New York Daily News webpage:
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Bob Nightengale:
The New York Mets have agreed to a trade for two-time Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana, giving up four prospects to acquire the left-handed ace of the Minnesota Twins, according to two high-ranking Twins officials with knowledge of the talks and a person close to Santana.Works for me.
The deal is pending the Mets and Santana reaching agreement on a six- or seven-year contract extension and that Santana passes a physical; they have been granted a 48 to-72-hour window to do so. Santana has a no-trade clause that he will waive if agreement is reached on a contract extension.
The Mets paid a high price in prospects to land Santana, agreeing to send the Twins outfielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Phil Humber, Deolis Guerra and Kevin Mulvey.
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I don't know anything about the Mets system, but several SoSHers disagree with Nightengale's claim that the Mets dealt top prospects.
templeUsox: "Wow. That's an awful return for Johan Santana. You really can't understate how poorly of a job Bill Smith played his hand here. They ended up getting no premium prospects for the best pitcher in baseball. Only the most ardent optimist can tell me that Carlos Gomez, who has tools but no polish, qualifies as a premium prospect. Truly an awful deal for the Twins.
Paradigm: "Phil Hughes > this entire package. The same is true for Ellsbury, and possibly even Lester and Lowrie. I still think the best deal the Twins could have received was Santana for Hughes, and any other players from the Yankees would have been icing on top."
DieHardSoxFan1: "If the deal being reported by USA Today is indeed accurate -- Humber, Mulvey, Guerra and Gomez for Johan Santana -- then the New York Mets just absolutely stole the best pitcher in baseball."
30 comments:
Sigh of relief, I guess. Now the Sox/Yanks thing can rest a little more squarely on the kids of both (fill in the blank) comes on the market. Might call it more breathing room to resign Manny, too, if he has a good year.
As for the Twins' haul, I just don't know enough about these guys to know if the Sox and Yanks offers were that much better. Are we seeing the results of better-known (i.e., hyped) prospects being overvalued by those who say this is a disaster for the Twins? I mean, is Bill Smith stupid enough to turn down a much better offer for a poor one? It doesn't seem likely.
I can't say I know much about the Mets prospects, but my feeling is that the trade seems pretty low. I wonder if the trades that the Sox were rumored to have offered were even still on the table?
Wow. I love this deal.
Right, that's cool.
Now what about Coco, Tavarez, Kielty, and our infield-sub-with-versatility sitcheeation (Wilkerson? has he signed somewhere already?).
I mean, is Bill Smith stupid enough to turn down a much better offer for a poor one? It doesn't seem likely.
Four words:
Steve Phillips Peter Angelos
I rest my case.
An absolute swindle for the Mets. They get the ace they needed, the Twins traded him out of the AL, the Red Sox didn't give up any blue chip prospects, and the Yankees don't get their tentacles around Santana.
Quite a good day.
Fire Brand of the AL had a good story this morning on why the Sox should pass on Santana and keep our kids: http://mvn.com/mlb-redsox/2008/01/29/the-long-and-short-of-it-jon-lester-and-jacoby-ellsbury/
The, uh, mishap I assume Redsock is referring to, in which the O's missed out on a young Scott Rolen for because Angelos interfered, is detailed here. But this doesn't seem to be a case of an owner nixing a deal -- just a clear-cut (if critics are to be believed) case of choosing an inferior package over a superior one (or two).
Zen: Actually, I wasn't referring to any particular deal or non-deal. Just pointing out that both men are fooking morons when it comes to judging baseball talent.
This is A.J. Pierzinski to the Giants. But in reverse.
There are going to be a lot of angry Twins fans out there.
I should know, I'm one of them.
I would've taken Jacoby or Clay straight up instead of this Mets deal.
Yikes...
The thing here is that people say they don't know much about the Mets prospects, and i think that is the point, the players the Sox and Yanks were offering were players would start next year on quite a few mlb teams......And I also heard Phil Hughes was pulled from the deal, and also that Santana's healt may be in question who knows, win-win
I highly approve of this trade. Look at the prospects New York is giving up! Gomez will be exciting because of his speed, and Humber... A number three starter. And who are these other two? There were a lot more names being thrown around earlier, and they settle on this lot.
It'll be very interesting to see how this all plays out. Who well do those four do in Minnesota? How well does Santana do from here? How well do Ellsbury, Crisp, Lester, Masterson, Lowrie, Hughes, Kennedy and the others do?
Who wins?
I'm placing my bets on the Red Sox and Mets being the big winners. The Twins? Not so much. And we'll see about the Yankees.
Tina Cervasio is leaving NESN at the end of March.
Link
Wow... the Mets got a steal with this deal. Relatively no prospects (I believe only Mulvey has decent stats), for the best lefty in the game today.
I'm happier that this means we keep Ellsbury and Lester, both of which I see making a major impact on the team this coming season.
Well, I'm just glad it's all over. This presidency, I mean.
On the baseball front, looks like the Mets pulled one off, eh?
Humber is the only one of the pitchers with experience above 2A. He'll probably be fine in the bigs, but for SANTANA? I don't think so.
They must be counting on the Gomez kid to be the real deal, but that looks like a crap shoot to me. 286 in 35 games against 3A pitching isn't anything to jump up and down about.
I just saw this (been out and about today), and I agree---sigh of relief. I never wanted to give up our guys, and yet I didn't want the Yankees to get him either. And the Mets are my favorite NL team, and my son-in-law will be very happy. So all in all, this is good in so many ways.
Santana, Pedro, the Hernandez Brothers, John Maine... and I'm probably missing someone. If everyone stays healthy down there, they could have a very good team this year, and help close the doors on Shea Stadium on a high note.
But, that is an old pitching staff.
Of course Fux Sports is already whining about the MFY not getting their grubby little mitts on Johan.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7734714/Twins-missed-out-on-better-Santana-packages-?MSNHPHMA
Well I forgot to mention before, but on redsox.com LBJ says he's happy to be staying with the Sox. Guess what? I'm happy too.
An absolute swindle for the Mets. They get the ace they needed, the Twins traded him out of the AL, the Red Sox didn't give up any blue chip prospects, and the Yankees don't get their tentacles around Santana.
That about as succinct as it gets, Omnipotent Q. I'm quite pleased. I called my wife (a Mets fan since childhood) to let her know and our 8 year old son said "Wow, the Twins just got ripped off."
Off to buy that Ellsbury jersey now...
Yay.
:( is all I'll say.
:(
Sean:
I got a story for you. A week or two ago, a Hardball Times story looking back on the Crisp/Marte/Renteria trade included a December 2005 reaction quote allegedly from Joy of Sox.
Except it wasn't written by me. The THT writer was sloppy and actually snipped the first comment on the thread -- which was written by you.
You called Coco shit, Theo a uber-moron, and said you were off to watch your '04 vids because the Sox were fooked and would not win again for a looooooooooong time.
Basically, the complete opposite of what I would have written. I was highly annoyed and complained and the quote was quickly replaced with one from another blog.
The end.
Have to give Sean one thing: he thought Crisp's .300 BA was a fluke. On the other hand, he thought he was a poor CF.
Most of that flack was hand wringing (and most of us were wringing our hands) about giving up Andy Marte, who may be well on his way to being a prospect who didn't live up to expectations.
I think it was baseball musing that had the rankings for the Mets players. I think all four of these minor leaguers were in their top seven prospects in the minor. With three of them being pitchers, they only need to have two of them to be stoppers for this trade to be a win win for both sides. Will have to see where I saw the rankings.
Of course this means that Coco is going somewhere, but where and for what?
Wow, did you see this article by Bob Klapisch? Basically he is stating that the Twins were left with only this deal.
Bill Smith, in a panic to move Johan Santana, called the Yankees and admitted surrender: Phil Hughes was no longer a prerequisite, he said. Instead, the Twins asked for Ian Kennedy, Melky Cabrera and a top prospect. Would the Yankees still be interested, Smith wondered?
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On Tuesday Yankees' GM Brian Cashman told Smith he was passing on the deal, prompting the Twins to call the Red Sox. Equally devastating news awaited. Both Jacoby Ellsbury and Jon Lester were unavailable.
The Red Sox, in lock step with the Yankees, had essentially backed out, too.
I wonder if the Twins are kicking themselves for not making this deal back in November?
I'm not sure about Klapisch's source, but it's the only thing that makes sense. It'd bandied about at Replacement Level that Smith hates the Yankees and was trying to impose a "Yankee tax", so he chose the inferior package out of spite. Not likely!
I'm sorry that THT doesn't bother to read what they quote, I guess. I still think Coco isn't a good hitter, but I'm happy to say I was wrong about his value. Every indicator I'd seen, from his performance in center, to comments about his minor league performance, to his BP RATE numbers showed he'd be bad in center.
so, while I was wrong about Marte and Crisp's defensive value, losing both Shoppach and Bard was a bummer.
I won't comment much about the Santana deal, because who knows what baseball musings will say in 2010. I'll just say: seeing a playoff series with Beckett, Santana and Buchholz would've been really, really nice. Like, dreamstate nice.
I wonder if the Twins are kicking themselves for not making this deal back in November?
If they're not, they should be.
i wouldn't say bill smith is a complete tool - he probably was willing to take a shittier deal from an NL team just because of that fact - Santana in the NL means the twins dont have to face him at all (or maybe once, in that farce of a thing they call inter-league)...
at least mfy didnt get him. and we get all our young guns. great success.
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