The Mets

**min0 lee** · 01-31-2008, 03:18 PM

SI.com - Writers - Jon Heyman: Mets scored big, but don't blame Twins yet - Thursday January 31, 2008 4:14PM

The deal with the deal

The Twins are taking more hits now than Johan Santana gave up in his short but illustrious tenure in Minnesota.
"I think they blew it,'' one competing executive says, succinctly expressing the sentiments of many following the long-awaited trade of Santana.

The Twins' record on making trades for prospects should give them some rope. Practically no team has made more stars-for-prospects trades than Minnesota over the years, and while that's not necessarily a good thing, the Twins are definitely practiced at it.
The Twins' trades almost always look better when critiqued years later. They did well in the Chuck Knoblauch trade after the 1997 season, getting future All-Stars Cristian Guzman and Eric Milton from the Yankees. They won the Frank Viola trade, grabbing two very good young pitchers from the Mets in 1989 -- Kevin Tapani and Rick Aguilera -- who became key components of their 1991 world championship team. They absolutely killed in the A.J. Pierzynski trade in November 2003, stealing pitchers Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano and Boof Bonser from the Giants.

**min0 lee** · 01-31-2008, 03:19 PM

Carl Pohlad, The Twins' multibillionaire cheapskate owner, is probably happy to see the two-time Cy Young winner going to the Mets since he won't be coming to town twice a year to remind his fans how cheap he is, and some will speculate that that the real reason why Santana's going to the Mets. But say this for the Twins' new GM Bill Smith. He wasn't afraid to make a deal without immediate impact. He was willing to play for 2009, or even 2010. And if you can't keep Santana, that's not such a bad idea. Without Santana, the Twins aren't contenders. No sense fooling themselves.
Some are saying that the Yankees and Red Sox retreated so far by the Tuesday deadline that the Mets were the only viable choice the Twins had left. One executive from a National League team told me he believes the Mets were just being good sports to sign off on Guerra on deadline day. (Word is, the Mets held back Guerra until the Twins showed they were really serious about trading with them.) "Stand up guys,'' was how that competing executive said he views the Mets.

**min0 lee** · 01-31-2008, 03:20 PM

If you can really fault the Twins, perhaps it was for failing to pounce on the Yankees' offer of top young pitcher Phil Hughes, center fielder Melky Cabrera, pitching prospect Jeffrey Marquez and a fourth undetermined prospect when it was briefly on the table for the first couple days of the winter meetings back in early December. Instead, the Twins pressed for the Yankees to also include another top young pitcher, Ian Kennedy, going for the grand slam. If you want to hit the Twins, hit them for that.
The Yankees' proposal, however fleeting, may have been the best one. Even the AL scout who defended the Twins thought so, saying, "I think the Yankees' deal would have been better because those two guys (Hughes and Cabrera) already showed what they can do in the big leagues.''

**min0 lee** · 01-31-2008, 03:22 PM

Even if that's true -- and Cabrera is no world-beater yet (even those who don't love Gomez say he's "a tick above'' Cabrera in terms of value) -- it's still hard to knock Smith for ignoring Hank Steinbrenner's quick deadline and pressing for more.
Who could have thought Hank the Yank would actually stick to the deadline this time? In Steinbrenner the Junior's tenure at the top, he has showed he is willing to change his mind (hence the re-signing of A-Rod), to seal certain deals by giving away the store (thus a fourth year for 36-year-old catcher Jorge Posada) and even to over-rule general manager Brian Cashman (both A-Rod and Posada). So it's understandable why Smith still hoped for more.
But as we know by now, Cashman made a strong stand, building a convincing case regarding Hughes' toughness and potential. Then Hank's younger brother Hal, who controls the purse strings, tightened hard before Hank could loosen them again.
When the Twins made a last pass at the Yankees on Tuesday, it was too late. So when Cashman told the Twins yet again that Hughes was off the table, the Twins went for the gusto, requesting that instead Cashman send them both Kennedy and Chien-Ming Wang to go with Cabrera and Marquez. Why not? By then, it was clear that there was only one place left to go, and that was the Mets.

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