The Twins and Santana

Here’s an interesting post from River Ave. Blues which talks about the Twins and how some folks think that the big market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox are lowballing the Twins in their offers for Johan Santana.

I just have a quick comment. I totally agree with Ben at RAB and feel that no one is getting lowballed here (maybe the Red Sox are lowballing a bit, but not the Yankees). He’s correct in saying that we would only be receiving Johan Santana for a single year from the Twins. They’re guaranteed to lose him after this season so they dont necessarily have the leverage that a Billy Beane had when trading Dan Haren.

Haren brought back a tremendous package of prospects from the Diamondbacks and a lot of people thought that the trade would set the table for what the Twins would require when dealing Santana. However, Haren was a very cheap option, as his contract has him making around $16.25 million over a 3-year period. So, when trading for Haren, you’re actually getting him for 3 very cheap seasons. That’s more then what you’d get in a Santana trade (year wise and it’s financially viable).

Nice point by RAB, one that we cannot forget, and one that the Yankees certainly must remember before shipping off a Phil Hughes or an Ian Kennedy.