash wanted some consideration for the posting fee. Of course, that consideration could be financial rather than in player personnel assets.
i think it is because Igawa has no trade value.
hahah. I’m with Steve on this one.
However, HOW THE FU*K DID THE TWINS ACCPET THIS DOGSH*T OFFER FROM THE METS AND SPIT IN THE YANKEES FACE WHEN THEY OFFERED A CONVINCINGLY SUPERIOR PACKAGE!
Ultimately, if he had to go anywhere, im glad its in the NL and away from us. Just kinda stings knowing that the Mets are pretty much a lock for WS next yr and we’re gonna be reading more about them than the Yanks. Whatever, atleast we kept our youth and Boston stayed the same.
Jeez, relax. “A lock for the World Series”??? Puh-leez. No one is a lock for the World Series. Ever. No matter who is on the team. No matter how many games they win in the regular season.
Ok, let me clarify myself…THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO TEAM IN THE NL THAT CAN COME CLOSE TO COMPETING WITH THE METS NOW. THE NL IS A JOKE, AND THE METS JUST GOT THE BEST PITCHER IN BASEBALL. THEY’LL PROBABLY WIN 100 GAMES AND SHOULD BE THE PRE-SEASON WS FAVORITES OUT OF THE NL. BUT YES, LIGHTNING CAN STRIKE, HOWEVER, IF THE METS DONT MAKE THE WS, THIS WOULD BE AN EVER BIGGER UPSET THAN THEM NOT MAKING THE PLAYOFFS LAST YEAR.
I would still take the D-Backs pitching staff over the Mets, and you know the saying about pitching and short series.
Great to see that they are sticking to their guns regarding Hughes! I look forward to watching him progress this year and hopefully for quite some time !
They have been reports that Johan Santana turned an offer from the Twins that was worth 5/100M.
So clearly the Twins want to keep him and at the same time it tells you that he’s getting traded before 08 season start.
Great news to hear and improves my day since I keep hearing of Plaxico’s damn predictions bringing so much attention.
Twins GM Bill Smith will now have two flags on his permanent record: 1. He traded Johan Santana 2. He passed on acquiring Phil Hughes via trade.
Not a great start their Mr Smith.
USA TODAY reports that Santana is going to be a Met.
If the Mets get him for that sh*t offer Smith should be immediately fired.
If that is accurate and happens , I believe it is the best thing for The Yanks! Santana will eat the NL alive and he doesn’t cost the Yanks Hughes plus doesn’t make the Sox better. Git er done!
Why would Santana take 5 yrs and 100 mill?
If he can get that now imagine what he can get on the open market.
Some guys like being in control of their own destiny and signing for as much as he can. Its called free markets. Revolutionary concepts.
Isn’t the best Hughes could ever turn into Johan Santana? Likely, he will never be as good.
i don’t understand why most Yankee fans wouldn’t pull the trigger. I can understand not doing 2 young pitchers for Johan, but I would happily ship Hughes Cabrera.
You’re talking about Santana of years past, though. The Mets are getting Santana of the future. BIIIIIIIG difference.
Well said and the point most miss….
I am sorry - Santana is going to be 29 this year. Why do so many just assume he is going to break down and not give as good of innings? He is currently the premier pitcher in all of baseball. It is truly Santana and everyone else.
You also get Hughes at $500,000 a year as opposed to paying Santana up to $25 million a year. That cost differential enables you to sign a number of other players. When you take the value of those players along with Hughes’s value, it’s almost impossible for Santana to contribute more than that.
Well at 29 does he have more value than a 21 year old…w/out the miles on his arm? Plus one that has proved he can pitch in NY?
Not trying to argue but if you take that into consideration plus Melky and a few other top tier prospects AND having to pay him the 7 year deal at at least 20 mil per…it’s a no brainer imho.
Not necessarily break down this season, but the Mets are going to be paying him over $20M/yr for probably 7 seasons. When was the last time a pitcher didn’t break down over a 7 year season?
good trade for the mets.
smith blew it. he should have taken hughes while he had the chance.
thats a phenomenol trade for the mets. They practically gave up nothing
Although this will hurt us after the season (since he won’t be a free agent), this is a win for the Yanks.
1. We keep the young kids.
2. The Red Sox don’t get Santana.
3. We only face Santana once or twice a year.
As the progenitor of the Save Phil Hughes movement, and of course as a supporter of the Save the Big Three initiative, I’d just like to congratulate all of us who were intensely opposed to trading for Santana.
Mission accomplished!
i find it disgusting the price the mets got him for….ur telling me the yanks couldnt have put togetehr a package of similar talent to that…
IPK, Marquez, Tabata/Jackson, and horne is better than that bull offer from the mets. Yes its great hes not in boston and blah blah blah but i hate the mets the second most in the league and this pisses me off
i am sure the Yankees tried numerous non-Hughes packages and the Twins weren’t interested.
not only that, but i would take the RED SOX offer before the Mets’ offer.
so it’s not just the Yankees.
seems to me that the Twins were not interested in trading Johan within the AL.
seems crazy, but look at what happened. they took an offer that was clearly inferior to the Yankees’ or Sox offers.
Yeah, I would bet thats part of it too, but man alive, they really really settled for less. It makes sense to some degree, but lets b honest, the Twins have a lot more problems than seeing Santana on the Sox or Yankees…
Great news. Phil Hughes will be better over the next 7 years than Santana. And about 19 million cheaper for many of those years.
Great, great, great deal for the Mets. Theyhave no farm system, but they never did anyways. Now they have the ace they needed, and he will feast on the NL. The Yanks come in 2nd as winners as they make Smith look like an idiot, see Santana go to the NL, and don’t have to deal with what if’s, as it was Smith who turned down their deal…
Meanwhile, the Sox still have Coco Crisp and the overvalued Lester
(well, not really a loss for them either)…
I still won’t beleive it until Johan signs his name on the contract…
Mike (Utica,NY): Would you pay Johan Santana 22-25 million a year and what do you think of the package the twins might get back with Gomez, Guerra, Mulvey, and Humber?
Rany Jazayerli: I’ve just been informed in the last few minutes that this trade is 99.9% official, and as listed. I’m stunned by this trade, and as a Royals fan, I’m thrilled. You trade the best pitcher in baseball and don’t get a single can’t-miss guy in return? Way to play your cards, Bill Smith. This is great for the Mets, and great for the National League.
Who the hell is Rany Jazayerli?
I don’t know but he works for BP.
I am stunned that is all the Mets could get. I’d hate to be a Twins’ fan, knowing my GM turned down better offers from the Yankees and the Red Sox. Kudos to the Mets!
he will kill in the nl and he will be a media star in ny…the mets desperate for the backpage over the yanks may finally have something going…is livan still available? he would be a good compliment to what they have now and im sure he’d love to be with his brother…
They got way better offers from the Sox & Yanks during the Winter Meetings. They screwed this one up pretty badly.
Santana is going to post an ERA under 2.30 in the NL.
We’ve gone thru it all for 3 months.
It wasnt worth four high level prospects for a guy you would have to pay full market rate for.
Especially if the Yanks consider Hughes a 1 or 2 SP.
I’d say everyone involved is a winner. Omar isn’t going to be around by the time he starts sucking, and he’s stoked in the short term. Both the BoSox and Yanks keep from seeing the wrong end of him 5 times a year. The Mets didn’t give up much on opening day and look poised to raise the hell they never did last year on the backs of more pricey veteran starters. Yanks keep the big three. Here’s hoping the great red hope in Boston was a fluke last year. All is right with the world.
C.C., we’ll need to speak with you after the season.
Everyone, perhaps, but the Twins. Smith’s talent evaluation skills will be sharply questioned, and with good reason.
#
Larry says:
January 29th, 2008 at 4:33 pm (Reply)
As the progenitor of the Save Phil Hughes movement, and of course as a supporter of the Save the Big Three initiative, I’d just like to congratulate all of us who were intensely opposed to trading for Santana.
Mission accomplished!
You going to be so happy if the Yanks aren’t in the playoffs and Santana goes 22-6 with a 2.30 ERA this yr?
I kinda doubt it.
That’s a huge IF there, buddy.
Obviously the team’s goal is to get to the playoffs every year, so I’m not going to act like I’d be thrilled about coming up short of a playoff spot.
That being said, I’d much rather go through the ups and downs of watching a potential future staff ace like Hughes develop in front of my eyes than once again tossing away the future for a supposed can’t-miss ace. Sure, Johan Santana is an amazing pitcher, but no one is worth the cost in players and money that the Yankees were being asked for.
If the Yanks miss the playoffs this year while some of the young pitchers struggle and Santana has a great year, so be it. I still think we’ll have the last laugh in this when all is said and done.
Not only that, but as the authors of this site have pointed out time and again, it’s not as if the Yankees have gotten demonstrably worse than they were in 2007. I don’t understand who all of these “sky is falling” Yankee fans are who are convinced the team is going to be terrible in ‘08.
If anything, the team should be better - the rotation’s infinitely stronger than it was going into opening day last year, and unless injuries take their toll again, the team shouldn’t be forced to trot out sub-par minor leaguers to fill the rotation in April and May.
Additionally, obviously A-Rod and Posada are highly unlikely to duplicate their 2007 campaigns, but they shouldn’t have to if Damon, Abreu and Cano show up to actually play a full season this year. The offense should be just as good if not better than last year.
Omar has done here what Cashman refused to do when he was in his final yr. Trade the farm for one guy.
He obviously cares more about his job than the franchise.
Then again he gave up 4 C level prospects so I guess he wins.
Of course, the Mets farm wasn’t exactly what I would call loaded before this trade, so giving up 4 so-so prospects won’t kill it. We’ve seen how fast a team with money can retool itself, so if Minyaya were smart, he would take the yanks philosophy and start dealing out the $ in the draft and in two years they could be on their way…
I’m going to throw up. The Twins demand all of our top prospects, who also happen to be baseballs biggest prospects, but then they simply accept the Mets throwing their entire shitty farm at them?? Gross. Disgusting. Awful. What a disgrace. Too bad the Mets still have a bad team.
Yeah Smith is going to get KILLED for this by the media. How do you trade the best pitcher in the league and not get a can’t-miss prospect in return? Phil Hughes straight up is a better deal seeing how the pitchers in this deal might not even see the Twin’s rotation this season due to their insane pitching depth. The fact also remains that nobody knows if Gomez can hit MLB pitching (I think Melky has proven that he can). There must have been a lot of pressure to trade to the NL to justify this screwup
great point CHIP, I wouldn’t Trade Phil for the mets package of garbage either
The only thing that would kind of annoy me a tad bit, is that the twins accepted a deal that the yankees could top without phil hughes.
I was reading SI about the trade, and the funny part was that they were discussions about swaping Humber for Jorge Sosa in the trade. Tell me that is not funny.
Ivan,
That’s exactly my thught too. I wanted to save the big three and get Johan and looking at what the Twins ended up getting, it’s hard to imagine the Yankees not being able to top it. Horne and Tabata alone is a good starting point I’d think.
Not to say that Smith isn’t an idiot for passing on Hughes/Melky for the Mets package, but I can think of one huge, monumental reason why the Twins would prefer the Mets foursome over a similar package headed by IPK… The Mets are in the NL.
Nobody ever likes to trade superstars, but if you do it’s always smarter to trade them as far away from you as you can. The Twins have serious problems getting past the Sox and Yanks now… how much tougher would it be if they (or we) had Santana in the first round every year?
The Twins have a lot more to worry about in their own division then to care about Santana on the Sox/Yanks. Without Santana, they aren’t winning anything for two years or so, so the trading Santana within the AL thing doesn’t really matter. They’d only see him once or twice during the regular season, and you can’t make a trade based on the potential of the post season.
you can’t make a trade based on the potential of the post season.
Which is exactly why trading for Santana isn’t the best idea either.
Ben,
Are you saying the premise of trading for Santana is faulty? Because given his immense talent and relative young age, I disagree.
I’m with you about saving the big three and didn’t want to trade Hughes or even Kennedy. It’s just hard for me to believe a Yankees offer of Horne, Tabata, and some other prospects couldn’t have at least been competitive with what the Mets ended up giving up.
No, no. The basic premise of trading for Santana is fine. In this case, my issue with the idea of making a trade with an eye for the postseason, as zack said. You can’t make trades based on what’s best for the postseason and only the postseason. The 162 games leading up to the postseason are even more important because you have to win the vast majority of those just to get to the postseason. (Playoffs? Don’t talk about playoffs?)
I’m also none too thrilled about giving up so many top prospects and money for a pitcher at the same time. In reality, the Twins probably got what they deserved. They’re giving up one year of Santana for four prospects. The Mets are getting one year of Santana for for prospects and a few more years at a lot of money per season.
“You can’t make trades based on what’s best for the postseason and only the postseason. The 162 games leading up to the postseason are even more important because you have to win the vast majority of those just to get to the postseason.”
maybe for the twins this is true. but i don’t know how you can knock making an acquisition with an eye towards the postseason if you are the yanks. the yanks making the postseason over the past 10 or so years (and as currently constructed) is about as close to a sure thing as there is in sports. if you are the yanks GM and you are NOT trying to make a deal with an eye towards the postseason, then what are you doing, exactly?? working on the 2012 postseason? ignoring this year’s $200M payroll? just gunning for 1000 runs with an all star lineup to watch them choke in october again in front of inferior pitching??
WITH Santana the Twins aren’t like to win their division for the next couple of years either. The Tigers have strengthened themselves significantly and there is no reason to believe that the Indians will not be as good or better as last year too.