USA Today: Santana going to Mets

[IFallsRon]

By Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY

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.

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.

The deal would give the Mets the much-needed ace at the front of their rotation. Santana won the American League Cy Young Award in 2004 and 2006 and is 93-44 lifetime. He went 15-13 with a 3.33 ERA for the Twins last season. Santana has struck out at least 235 batters each of the past four seasons.

While the deal drains much of the talent out of the Mets' farm system, they did manage to hold on to top prospect Fernando Martinez, an outfielder. Instead, they headed the package with Gomez, who turned 22 in December and spent 58 games with the Mets last year.

Gomez is what scouts like to call a five-tool player, a combination of offensive ability that includes power and speed as well as an above-average defensive game and a strong arm. He has worked to cut down a strikeout rate that was high during the early part of a minor league career that began in 2004 after the Mets signed him out of the Dominican Republic. He made his major league debut last May and hit .232.

Humber, 25, is the Mets' 2004 first-round pick who has made five major league appearances, including one start, over the past two seasons. He won 11 games at Class AAA last season, his first full year after having Tommy John surgery in 2005.

Santana would give the Mets the best rotation in the NL East after they missed out on the division title by one game thanks to a historic September collapse. He'd likely be joined by Pedro Martinez, John Maine, Oliver Perez and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez.

The Twins, meanwhile, would see yet another young star they produced leave the organization. Their Gold Glove outfielder, Torii Hunter, left for the Los Angeles Angels this offseason. Gomez would be a candidate to replace him in center field.

[Eric Wettschreck]

Get-r-done and get on with the season!!!

[Scott M]

The Minnesota Twins-Get to know em! (Before they're gone!)

Wow, amazing farm system we're running here. I think we can win AAA this year.

[Eric Wettschreck]

If this trade actually happens it will be talked about, pro and con, for years.

Santana didn't want to play in Minnesota. Might as well get the best price you can for the dude.

[Kyle Sandberg]

So sad to see him go. He was a great piture. Looks like we'll be starting all over again.

[Coach1310]

IF the report is accurate it is crazy to see that at first we were looking for.... Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Milkey Cabrera or John Lester, Jacoby Elsbury and a prospect..... and what do we get....a supposed 5 tool up and comer who hasn't proven himself in the big leagues and 3 pitching prospects! Its funny how the values change.

[ozzie]

It is not that he didn't want to play in sota it is that we can't pay him the 129 million over 7 years that the players union is pushing on him to get!!! The prospects that we are getting are all talked about as being "ok" not great so this trade is poor IMO.....I think I would rather put a 5 additional years at 100mil ( so 6 at 113) contract on the table and go into the season with him as your started and hopefully he agrees, a better trade comes up or he goes to free agency and you get 2 first round picks and go with them........They couldn't even get the Mets #1 outfield prospect??!!!

[Scott K]

I think this was one of the worst offers the Twins had for him, but if he wanted out, there wasnt much we could have done. I hate to see him go, but I am glad he isnt a yankee!

[Burnham]

cant be true, that would be against our rules of sending an all star to anywhere other than boston! just kiddin ..maybe he'll take the randy moss route and just get traded from the mets to there

[Dahitman44]

Should have gotten better.

[bassNspear]

i dont think they made a good trade. I have never heard of any of them guys, and i follow baseball for many years. I just hope that it will all work out for the twins. There losing a awesome pitcher, and i believe with the farm system that they are running, there going to be able to handle it well.

[Jarrod32]

Yeah, the offers from the Yanks and the Red Sox may have been a bit better...but on the other hand...there is something to be said for trading him out of the American League...

[lawdog]

The best price we could have got for him was gone months ago when we sat on our hands and made no trade when the Yanks and the Red Sox were both drooling to beat each other to him. This is a very undervalued return for the best pitcher in baseball.

I'm just sick about this... We got less than value in this "blockbuster" than the Vikes got trading Moss for Williamson!

[harvey lee]

I agree Dog, we recieved something but not what we might have been able to get.

I guess we recieved something. The Twins are a farm system for the majors as we seem to lose so many because of cash.

[grousehunter]

haha...nothing can be worse then williamson. the prospects could be really good, or could suck. We will have to wait and see. I think Gomez(1 year)he will be a good leadoff hitter and is the fastest player in mlb right now, aslo very good deffensive. and Guerrer(in about 5 years) will end up being good. humber was the number 3 overall pick and is just getting healthy from tommy john season, but i dont have that much faith in him... We do have really good scouts for the twins, so i think they somewhat knew what they were doing.

[92python]

Hopefully it will work out like the Viola to the Mets trade. I think we got Aguilera, Tapani,and David West.

[zepman]

Harvey, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. The Twins have done a decent job retaining it's players over the years(Puckett, Hrbek, now Morneau/Cuddy/Mauer. Ya sure we lost a couple of our "core" guys from the previous decade but these guys did not want to play for the Twins anymore. Both Hunter and Santana went to teams in a huge market. You didn't see teams knocking the door down for Hunter's services at 90 million asking price. The Angels were one of a select group of teams that could and would actually pay him this kind of $$$. I'm glad the Twins didn't make much of an effort to resign him---he's not worth anything close to this at this point in his career. Santana turned down a 5 year/100 million offer from the Twins recently. That's why they had to move on this deal. It was either now or never. I don't think losing a player after offering him 100 million is acting like a minor league team. You can't sign someone who doesn't want to be here. Let's give the Twins a chance on this trade. They have a pretty decent history of making trades work out and competing in their division long into the season. That's not bad when you start to look at some of the other teams payrolls and rosters.

[wingnut38]

this trade reminds me of a quote from the movie major league. " who are these f@!?ing guys?" the new gm looks like an einstein doesn't he. i know they weren't going to sign santana, but they panicked when the sox and yanks flexed their muscles and stepped out of negotiations, so they GIVE santana to the mets. merry christmas mets.

[slim1]

seems we are the farm system for all other teams, be it baseball, basketball or what ever

[DonBo]

I agree with Zep here. The Twins have a pretty good recent history of doing the best they can with what is available to them with regards to their payroll. They do have a great scouting system and always seem to find great players that no one else could spot. Sure, it would be nice to spend a ton of money and stock up on a bunch of big name, big value players, but that is just not going to happen here.

I don't believe they had much of a shot at this 2008 season anyway, lets see what these prospects can do and hope for 2009 and beyond.

[fishyguy]

The new word is Johan gave the Twins an ultimatum yesterday that if they did not get the deal done right now he would invoke his no trade clause and the Twins would possibly been stuck with getting nothing for him after this year.

The new GM got the poker stare down from Johan and his agent and didn't have what it took to call his bluff and took what he could get

[Coach Dog]

It has been evident that Santana would not have signed with us anyway. I believe I heard that the twins offered him 4 years and $80 million. That was a great offer for this organization, but not quite what he wanted. So basically we lost Santana for the 2008 season (he'd be gone after that anyway) and we got 4 prospects in return. We're really not going to know for 2-3 or more years on how these prospects turn out, but this organization has done a great job in the past bringing young players up, so we'll see.

I guess I don't have an opinion either way. I hated to see both Johan and Torri go, but hopefully it'll all pay off.

[UdeLakeTom]

Exactly...did anybody hear of Liriano and Boof when we traded AJ?

[hamrej23]

This will also free up money for Nathan and possibly down the road of signing Francisco if he stays healthy to a long term deal.

[ozzie]

Regarding his poker stare down...we could have countered and started him every 4 games and pitched him 250+ innings and wore him out...that is called a re-raise!!!