Santana Deal Likely After the New Year

A certain team is about to receive a new pitcher at the beginning of the New Year. That new pitcher is none other then Johan Santana and at the current asking price, that team should not be the New York Yankees. The Twins have now stated that they plan to deal Santana after the start of the New Year and unless the Yankees intend to add Ian Kennedy to their deal of Phil Hughes and Melky Cabrera then the Twins intend to take the Red Sox offer of Jon Lester, Coco Crisp, Jed Lowrie, and Justin Masterson. It’s painfully obvious that the Twins are just playing the Yankees and Red Sox against each other and if this is what they plan to do then both teams, especially the Yankees, should just walk away. They know that the Yankees fear a Boston rotation with Santana and Josh Beckett and believe they can get them to cave into their demands to avoid facing Santana six or seven times a season for the next decade. The whole Santana fest has been a constant battle for control between the Yankees and the Twins. Hank Steinbrenner did the same thing when he set his deadline for the Twins to accept the Yankees offer which has long since passed, and yet like most of Hank’s edicts it does not appear to be as final as he makes it sound. Hank has already stated that the Yankees are not out of the Santana race, despite his deadline passing, but the Yankees would be wise to only do this deal on their terms and not the Twins. Giving up one of the big pitchers to get a deal done may be worth it but to give up two of them would not be worth it. I don’t have much to base this on but I don’t think the Twins intend to accept the Red Sox offer as it is now since to anyone with some baseball knowledge should realize that the Red Sox current offer is inferior to the Yankees offer. The Twins likely know this as well and are just trying to get the best offer they can out of the Yankees. If you look at it this way, no one should argue that Phil Hughes is better then Jon Lester and Melky Cabrera is better then Coco Crisp. Jed Lowrie is a nice shortstop prospect but isn’t as good as Jose Tabata and is close in value to Austin Jackson. The only difference is that the Twins have a bigger whole at shortstop then in the outfield. The biggest disparigy would seem to be between Justin Masterson one of the other pitchers the Yankees could offer. Masterson does not appear like a very special pitcher at all, as he’s recorded ERA’s of over four in three of his four stops in his pro career. Alan Horne and Jeffrey Marquez, among others, have much more impressive statistics to offer then Masterson. So this act of gamesmanship by the Twins should not fool the Yankees, as they won’t take an inferior offer just because they didn’t get what they wanted from the Yankees. They seem to forget that they don’t have to trade Santana, they could just try to win with him this year, even if it won’t be easy with Detroit and Cleveland in their division.