thoughts on the santana trade.
i tend to be very agnostic about cheering for particular teams in professional sports. instead of cheering for a particular team without reserve, i tend to evaluate each matchup on a case-by-case basis. i use a rule of thumb to pick the team that i cheer for in a particular matchup, but i don't have any sort of mathematical way of expressing it. it's more of an intuition, a hunch, a feeling, something that tells me that this is the 'right' team to cheer for.
the feelings are arbitrary. i have cheered for the giants in the nfc because i felt like eli manning had taken a lot of unfair criticism throughout his career, and i felt like he was a true phoenix who could rise from the ashes. plus, i hate tiki barber for criticizing a young player for not being a leader. who can recall the giants taking ron dayne in 2000 because they felt like tiki wasn't an every down back? that's me. tiki was four years into his career, and he essentially had the same exact time series path that eli had. the strange thing is that i don't even like the giants. i never have, but cheering for them this year was the 'right' thing.
in the same vein, i loosely cheer for the spurs in basketball, although i'm open to other possibilities. i cheer for the hawks and the bucks because i like michael redd and joe johnson. i have some nostalgia for the nuggets and marcus camby. but game by game, i tend to pick who i cheer for sort of randomly. pacers/mavs? i'll cheer for someone, but it won't be for any defined reason. definition has its place, but not in leisure.
but i break my rule for baseball, where i cheer whole-heartedly for the minnesota twins. i never lived in minnesota, but i loved kirby puckett when i was younger, i was incensed about possible contraction, and i loved the resurgence of the small market. plus, there's the griffey baseball effect.
so when i found out that the twins traded johan santana to the mets, i was hurt. i felt as if the twins had committed to rebuilding at a time when they were still capable of contending: with liriano in the fold, i felt comfortable saying that they had the best 1-2 in the AL. with hunter/mauer/delmon/morneau in the lineup, they were able to get it done.
but they couldn't resign hunter. i felt it was ok- hunter was overrated offensively and was way too expensive. but i thought that they needed to pretend that they could compete one more year with santana. i know that the al is nightmarish; there are seven very talented teams in the al, and the central is scary. i know all these things, but santana/liriano are equalizers. that's reality.
so the twins gambled and sold santana to the nl. i guess the logic was that jon lester was perhaps not enough value, and that phil hughes might have injury issues. and there's some strategy in keeping santana out of the al; one, it doesn't throw competitive balance out of whack, and two, if teams aren't offering full value anyway (boston, e.g.) then one deal is as good as another.
because of this problem, the twins ended up with phil humber and kevin mulvey, two guys who will likely get some action this year as fourth and fifth starters, because the twins have to replace carlos silva. liriano is the ace, bonser is the two, slowey/baker are three and four. whatever. there's a lot of uncertainty there, but that's what you get.
the twins talked themselves into deolis guerra as the premium guy. is that the truth? well, it's a thought experiment. if an 18-year old, erratic (but talented) latin pitcher is ever going to be the guy, why not guerra? the caveat, of course, is that this generally doesn't work.
the hope is that carlos gomez figures out the bat. i don't know much, but i do know that coco crisp was boston's way of making their problem minnesota's. so kudos to the twins for rejecting that idea. if crisp isn't going to hit in the majors, then carlos gomez is just as good because he's much cheaper. i'll buy that.
and the yankees wanted to have melky cabrera as a centerpiece with phil hughes. sorry, but hughes is far from guaranteed, and melky cabrera seems an awful lot like a guy whose ceiling is pretty finite. does anybody see melky cabrera and think "all-star?" if not, then what's the difference between him and, say, jason kubel?
in retrospect, it's not so hard to see why the twins took the mets' deal instead of boston's or new york's- boston's deal was always of low value, while the yankees' deal had quite a bit of variance.
but as a fan, i feel shortchanged. because i still don't understand why the twins had to deal santana at all.
the feelings are arbitrary. i have cheered for the giants in the nfc because i felt like eli manning had taken a lot of unfair criticism throughout his career, and i felt like he was a true phoenix who could rise from the ashes. plus, i hate tiki barber for criticizing a young player for not being a leader. who can recall the giants taking ron dayne in 2000 because they felt like tiki wasn't an every down back? that's me. tiki was four years into his career, and he essentially had the same exact time series path that eli had. the strange thing is that i don't even like the giants. i never have, but cheering for them this year was the 'right' thing.
in the same vein, i loosely cheer for the spurs in basketball, although i'm open to other possibilities. i cheer for the hawks and the bucks because i like michael redd and joe johnson. i have some nostalgia for the nuggets and marcus camby. but game by game, i tend to pick who i cheer for sort of randomly. pacers/mavs? i'll cheer for someone, but it won't be for any defined reason. definition has its place, but not in leisure.
but i break my rule for baseball, where i cheer whole-heartedly for the minnesota twins. i never lived in minnesota, but i loved kirby puckett when i was younger, i was incensed about possible contraction, and i loved the resurgence of the small market. plus, there's the griffey baseball effect.
so when i found out that the twins traded johan santana to the mets, i was hurt. i felt as if the twins had committed to rebuilding at a time when they were still capable of contending: with liriano in the fold, i felt comfortable saying that they had the best 1-2 in the AL. with hunter/mauer/delmon/morneau in the lineup, they were able to get it done.
but they couldn't resign hunter. i felt it was ok- hunter was overrated offensively and was way too expensive. but i thought that they needed to pretend that they could compete one more year with santana. i know that the al is nightmarish; there are seven very talented teams in the al, and the central is scary. i know all these things, but santana/liriano are equalizers. that's reality.
so the twins gambled and sold santana to the nl. i guess the logic was that jon lester was perhaps not enough value, and that phil hughes might have injury issues. and there's some strategy in keeping santana out of the al; one, it doesn't throw competitive balance out of whack, and two, if teams aren't offering full value anyway (boston, e.g.) then one deal is as good as another.
because of this problem, the twins ended up with phil humber and kevin mulvey, two guys who will likely get some action this year as fourth and fifth starters, because the twins have to replace carlos silva. liriano is the ace, bonser is the two, slowey/baker are three and four. whatever. there's a lot of uncertainty there, but that's what you get.
the twins talked themselves into deolis guerra as the premium guy. is that the truth? well, it's a thought experiment. if an 18-year old, erratic (but talented) latin pitcher is ever going to be the guy, why not guerra? the caveat, of course, is that this generally doesn't work.
the hope is that carlos gomez figures out the bat. i don't know much, but i do know that coco crisp was boston's way of making their problem minnesota's. so kudos to the twins for rejecting that idea. if crisp isn't going to hit in the majors, then carlos gomez is just as good because he's much cheaper. i'll buy that.
and the yankees wanted to have melky cabrera as a centerpiece with phil hughes. sorry, but hughes is far from guaranteed, and melky cabrera seems an awful lot like a guy whose ceiling is pretty finite. does anybody see melky cabrera and think "all-star?" if not, then what's the difference between him and, say, jason kubel?
in retrospect, it's not so hard to see why the twins took the mets' deal instead of boston's or new york's- boston's deal was always of low value, while the yankees' deal had quite a bit of variance.
but as a fan, i feel shortchanged. because i still don't understand why the twins had to deal santana at all.
posted by mike at 12:30 PM
3 Comments:
I've never understood the thought process behind trading away a superstar in his prime for unproven prospects; no matter how high their ceiling's are. We're talking a Hall of Fame caliber pitcher here. Maybe if the guy was at the end of his career, then it would make sense. Or, if he just had a few good years left in the tank. Santana is only 28! Trading him should not have even been considered. Getting him signed and wrapped up for the rest of his career would have been what a smart GM would have done. This trade just disgusts me on so many levels.
I'm not sure how the Twins could have "wrapped up" Santana. Here are the top 6 paid guys on the twins from last year:
1. Johan Santana 13,000,000
2. Joe Nathan 5,250,000
3. Craig Monroe 4,775,000
4. Justin Morneau 4,500,000
5. Joe Mauer 3,750,000
6. Michael Cuddyer 3,575,000
The Twins would have had to have upped Santana's salary by $10 mil a year + incentives. Let's assume for a second that Twins are willing to up their payroll by that much. Then they are going to lose Morneau and Mauer who are going to pull new contracts in a year or two.
I guess it's just a question of who you want to build a team around. The thing about the Twins, is that as a small market team, they aren't going to be able to just go out and get the players they need every year to compete. Santana has voiced displeasure with this fact in the past. I think to put this on the Twins is a bit hasty. Santana all but demanded this trade. I'm not saying he would have decided not to play for the Twins or something like that, but he would not have resigned. The Twins just can't put a team around him if they give him the money he wants. I mean the only way you can decide to keep if you think there is some sure shot at a pennant this year, right? Unfortunately, the American League is stacked.
I'm not sure about the people who say Santana is headed for arm trouble in the next few season even though he is 28. But if anyone would know about that, wouldn't that be the Twins? I guess not being a Twins fan, it's easier for me to give them the benefit of the doubt than to insist they keep Santana. Besides, most offseason trades can't be judged for at least a year, if not more. We'll see how the Twins turn out.
I kind of have to plead ignorance here. Was Santana's contract up this year, next year or the year after?
Even if they can't afford him and he wanted out if they had him under contract then they should have kept him on their team for as long as they could. His trade value is always going to be the same. If his contract runs up at the end of this season then why not keep him up until near the trade deadline and the pennant race and then deal him? (or not deal him depending on where the Twins stand).
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