The Twins are blowing their chance to deal Johan Santana. In trying to play the Yankees and Red Sox off each other, their greed could cost them.
Yes, there’s always the July trade deadline, but that can backfire.
Suppose pitching isn’t the need?
There’s also the matter of the package. I would think the Red Sox would be less inclined to give up Ellsbury and the Yankees not wanting to move Cabrera because that would open another need.
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There’s also the matter of his no-trade clause. Santana could decline all trades and effectively net the Twins nothing more than a compensatory draft pick—or he could indicate that he’d accept a trade to only one team, which would thereby diminish any leverage the Twins would have with that team.
I don’t even know why we even talk about Santana. You just know even if the Mets were able to trade for him, the deal would fall thru because they wont pay him the 25 mil for 7 years that they are likely to ask for.
I know I blast Omar to the point of ridiculousness, but in all seriousness for the good of the game it would be best if guys like Santana would be signed sealed and delivered forever in places like Minnesota.
Their owner is another rich greedy person who blackmailed Minnesota to have a new stadium put together at taxpayer expense and he won’t even keep his ace. He is worse then the Wilpons. This is a case where I hope they do indeed get burned. The fans don’t deserve it but the ownership certainly does.
I don’t think the Twins have overplayed it precisely because they have the Mets on the outside looking in, setting the “floor” so to speak. They’re not going to get anything less than what the Mets are offering—a bushel of prospects and probably Aaron Heilman.
At the same time, neither the Yanks nor Sawx want to pony up full value. So if you’re Minny, and it looks like you may eventually have to settle for less than full value, you could settle for a slightly worse package from the Mets AND send Santana to the NL. The Mets are the key because a) Santana likes the Mets, and b) the Mets are very limited in what they can do to get another starter. So I don’t see why Minny should be in a hurry at all.
I think they will get the best package they can from an NL team by using the sox and yanks to up the offers. They do not want him in the AL.
LoDuca signed a one year deal with the Nationals. If he was willing to take 1 yr why the heck didn’t the Mets re-sign him?
If Minny is using the Mets as a safety net, they might be playing a game of chicken.
Sure, Omar seems to really like Santana (but I assume he would also like to have 1 or 2 prospects left for the future). But, if he has shown anything over the years, he isn’t afraid to change course in mid stream, or get impatient with a delay and cut and run to the next deal.
Even just due dillegence says that Omar should be working on alternate deals. Not just for the “big 3”, but for alternate solutions. Either a FA stidd like Livan or Silva, or hopefully for a mid rotation guy with upside like Snell.
So, what happens if, for example, the Pirates really are hot for Gomez, and decide to offer Snell + something useful (a RP?) for Gomez and Humber and Carp?
Well, does Omar grab it and look in an upgrade, or give the Twins a drop-dead 1 time offer (now or never)? If he does hit the Twinkees, he will have leverage to try and low ball them a bit.
If the Twins in this scenerio balk, Omar pulls the trigger and is probably out of the Ace market. So then what? COntinued stalemate with the Sox and Yankees? Probably.
It almost seems that if the Mets drop out, the Twins may end up needing to keep Santana (which I doubt they want). I doubt they can play off the evil empires against each other too much more.
I sure hope Omar is working hard, since the big risk is he puts all his eggs in the Santana basket, and any other viable SP gets moved in the interim, but Omar never does get him. I have to think Omar isn’t planning to let that happen again.
Omar really just promised to improve the SP. He never really said he was going to get one of the top 3 ptichers in all of baseball, did he?
On LoDuca, he probably expected and asked for a 3 year deal, which no way the Mets were doing. So, they let him walk.
Just because he signed now for 1 year doesn’t mean that he ever offered that to the Mets.
I also get the feeling that the Mets really didn’t want him back anyway.
Lo duca is old, oft injured, and declining, why do we want him on the team? Fire and guts are one thing, but where did that get us down the stretch last year? What did Lo Duca provide? If he can’t play defense, and can only hit singles, what good is he? Schneider may not hit for the same avg. as Lo Duca, but his OBP isn’t much worse and he’s also a very good defensive catcher who calls a good game. What is the upside in having Lo Duca around? when catro gets injured again, and lo duca wouldhave, you can’t have de feliece and sandy alomar out there again, you need reliability.
metsfan: Well Said
Metsblog.com claims Santana wants to be a Met
But I’ll believe when I see it.
I think there are only three teams in the hunt for him: Yanks, Sox, Mets.
Yanks and Sox are playing chicken w/each other as Twins go back and forth w/them.
Mets only hope is that those two teams get tired of this and move on.
But even if Twins want to deal him b/c they decide getting something is better than nothing, the issue w/The Mets remains the $.
Not so much the $/yr but the yrs. Coupons won’t want to go above 5 yrs b/c they won’t be able to insure the contract.
Also, they won’t want to set the bar higher in terms of $ or yrs for a player, esp a pitcher.
Why? B/c the coupons are always concerned w/making the commisioners office happy.
Case in point is not going above the lux tax salary or the slotting $ in draft pointed out the other day in one of the NY papers where Omar admitted they don’t go above the recommended $ for draft picks, esp later round picks.
This is a show of support for Buddy. This plus playing in every kind of PR game you can think of (like this yrs game in Memphis or Nashville-can’t remember which) or in the past in Mexico or Japan, etc.
Just saying…
Why would the Twins want the package the Yanks offered other then Hughes? Melky is not a great player. He’s a good role player at best. The other two MILB players were not studs. It was basically Hughes for Santanna, and Hughes is basically on reputation than on performance. Outside of the near no hitter, he was just as average as Pelfrey.
As for the Sox, Lester is always going to be a health risk. Crisp costs too much for what he gives. Ellsbury might be the goods, but so could Carlos Gomez.
When all is said and done, I expect that either..
1. Mets get him for 4-5 players including Pelfrey, Gomez, Heilman.
2. The Yanks up the offer to include at least one other outstanding prospect.
3. Sox add both Lester and Ellsbury.
4. Twins hold him and they compete for a title next year : )
The Mets can only get Santana if
Yanks, Sox drop out
And Mets are willing to offer more than 5 yrs (eventhough they can’t get insurance on the contract). And they don’t care if the commish doesn’t like that they set a new high water mark for salaries.
A rice paper thin chance at best