Feeling Lazy/Johan

I'm not in the mood to think much today so I will just rip others off instead.

I know some of you crave daily Johan Santana updates...today we've got a blurb from Charley Walters:

The Twins say they're not panicking while holding out for the best deal for Johan Santana. But word within baseball circles is that offers by the New York Yankees (no more Phil Hughes) and Boston Red Sox are diminishing by the week. Best bet now for a trade of the two-time Cy Young Award winner appears to be with the New York Mets in a deal that would not include fast-rising hitter Fernando Martinez.

Yikes - from those solid Yankee/Red Sox offers to a Martinez-less Mets package? If that happens then I would say Bill Smith overplayed his hand. Kat O'Brien recently talked to Smith, but wasn't able to get much out of him. She believes the Yanks, Red Sox, and Mets "all retain some interest."

Also in regards to the topic, people never quite understand when Keith Law and others say you are only paying the Twins for one year of Santana. However, Vince Gennaro goes over it in some detail laying out why Johan simply does not or did not have the value of Dan Haren despite being the best pitcher in the universe.

Free agents own their rights, so virtually all value accrues to the player. At the other end of the spectrum is a player such as Miguel Cabrera, who is under team control for another two years. The Florida Marlins were able to extract value from the Detroit Tigers because the Marlins were passing along control of a valuable asset. The Twins are caught between those two scenarios. Santana is only one season from free agency, so much of his value is shifting from the team to the player, yet the Twins seem to be pricing Santana as if he has two or three years remaining until free agency. This trade is basically free-agent signing with a tariff tacked on – a payment to the Twins in the form of promising low-salaried prospects in exchange for the right to sign Santana to a long-term contract without a bidding war.

If Santana had the patience to enforce his no-trade clause and insist on playing the final year of his contract in Minnesota, he could get all the spoils next offseason by becoming a free agent rather than sharing his bounty with the Twins. The Twins are demanding a substantial tariff for the right to pay Santana market wages. In effect, they're asking the team to pay twice. And in this case the tariff may cost nearly as much as the goods.

This is why Omar needs to stand pat in not giving up Fernando. People may look at the Mets offer of Gomez, Guerra, Humber, and Mulvey and think it is not all that great, but people need to understand what the Twins are actually giving up and the overall risk involved on the Mets end if they end up taking Santana on.

One factor working in favor of a trade is the Twins' unwillingness to pony up the dollars to sign Santana to a long-term deal, which eventually could prompt them to lower their demands. On the other end of the deal, a team desperate for Santana could ignore the dramatic financial value created by developing front line pitching internally and take on the injury risk associated with giving a long-term deal to a starting pitcher who has averaged 228 innings over the past four years.

I think it is safe to chuckle when people claim the Mets are not giving up enough. If you look at the big picture, the Mets are giving up quite enough and by some estimations too much. The Yankees were reluctant to give up Hughes and spare parts and the Red Sox package was an extremely good one giving the circumstances. The Mets deal might not fit into their '08/'09 model, but it certainly can turn into a good deal. We just will not know if it is or is not for a few year from now.

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The White Sox continue to buy relievers and Octavio Dotel will be in their 2008 bullpen. A two year deal for a set-up man for a fringe team may seem excessive, but Kenny is always going for it.

I would have loved Dotel on the Mets, but the bullpen picture is fairly full right now and I understand why they stopped at Matt Wise and their Rule 5 pick Steven Register, who was just moved into the bullpen last season.

It is early in the year, but my friend already tossed out what might be the quote of the year. Usually when I go out on Mondays, I stay out too late and get too drunk resulting in a bad day at work. Last night marked a night of steel resolve and a hard deadline. The end result was me not being hung over and ready to work. I wanted to commend my friend on his wisdom.

Me: You are a wise man.
Friend: how so?
Friend: My ass hurts today from buffalo sauce. I don't think that's a trait of a wise man

Perhaps I overestimated his intelligence.