On this date two years ago, the Mets and Twins agreed to a five player deal sending two-time Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana to New York. The Mets and Santana had a 72-hour window to finalize a contract extension, and the two sides eventually agreed to a six-year, $137.5MM contract to make the trade official. Santana has given the Mets over 400 innings of 2.78 ERA ball, while just one of the four players the Twins received in the deal is still with the organization.
Here's some links from around the baseball blogosphere…
- Blogging Mets isn't sure where the Mets can turn for pitching help now that Jon Garland and Ben Sheets are off the market.
- The Baseball Opinion wonders if the Sheets and Justin Duchscherer signings were calculated moves by Billy Beane made with the intention of flipping both at the trade deadline.
- Royals Authority takes a look a Kansas City's crowded outfield.
- Camden Crazies goes through some different roster permutations for the Orioles.
- The Sports Banter comes up with some possible destinations for Johnny Damon.
- Meanwhile, U.S.S. Mariner thinks Damon would be a cost effective way to upgrade Seattle's roster.
- Rays Index takes the latest Rays' rumors as a sign that they're still trying to trade Pat Burrell.
- Pro Ball NW gives us five reasons why the Mariners should trade Jose Lopez.
- TAUNTR chimes in on some of the latest hot stove news.
If you have a suggestion for this feature, Mike can be reached here.
Well I agree the return on Santana was pretty poor it looks like the Twins may have gotten the most out of it by dealing Kevin Mulvey for Jon Rauch, and Carlos Gomez for J.J. Hardy. So essentially we got Rauch, Hardy, and Deolis Guerra for Johan which makes this look a little better.
Even though Guerra is just 20, he was pretty terrible after the trade.
And even with that amended trade, it’s still not a good deal (though certainly better).
No, we didn’t.
We got Gomez, Mulvey, and Guerra for Santana. I am opposed on principle to the “6 Degrees of Johan Santana” game. It wasn’t until over a year later we got Rauch and two years later we got Hardy.
By your logic, for instance, you could say we got Casilla in 2005 for Viola in 1988.
Just because Smith made a good deal in 2009 for Hardy is completely independent of the bad deal he made for Santana in 2008.
“you could say we got Casilla in 2005 for Viola in 1988.”
That’s just nonsense… Casilla was traded for Romero in 2005. Romero was drafted by the Twins.
It was just a “for instance”. Didn’t mean to imply it was an example. Point is that you could keep linking the flipping ad nauseum.
If I buy $100 worth of stock in BestBuy, and over the course of a year it tanks to $20, I made a bad investment. If I sell that stock and reinvest my $20 into HomeDepot, and that rises to $200, that’s a good investment. But what’s being proposed is the BestBuy was a good investment because it resulted in $200. Nonsense.
Heh, I know, I was more being sarcastic which is harder to do when people can’t hear the tone of your voice. That said, in the short run saying something like the players received in a 2008 trade have become this in a 2010 is at least interesting to see as an outcome and you can simply make the arugment that the GM played his cards as well as he could. But yes, when you keep going back and back then it just makes no sense. Hell, give me enough time and a lose interpretation of the rules and I’ll be able to show you how the Red Sox selling Babe Ruth in 1918 helped them win the series in 2004.
Actually its not nonsense. Those players may have nothing to do with eachother, but i got his overall point. People cant keep flipping players after a busted traded to make that trade look even better. Cuz in ’08 there’s no way the Brewers trade JJ Hardy for Carlos Gomez
We’ve had this conversation before, and while I see why you’re opposed to this on principle, I still think that within a generation or two of player moves, the overall strategy of a GM can come into play.
That being said, I still think the Twins ended upon the losing side of this deal. Not that it helped much dealing from very weak position…
Aye. Even if you say “Johan for Hardy/Rausch/Guerra”, it’s still pretty painful. Maybe the 2008 version of Hardy would have cut a little less deep, but let’s be real – at this point Hardy is a “let’s hope 2008 wasn’t a fluke and he can return to that form” guy.
What stings me the most is we didn’t even get *ONE* top-prospect or MLB-calibre player out of the deal. I gotta believe Boston would have given us *ONE* of Papelbon/Lester/Bucholtz, or NYY *ONE* of Chamberlain/Hughes.
Even if JJ Hardy regains his form from 2-3 years ago, this deal is still not great. If I was BIll Smith, I’d ask for more… I bet Omar might consider it.
Guerra has completely fallen off the prospect lists as well. I believe he didn’t even rank in the Twins top 10 in the recent Baseball America.
I just assumed Beane signed Sheets to flip. Why else does he sign any player to a 1-year deal?
Why sign Sheets to a 1-year deal?
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Oakland is actually looking at having a shot at making the playoffs this year. With the perennial Angels widely viewed as having lost more than they added this off-season, Seattle sure is being aggressive and seeing the division as winnable. Texas as well. Maybe Oakland thinks they’ve got a shot that their young pieces gel together this year, and they’re just an ace away from being right in the mix?
Flipping him could be their Plan B.
The A’s offense is behind both the Angels(even after losing Figgins and Vlad, they still have Morales, Kendrick, Rivera, Napoli and Abreu, which tops what the A’s will put out) and the Rangers. Granted, their rotation is much improved, and might be better than the Angels, but I don’t think the A’s are quite there yet. I think Beane is gambling that Sheets pitches well, and the A’s will be 10 games out of first in July, at which point he flips Sheets to a contending team.
Oh, I agree that’s probable.
Just throwing another possibility out there.
The A’s had a below average offense (and traded away Holliday; I don’t recall any upgrade this off-season) and slightly above average pitching that they are adding Sheets to, who has a history of arm problems and nobody has any concrete idea whether he’ll be back to normal after not playing for over a year and a half.
If he thinks that’s going to improve the team enough to compete, I don’t see how with the Angels and Mariners looking like the class of the division.
If he thinks he can flip Sheets mid-season, that’s a $10M bet he just made that Sheets won’t crumble either physically or performance (now that he’s 31, on the usual downside physically) in 2010. Sheets has played a full season only once in the past 5 seasons. That’s quite a gamble he just made, then, on the advice of his training staff.
I don’t see how anyone can say Tex improved their rotation. It will be the same as last year with the exception of having Harden tax the heck out of their bulpen. Sea was awful offensively last year (I believe worse than the A’s in runs scored), and they subtract their biggest power threat. They have two pitchers at the top of their rotation and nothing else after that in the rotation or pen. Angels have questions all around the diamond, as do the A’s. I don’t see this as a horrible move wtih great upside. Duke, Sheets, Anderson have as much potential (if Healhty) as any of the top threes of any team in the division.
i think Texas made their bullpen stronger & their rotation a little weaker by trading Millwood to Baltimore for Chris Ray, then signing Harden
People need to remember a few things about the Santana trade. Smith was screwed going into it. Santana was only open to the yanks, Mets and Red Sox. Add to that the Red Sox and yanks were both more circling around Santana to make sure the other wouldn’t actually pull the trigger. So all things considered, Smith does seem to have salvaged what he could…
Then again a 2008 Twins squad, waiting for 2 draft picks from Santana’s up coming FA would have been better off replacing the 35 starts between Bonser and Hernandez with Santana… not to mention despite Santana’s insistance not to be traded midseason, some compensation might have been available considering the Mets, Red Sox, and yanks were all trailing in their division at the trade deadline. Just food for thought.
Smith screwed himself. Yes, he was between a rock and a hard place because of Santana’s preferences, but he should have been able to play the Red Sox off of the Yankees, letting each know that he was leaning towards the other team, can they sweeten the offer, then take the best offer once both sides stop budging. I don’t recall all the packages being offered reportedly, but they were better than what they got from the Mets from what I recall. Smith shot himself in the foot by waiting longer.
It was fairly widely understood that Lester was on the table, but the stumbling block was the additional pieces that would be included. I’ve heard the Twins wanted Masterson and Buchholtz, but the Sox wouldn’t include both – but it’s just rumor.
But whatever the secondary pieces were, Lester alone would have been a far better yield than the three bum pitchers (Humber was straight up cut a year later, and Mulvey was equitable to a middle-relief pitcher without upside!) and erratic OF they received.
Twins Vet- Yes, Smith in fact made this trade less crappy by dealing for more quality players that should be contributors on the team this year.
The Casilla/Viola trades would be excluded because it was 2 different GM’s that made those moves MacPhail/Ryan.
Although the trade with the Mets turned out to be a dud, he did help his career transactions by dealing some of those players for likely contributors (but yes, he does have a pretty poor trade history other than the Rauch/Mahay deals and Hardy is still unproven on the Twins).
You seem to be contracting yourself a bit.
You’re first point is “Smith made the trade less crappy by flipping 1-2 years later”.
Your final point is the Hardy deal “helped his career transactions”. That’s where I agree. Smith made a bad deal in 2008, but a good one in 2009. It may make give him a net-gain (and thereby make him a good GM), but it doesn’t mean the 2008 deal still wasn’t a bad deal. Minaya got one over on him; he dumped off a couple of lousy pitchers and an erratic OF. Period.
He dealt lousy pleayers from a bad trade for better players. How does that not improve how Bill Smith is perceived as a deal maker?
I’m agreeing with that. It means he’s salvaged his reputation, to some degree.
What I take issue with is when people say “Johan wasn’t a bad trade because we got Hardy”.
I understand where you’re coming from and I almost think we’re on the same page but my point is that without the players we acquired for Johan we would not have acquired Rauch/Hardy.
TwinsVet isn’t saying that makes Bill Smith look like a worse deal maker, just that you have to examine each trade in a vacuum. One bad trade in 08, one good trade in 09.
Perhaps the Ms and Mets should swap Lopez for Castillo plus money/pieces.
Lopez can play both 2B and 1B, and Castillo’s defense would be valued in Seattle.
Castillo’s defense has been in decline for quite some time.
Yeah the Twins really messed up on that trade getting near nothing back for Santana..can’t win them all/
If the M’s move lopez it will be to sign hudson.