MY BASEBALL BIAS

While we wait for the Mets and Santana to dot the i’s and cross the t’s of a contract extension, I thought we’d take a look at what people are saying about the trade and what the future holds for the Yankees after abstaining from obtaining the Cy Young lefty.

I find it interesting that Jim Callis of Baseball America, the one guy who actually follows the minor leagues, is not getting more press this morning in the papers and the blogosphere. Here is what he had to say about the package of players the Twins are getting:

Minnesota might be better off if those talks collapse, giving new Twins GM Bill Smith a chance to find a better return for Santana. While he’s going to command possibly the richest contract ever given to a pitcher, Santana is the best pitcher in the game. And Smith didn’t get enough for him.

Guerra (No. 2), Gomez (No. 3), Mulvey (No. 4) and Humber (No. 7) all ranked prominently on our Mets Top 10 Prospects list. But there’s simply too much risk involved in this deal for Minnesota.

The two best prospects in the trade, Guerra and Gomez, come with high ceilings but also lack a lot of polish and have a long ways to go to reach their potential. The odds that they both will do so are slim.

Guerra has an 89-94 mph fastball and a promising changeup and he’s only 18. But he also has a below-average breaking ball, has yet to pitch more than 90 innings in a season and while he has held his own, he hasn’t dominated. Gomez had the best package of tools in the Mets system, but his bat is still extemely raw as evidenced by his career .273/.331/.384 averages in the minors.

Mulvey has an arsenal of four average pitches and throws strikes. He’s not overpowering and he’s most likely a No. 4 starter. Since having Tommy John surgery in 2005, Humber hasn’t fully regained the stuff that made him the No. 3 overall pick in the 2004 draft. His curveball is his best pitch but his fastball now sits at 87-91 mph. He too projects as a No. 4 starter.

So let’s see here, according to Callis the Twins received two guys with “high ceilings” who lack polish and two guys who don’t project out to be more that “No. 4 starters”? When I read Callis’s post yesterday I felt like calling Omar Minaya myself and congratulating him for finding a sucker to take those players. Guerra and Gomez seem like they have a better chance of success than Humber and Mulvey, but still, Bill Smith did a bad job here in my opinion.

Aaron Gleeman give us a glimpse from the perspective of someone who follows the Twins closely:

…getting Gomez, Guerra, Mulvey, and Humber from the Mets likely beats keeping Santana for one more season and taking a pair of draft picks when he departs as a free agent. A toolsy center fielder who hasn’t shown much offensively, a very raw 18-year-old pitcher, and a pair of MLB-ready middle-of-the-rotation starters is no one’s idea of a great haul for Santana, but it’s not a horrible one and Smith may have backed himself into a corner by not jumping on better offers immediately.

The end result of a bad situation handled poorly is a mediocre package of players that has no one excited, but even acquiring Hughes or Ellsbury wouldn’t have made losing Santana easy to live with. Trading away one of the best players in franchise history while he’s still at the top of his game is a horrible thing and doing so without getting the best possible return for him is extremely disappointing, but the Santana trade still has a chance to work out in the Twins’ favor. It just could have been better.

If the reports are accurate, that the Yankees really did have a package of Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera and a prospect on the table and the Red Sox had two packages, one centered around Jacoby Ellsbury and one around Jon Lester, then yes, the Twins really could have done better. Hughes, one of the top three pitching prospects in all of baseball, was dangled out there before the Winter Meetings, ripe for the taking. All Smith had to do was check with the Red Sox and see if they wanted to up there offer. But he overplayed his hand. Yes that’s right, I said it, he overplayed his hand. You can say he was patient or just fielding all the offers, but the fact is he held on to Santana too long and interest from the Red Sox and Yankees waned.

The Yankees, well, more like Hank Steinbrenner, was quite desperate to make a splash for Santana. I believe he would have pulled the trigger on a deal back before the meetings began because he wanted a big name. Having to wait like he did gave GM Brian Cashman and his brother the Hal the chance to talk him out of it from two different fronts - don’t trade the young talent we’ve developed (Cashman’s argument) and let us have some financial restraint (Hal’s argument). In the end, Hank held on and I think he Yankees will be better for it. Certainly if the Mets are winning Championships across town and if the Yankees are playing second fiddle to the Red Sox and if the prospects don’t live up to expectations, then sure, maybe you should have made a deal. But isn’t that a lot of if’s?

Sanatana, when it comes down to it, is one player who is commanding a huge price. Is he worth it? I believe yes, but some will disagree. Could the Yankees have afforded him? Of course. In fact, they could have probably afforded five Santanas. At some point, however, you have to realize that other teams are winning without the high-priced talent that the Yankees have come to covet over the last eight years.

I’m certainly no expert on the Yankees farm system, but even I can see that the talent, especially in the pitching corps, is overflowing at the moment. There are guys like Ohlendorff, Horne, Bettances, McCutchen, Brackman, Sanchez, Marquez, Kontos, Whelan, Cox, Robertson, McAllister and Jackson that if you don’t know already, you better get a subscription to PinstripesPlus.com, Baseball America or Pending Pinstripes and start learning about them. Go to Chad Jenning’s Triple-A blog or Mark Ashmore’s Trenton Thunder blog and read what they’re saying about the future of your team. Both are indispensable resources. Google their names for God’s sake. The future of the Yankees isn’t players with $150 million dollar price tags, it’s guys that are currently growing in the back yard that cost next to nothing in the Yankees financial universe.

To put it bluntly, the Yankees won the Santana sweepstakes by not spending and not giving for which future rewards will be reaped upon them. It’s quite biblical.

Slow news day here in Yankee-land. For your amusement, here is a collection of quotes from Hank Steinbrenner on his Santana infatuation that was posted in New York Magazine’s online Daily Intelligencer:

December 3, 2007: “I’m not going to be played against the Red Sox. That’s not something I’ll do. That’s not something the Yankees should ever do, and that’s I think what they’re trying to do now,” Yankees senior vice president Hank Steinbrenner said Sunday. “So if they want the best offer that has been offered to them, then they need to make up their minds.” [Boston Globe]

December 8, 2007: “As far as the door being open, who knows? At this point, [Yankees pitchers who might be traded for Santana] Chamberlain, Hughes, Kennedy, Cabrera and Cano, they’re as close to untouchable as you get… The only reason I made a point of a deadline on Santana was that I didn’t want to get caught up in the circus of the winter meetings. The purpose of that deadline was trying to get something done before the winter meetings.” [NYDN]

December 15, 2007: “For the near future, we’re in a no-lose situation, to tell you the truth… It’s up to Minnesota what they want to do and I assume they’re still thinking about trading him… As far as what I’m going to do, I don’t know. There’s been a couple of brief calls. The door’s not closed.” [NYDN]

January 3, 2008: “I think the Twins realize our offer is the best one… I feel confident they’re not going to trade him before checking with us one last time and I think they think we’ve already made the best offer.” [NYDN]

January 5, 2008: “Nothing is really decided at this point… I’m still leaning towards doing it. There’s others leaning not to do it. There are some others that are leaning to do it also. Disagreements within the organization. Nothing major, but just different opinions. I’ve changed my opinion a couple times… I always told [general manager Brian Cashman], ‘I’m going to make the final decisions because when you’re the owner, you should.’” [Newsday]

January 9, 2008: “There’s definitely still a possibility… The bottom line is, it’s my decision, but there’s disagreement within the organization. I’ve got to keep everybody happy in the organization, including Brian… That includes my partner, which is my brother.” [Newsday]

January 15, 2008: “It’s most likely that we’re going to stay with what we’ve got… That always can change — of course, that’s up to Minnesota — but there were no offers on the table.” [NYT]

New York Magazine maybe should have waited a month or two for some more quotes. No way Hank is even close to saying all he has to say on Santana.

The tune has changed once again.

From SI.com:

“It’s still in the deciding process,” Steinbrenner said Monday night outside Legends Field at the Yankees’ spring training complex. “We’re still discussing it. There’s still a little talk back and forth.”

Steinbrenner said reports that the Yankees recently withdrew a formal offer to the Twins are not true.

“There wasn’t an official offer anyway. You can’t withdraw something that wasn’t there,” Steinbrenner said. “There was no official offer on the table at this time.”

This saga is laughable, that’s all I have to say.

Hat tip to Ian of Sox and Dawgs.

From ESPN.com:

For the second time this offseason, the Yankees have pulled their Phil Hughes-centered trade offer for Johan Santana off the table.

The Yankees, then, will not restart trade talks with the Twins unless Hank Steinbrenner has another change of heart, a baseball official with knowledge of the talks told 1050 ESPN Radio’s Andrew Marchand.

The Yankees’ desire Monday to turn their attention away from the two-time Cy Young winner leaves Boston and the New York Mets as Minnesota’s trade partners, the official told Marchand.

Judging from what’s been said in the past, let’s be extremely careful to read too much into this report. I think the longer Santana remains a Twin, the less likely it is he ends up in the Bronx.

Most reports at the moment have the Mets in the lead for his services because they need him the most. Matthew Cerrone of Metsblog.com has the latest here as it related to the Mets landing Santana.

Think about it, if the Mets land Santana, that will have been two players (Carlos Beltran being the other) that the Yankees actively pursued but ultimately decided against due to the cost involved.

Hank-Stein told Newsday that he is unwilling to go above five-years for Santana’s services:

The payroll would just be out of this world this year,” Steinbrenner said of potentially adding Santana, “but only for this year. When you’ve got to trade top young talent and pay a lot of money, it gets very risky.”

If the Yankees do complete a trade for Santana, Steinbrenner said they would not go beyond a five-year contract extension (one that expires after the 2013 season).

“I wouldn’t do it if it were a six- or seven-year contract,” Steinbrenner said. “I wouldn’t go past five, on an extension.”

The contract would still pay Santana into his mid-thirties which I’m just not comfortable with. I think fiscal restraint is the way to go here and I’ll keep saying it until I’m blue in the face - Why dish out another $100-$120 million now when you can upgrade offensively and defensively by making a run at Mark Teixeira in 2009?

Also, Hank reiterated that the organization wants Joba to be a starter, not a reliever.

Hank-Stein makes it clear who’s running the show in the Bronx these days:

“I always told him (GM Brian Cashman), `I’m going to make the final decisions because when you’re the owner you should,”‘ Steinbrenner said. “He is the general manager, and he has the right to talk me out of it and he has talked me out of some things.”

What a clever thing to say. Hank really puts Cashman in his place. Remember, when Cashman signed his current three-year deal in 2005, he essentially had final say on all player moves. It seems to me that Hank, his brother Hal and Randy Levine decided after this past season that Cashman had too much power, thus creating a power vacuum we have witnessed all off-season.

And Hank again speaks on Santana:

“Nothing is really decided at this point,” Steinbrenner said Friday night outside Legends Field at the team’s spring training complex. “I’m still leaning towards doing it. There’s others leaning not to do it. There are some others that are leaning to do it also. Disagreements within the organization. Nothing major, but just different opinions. I’ve changed my opinion a couple times.”

“I’m very happy with our young pitchers,” he said.

Of course, we believe you. Now just hang on to them… all of them.

I’ve been saying for the past week that Hank Steinbrenner, if he wants Santana badly enough, will not let the price tag stand in his way. According to Tyler Kepner of the NYT’s, the internal debate on whether or not to deal for the two-time Cy Young award winner is heating up - and it’s coming down to money:

…the tempting factor for the Yankees is their seemingly bottomless resources. They have a thriving cable network, a new stadium on the way, and the highest attendance in baseball. They can afford to pay Santana what he wants, and if he were a free agent, they almost surely would make the highest bid.

Hank-Stein, in one of his rambling telephone interviews Wednesday, said “we’re the best able to handle the kind of contract (extension) Santana will be after”. Hank is showing once again that he’s willing and ready to deal away Phil Hughes, center fielder Melky Cabrera, the minor league pitcher Jeff Marquez and another prospect. But can he convince his brother Hal, who oversees the Yankees finances, that trading for Santana is a sound investment?

Kepner explains the financial responsibilities beyond the $140 million over seven years that Santana would probably demand:

For the Yankees, the $140 million figure would be compounded by an additional $56 million they would owe in luxury taxes, because they are still charged an extra 40 cents for every dollar they spend. Investing almost $200 million in Santana for seven years — and the prospects — is clearly too steep a price for General Manager Brian Cashman.

So what are we to think? Hank is for, Cashman is against and it looks like Hal might have the final word. If he believes that Santana is a good investment - and let me go on record again as saying that I think he is not - then the lefty will be in pinstripes come spring training.

What Hank should do is end his infatuation with Santana and gear up for a run at Teixeira in 2009. That deal will only cost him money, not prospects. Plus, Abreu, Mussina and Giambi all come off the books (roughly $50 million) and the Yankees need a power hitting first baseman.  Tex is also very good with the glove, improving the defense.

Is it me or does the above scenario make much more sense for the future of the Yankees?

The end of Clemens in Pinstripes has come to an end.

“I’m not signing Clemens,” Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ senior vice president, said in a telephone interview yesterday. He said the Yanks are not looking for rotation stopgaps - like they were last season - because they are so enamored of their young starting pitchers. And Steinbrenner feels the Yanks already have a strong mentor to the young arms in Andy Pettitte, whom Steinbrenner praised for his “veteran leadership.

Was it even a consideration? Did the question need to be asked? With all the speculation surrounding Clemens and his PED use, the last thing the Yankees want is another distraction.

Clemens return in ‘07 was probably the last “baseball-related” move that Old George would ever make again for the team.

From Anthony McCarron of Daily News:

After what he described as a “slow holiday season” for baseball business, Hank Steinbrenner is returning to his office Thursday to begin working on “a final decision” regarding a trade for Johan Santana. And he believes the Yankees have made the top offer for the Minnesota ace.

“I think the Twins realize our offer is the best one,” Steinbrenner said Wednesday in a telephone interview. “I feel confident they’re not going to trade him before checking with us one last time and I think they think we’ve already made the best offer.”

Steinbrenner said the offer “does not include two of the three young pitchers” - Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, from a group that also includes untouchable Joba Chamberlain - “but it’s still the best one. And let’s face it, we’re the best able to handle the kind of contract (extension) Santana will be after.”

It looks like the reports about the Yankees shedding payroll before adding another $140 million over 7 years for Santana weren’t entirely accurate. By saying “we’re the best able to handle the kind of contract (extension) Santana will be after”, Hank has now made money a non-issue. I disagreed with PeteAbe on this point yesterday when he said in his blog that the Yankees would probably not like to spend that much money on one pitcher. My point was, money has never been an issue regarding a player the Yankees desperately wanted.

And now, Hank’s closing statements:

“I either have to do it (a Santana deal) or don’t do it, same thing for the Red Sox, I guess,” Steinbrenner added. “I think the Twins would like to keep him, so I don’t think there’s any hurry on anyone’s part. It all depends on what he asks for in an extension. You obviously have to be very careful with pitchers, for obvious reasons.”

“At the same time, we won’t be in it to keep him from them (RED SOX),” Steinbrenner said. “Each team is in it for what they can handle. We have great young pitching, that’s the main plan. Do we want to put Santana in there, who’s 29 (in March), to be an ace for a few years?

“I know a majority of fans don’t want to lose Hughes.”