Minaya, Mets Steal Johan
Mets GM Omar Minaya Deals For Santana, as Yanks and Sox Stand Pat
The Mets get the ace they were looking for, after the Yankees and Red Sox decide to hold on to prospects.
Omar Minaya didn’t blink when Minnesota GM Bill Smith requested top prospect and baseball prodigy Fernando Martinez. Minaya wanted to improve his rotation, but he would only trade for Johan Santana on his terms.
Minaya knew the situation. Yankees owner Hank Steinbrenner was out to make a statement. He took the Yankees out of the running after refusing to include top prospects Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes into a deal for Santana. However, at the price the Mets received Santana for, Steinbrenner ended up looking more foolish than anything else. Hughes, is the Yankees’ prized pitching prospect, and if Steinbrenner had approved of a deal with him, Melky Cabrera, and a lesser prospect, the Yankees could have been winners of the Santana sweepstakes. It is true that Hughes is one of the top pitching prospects in the league, but it is also hard to believe that the injury-prone pitcher would ever become the dominant ace that Santana is right now.
The Yankees could have easily afforded to give up Cabrera, who many don’t believe to be much better than a fourth outfielder. The 23-year-old outfielder is expendable with the Yankees having Bobby Abreu, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui and Shelly Duncan to man the three outfield positions, and with Jason Giambi manning the DH spot in their lineup. Cabrera’s production actually dropped, he went from a .751 OPS in 2006 to a .718 OPS in 2007. His lack of production in 2007 was due in large part to his abysmal .327 on base percentage. Cabrera has taken a step back in his approach at the plate, and Steinbrenner’s unwillingness to trade one great prospect, an average outfielder, and another low-level prospect for baseball’s best pitcher was clearly a mistake. The Yankees could have had Santana if they only gave up one player of high value: Hughes.
Steinbrenner and the Yankees are not the only losers in the Santana sweepstakes. Smith and the Twins waited too long to get fair value in return for Santana. He could have pitted the three big market teams involved in the Santana talks, Mets, Red Sox, and Yankees, up against one another. When the talks dragged on, both the Yankees and Red Sox became uninterested in giving up players like Hughes, Jon Lester, and Jacoby Ellsbury. If the Red Sox were serious about getting Santana, then the Yankees would have been, too. And vice versa. However, the talks never got too serious on either side, and as long as their AL East rival was not involved, both the Yankees and Red Sox were content with not landing the ace. This put the ball in Minaya’s court and put Smith between a rock and a hard place.
In Queens, Minaya is the toast of the town after giving up four good, not great, prospects for the Venezuelan lefty. Minaya played his cards right. He understood that the Red Sox and Yankees were reluctant to trade their prospects, and he would not allow Smith to get him to bid against himself. If Minaya decided not to make a deal with Minnesota, than the Twins would get one more year out of Santana, then they would lose him to free agency, and get no players in return for him—so Smith was at Minaya’s mercy.
The Mets gave up four good players: Carlos Gomez, Deolis Guerra, Philip Humber, and Kevin Mulvey. However, these players would not be anywhere near what the Twins’ could get in return for Santana if they traded him, say, at last year’s trade deadline. Carlos Gomez is a speedy outfielder, with lots of raw talent. He has a very high ceiling, but it would not be shocking if he ends up being a defensive replacement/pinch running specialist. If he does not improve his plate discipline, he will never hit enough to be a productive major league player. He is still very young and he has plenty of time to develop into a good hitter. Guerra is a 6-5, 19-year old with a great frame. However, it is hard to project how any minor league pitcher will turn out— it is especially hard to project 19-year-old pitchers. Humber is a 25-year-old with a Tommy John elbow surgery on his resume—something that does not bode well for a pitching prospect. Humber had a decent 2007 season in Triple-A New Orleans, but is a little bit behind schedule, now at the age of 25 and without ever getting a real taste of the major leagues. Kevin Mulvey’s stock rose very high in 2007. He pitched to a 3.20 ERA in Double-A Binghamton last year. However, both Mulvey and Humber project to only back-of-the-rotation starters. The chances of either of them approaching Santana-like production are very slim.
Minaya did not give up any “can’t miss” prospects. Earlier this offseason, the Arizona Diamondbacks traded six of their top 10 prospects in exchange for Oakland pitcher Dan Haren and a minor leaguer. This group of prospects was headlined by outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, Arizona’s top prospect. That cost is much higher than what it took Minaya to get Santana, for a pitcher with a much smaller resume than Santana. This is more evidence that Smith waited too long to get rid of Santana.
Gomez and Guerra make appearances in both Keith Law’s Top 100 prospects of 2008 list and Baseball Prospectus’ “Top 100 Prospects,” due to their raw talents and projectability, but they are far from sure-fire all-stars.
