Trade Santana and Nathan?

by twinstalker on Dec 5, 2006 4:56 AM EST Comment 41 comments

The money being given to mediocre pitching is overwhelming. And the good ones, like Zito, could get close to $20 mil/yr for many years. The Twins have the absolute best starter getting near his prime, and they have arguably the games best closer, and both become free agents after 2008.

In 2007 Santana makes 12 mil and Nathan a little over 5 mil. I think we should enjoy them while we can because, well, just imagine what they'll be worth in 2009. Santana could conceivably command $25-$30 million a season by then (just add 7 mil to whatever Zito gets now). Nathan (see BJ Ryan) could get $12-$15 million. And then multiply those contracts by six years or so.

If Ryan is smart, he may have to trade Santana and maybe Nathan in or after 2007. The haul for Nathan may be no more than the Twins could get mid-year 2008, so it might not make sense to deal him after next year.

If Santana is dealt after this year, the Twins will need to make a sure-firing killing...not a cross-your-fingers Nathan/Bonser/Liriano killing. Not sure how many people know that by winning the Cy Young, Santana has a no-trade clause to really muck things up.

I'll hate to see him go, but I'm just being realistic here. It will be interesting to see if, after 2007, the Twins approach Santana with an extension in hopes they can lock him up for $20 mil/yr. What are your realistic thoughts here?

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Well,

On the assumption that Santana has another Santana season, I think you have to go all out to keep him. Look, salaries are going up; salaries almost always go up. It's going to cost you. But you have a new stadium coming, and Santana and Mauer are clearly the players you have to invest in.

I've suggested trading Nathan for the past 2 years, on the theory that closers are overvalued in the marketplace, and you could get more back than he's actually worth. I'm not entirely sure that's still true, but you have to listen on a guy like that.

by Eric in Madison on Dec 5, 2006 9:13 AM EST reply actions

Agreed on both counts

I've always been of the mind that closers are overrated - there are guys who don't have the mental makeup for it (<cough> LaTroy Hawkins <cough>), but I think guys who can handle it are more common than people think. I'd guess that if the Twins find a good deal for Nathan, Rincon would step in and do a fine, if not entirely Nathan-esque, job, and I'd be willing to give Neshek or possibly Crain (assuming his strikeout rate stays up) a shot there, too.

by BeefMaster on Dec 5, 2006 10:54 AM EST up reply actions

Morlan

Morlan with is high 90's fastball (sometimes hitting 100) could be ready to go for Nathan in two years. I would not trust Rincon to close games at this point in his career.

break the 30 HR curse!

by caseintheface on Dec 5, 2006 7:40 PM EST up reply actions

Realistically?

The Twins could likely find (or create) a serviceable closer to replace the guy we have. The bullpen, historically, has been solid behind whoever pitches the 9th. While it will be a sad day when Nathan departs, via trade or free agency, and while he is a total stud, keep in mind he has not twice won the Cy Young.

Trading Santana is frankly defeatist, and would be especially so if done at any time during the '07 season. While it is very possible that he could command absolutely stratospheric money after his current contract is up, the Twins' ownership needs to (at some point here) make a genuine commitment to competing at the highest level. In the current (and near-future) markets, this means opening the checkbook to keep the franchise players in town. If we want to hold to the same low-60's payroll and be the perennial "We knew them when..." team, then we will have to say goodbye to everybody whose names appear on the backs of the jerseys we wear to games.

Personally, I will buy a ticket and drive 270 miles simply to see Santana pitch; it could be against the Yankees, it could be against a brick wall. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that thousands of other people have a similar feeling (minus the driving). This should be doubly true in a new park. In the past, the Twins may not have been able to afford to hang on to quality players, but with their continued prospects of regular- and post-season success, I see no reason whatsoever why this should continue to be the case.

by trtrnx on Dec 5, 2006 12:14 PM EST reply actions

Trtrnx!

I remember you, and where that nickname came from =P

I also happen to agree with you in this instance.

by ravenfly on Dec 12, 2006 7:06 PM EST up reply actions

Good Question

To me, the only hope on keeping Santana is to go for an Oswalt-ish extension right now. Preferably before Zito and Schmidt sign, though that may be impossible.

Signing the young hitters is important, but not crucial this year. If we wait until 2008 to re-sign Santana we're in trouble. Plus it could be more difficult to recoup his true value in trade if he's only got a year or a half year left on his contract. Why ransom half your farm system when you can wait a year and try and sign the guy as an FA?

by dwight zinfandel on Dec 5, 2006 12:34 PM EST reply actions

huh

I just looked up the attendance numbers, and Santana in 2006 brought in only an additional 2200 people per game over everyone else on the team. Sure thats nice, but it doesn't make up for the salary.

If he were to pitch every game over the season and each additional fan spends 30 bucks on average then Santana would be worth, what, 6 Million

by TMoney on Dec 5, 2006 6:01 PM EST reply actions

There is the minor issue...

...of Santana being the best pitcher in baseball for three years running. That might have something to do with how much he's worth.

by ubelmann on Dec 5, 2006 6:07 PM EST up reply actions

sorry

that was more a response to trtrnx. Yes, he does draw more people to the dome, perhaps somewhere near 4000 people per game. But the front office is gonna look at how much it costs to bring in those additional 4000 people vs paying someone to get an average crowd while still staying competitive.

by TMoney on Dec 5, 2006 6:17 PM EST reply actions

Winnning

More than star factors, winning brings people to the stadium. The Twins won like 90 percent of the games in which Santana pitched. They won something like 50 percent of the games in which he did not pitch. Without Santana, the Twins would have been a sub-500 ball club, drawing in the neighborhood of 1.75 million, rather than 2.25 million they drew. Santana was worth 500,000 fans, by this method of calculating. At an average of $20 a fan, that's $10 million right there. This says nothing of TV and radio ratings, and the like, which drive around $20 million. Any way you slice it, Santana earned his keep.

Now, if the Twins actually had a decent stadium deal that gave them revenue from concessions, parking, and luxury suites, you can double what they get per fan, and he would earn his keep at more than $20 million. This is why Texas can afford to pay Zito $17 million a year whereas the Twins can barely afford to pay Santana $12 million.

Joe Mauer for MVP (for real).

by cmathewson on Dec 5, 2006 6:38 PM EST up reply actions

You can't trade Johan

He already has a complete no trade clause for 07 and one for 08 provided he finishes in the top 3 of the Cy Young in 07. He is not going anywhere until the Yankees drop off that dump-truck full of Steinbrenner's cash after the 08 season. I prefer not to think about that day.

by Pete Palumbo on Dec 5, 2006 10:07 PM EST reply actions

Probably something around...

...$180M over 6 years. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less. Kind of depends on how the next two years go for Johan.

At least we'll get a compensation pick and some of that money will come back to the Twins through the luxury tax. Maybe if George is feeling particularly nice that day, he'll send over a fruit basket to the Twins, too.

by ubelmann on Dec 5, 2006 10:15 PM EST up reply actions

To be honest

I'm not sure if Johan would ever want to pitch for New York, I think if another team came up with a deal relatively close to what the Yankees would put out, I think Johan would go there instead.

break the 30 HR curse!

by caseintheface on Dec 5, 2006 10:36 PM EST up reply actions

I listened

to the johan phone conference about the Cy young and this New York Writer kept asking (ok twice) him about his contract and if he was upset about not makeing more money with a bunch of other people made more and Johan just said I'm inder contract and I'm happy with it so whatever that means.

by FrozenTed9 on Dec 5, 2006 11:30 PM EST up reply actions

Johan

No. We can't trade Johan. You don't trade the most valuable player in baseball.

I'm with you Pete. I just prefer not to think of that day.

And ubelman, let's get realistic. Considering this year's market, is 250 for 8 years out of question? Is 300 million dollar deal out of the question?

No, and not even close. In a world where Juan Puierre makes 9 million and Carlos Lee gets a gauranteed 17 mil for 6 years, can anyone honestly tell me they can't see the greatest pitcher in the game bar none receive nearly twice that?

Gentlemen, when we attempt to bring bakc Johan, it wont be for just a monor hometowm discount, it will be for perhaps half as much as other teams might be willing to pay him.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Dec 6, 2006 3:25 AM EST reply actions

It doesn't work that way

Mediocre and crappy players are getting stoopid money this year because they are the best to be had. If Johan was a free agent this year? Maybe. But from what I hear, the 2008 free agent class is going to be one of the best in a long time, and there will only be so many dollars to go around on those players.

It's clear that many teams don't spend money thinking "this guy is worth 3 wins, so I will pay him $xxM/year." Many of them think, well, I've got some extra cash laying around that's just going to go to waste if I don't spend it this offseason, so I'll go hog wild on the best guy that's out there. Then, they Isiah Thomas themselves into financial hell years down the road when they realize they committed way too many years to a guy who just wasn't very good.

The smart teams are by and large (rightly) staying out of the free agent market this offseason, because the contracts are awful. Someone smart will probably be signing Santana, though, and it won't have anything to do with how much Barry Zito gets paid to become a replacement level pitcher in two years.

by ubelmann on Dec 6, 2006 4:19 AM EST up reply actions

Okay

If you say so. I cannot say I'm so optomistic. I feel like we've been saying "man, contracts are so CRAZy this year. They'll come down soon..." for several offseasons in a row now...

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Dec 6, 2006 3:48 PM EST up reply actions

Contracts are not going to come down

But that doesn't mean you are looking at a contract for 250-300 million for Santana. That would be more than double the total dollar value of the biggest contract ever signed by a pitcher.

Frankly, I doubt he goes beyond 20M a year at the outside no matter where he signs. Someone might go nuts and go 7/140.

Let's say Zito sets the high end market for 6/100 this year. Similarly durable, but Santana is obviously much better. Still, he isn't getting twice as much per year, for more years, which your 8/250 would require.

by Eric in Madison on Dec 6, 2006 4:18 PM EST reply actions

Remember

Do you remember how HUGE Kevin Brown and Mike Hampton's contracts were when they got them? How big of a bubble that broke? How far away from regular contracts those were.

Now consider neither of them were as good as Santana and both were coming off the finest years of their career. Btoh were years that were very good, but not as good as Santana, and backed up by previous year that weren't as impressive.

Is it really that hard to imagine santana breaking a similar bubble? Considering the pitching needs of the big market teams, especially with the Yankees losing several pitchers soon, and considering what Sanatana alone does to a pitching staff and a team by hi spresence? Is it REALLY that hard to imagine?

Call me a pessimist, but I see this getting a lot worse before it gets better.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Dec 7, 2006 2:30 PM EST up reply actions

The latest example...

...of why things just don't work that way:

Jason Schmidt: 3 years/$47M
Gil Meche: 5 years/$55M

If "the market" worked the way that you're trying to claim it does, then there's no way Meche would've been able to sign that deal after Schmidt signed his deal. You're trying to assign more consistency to the system than there is. Different teams value players differently, and just because some bad teams sign players to awful contracts doesn't mean that they will overpay a good player to the point where it's an awful contract.

by ubelmann on Dec 7, 2006 3:32 PM EST up reply actions

Gil

Gil Meche receiving 11 million dollars a year, which is utter and complete ludicrous insanity, by the way, should really only strengthen my point...

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Dec 7, 2006 11:13 PM EST up reply actions

Let's recap slowly

Jason Schmidt is better than Meche. Much, much better.

Gil Meche just had more money committed to him than Jason Schmidt.

It goes completely against your point. That crappy teams are paying crappy pitchers a lot of money doesn't say anything about what the smart teams are going to do when real pitchers go out on the market.

You're trying to claim that more talent implies more money on some sort of scale that makes it so we can look at a couple of contracts and proclaim we know what Santana will sign for. That's not how it works--just look around.

by ubelmann on Dec 8, 2006 1:32 AM EST up reply actions

Right...

Even more encouraging is Carpenter's new extension. I think one would be hardpressed to argue that Carpenter isn't a top 5 pitcher in baseball over the last couple of seasons, and he essentially was just locked up for 5 years at $65 million. That could bode VERY well for Santana's contract with the Twins. I just hope TR gets it done sooner than later.

by djskilbr on Dec 8, 2006 2:37 AM EST up reply actions

Schmidt

Schmidt actually got more money a year - 15+ to 11 mil - just over less years.

If we could get Santana for a Carpenter like extension, I'd love it, but he's probably gonna' win another Cy in the next two years, and I just not sure how cheep he'll be.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Dec 8, 2006 3:00 AM EST up reply actions

CBA's unintended consequences

Teams like the Royals are required to spend their $20 million in revenue sharing on players. In a market like this one, there are few places to spend that money, so they buy crappy players for outrageous contracts and are stuck with them. Far from setting the market, this behavior is the epitome of outside -the-market buying.

Who would have thought that the Yankess would only acquire a middling first baseman (through the Rule 5 draft no less) and the Royals would sign a pitcher for $55 million?

Joe Mauer for MVP (for real).

by cmathewson on Dec 8, 2006 2:01 PM EST up reply actions

I don't think that excuses signing Meche

There hasn't been much good value out there, but you can find it. If the Royals really had to spend $20M in revenue sharing (I don't see how this would be enforced, other than saying their payroll has to be over $20M, which it is already), they still shouldn't be blowing it on 5-year contracts. Offer some high potential, high risk guys large dollars for short years. The Royals probably could have nabbed Mark Mulder for an Adam Eaton-sized deal--$24M over 3 years--and that would be a lot better in my book than committing over twice as much money to a thoroughly mediocre to bad pitcher in Meche. If they acquired someone like Mulder they would either have the opportunity of keeping him around for a while because he would be grateful they stuck with him (sort of like Carpenter signing an arguably modest extension with the Cardinals) or they would be able to trade him for value at any point during the contract where he looked healthy again.

I guess, if my options are: sign Meche for $55M/5yr or give $10M back to the league, I'm giving $10M back to the league every time my team is as far out of contention as the Royals are.

The Yankees scare me now more than ever. Cashman's offseason so far has been nothing short of brilliant. He got equal value for Sheffield's talent AND on top of that he got rid of the distractions that Sheffield brings. Then, he goes and acquires a bench player on the cheap whereas in the past, he would've been paying someone like Ruben Sierra $4M or something. Oh, he also got rid of Jaret Wright for a moderately useful bullpen arm.

by ubelmann on Dec 8, 2006 2:34 PM EST up reply actions

I didn't mean ...

to excuse the Royals here. This is the worst deal in an offseason full of bad ones (Juan Pierre?). I was just pointing out that the new CBA has a provison that says a team cannot willfully pocket its revenue sharing money, as the Marlins did last year. Actually, I prefer the Marlins approach. At least they got some quality in return for their fire sale. The Royals keep signing the Reggie Sanders of the world to highly inflated contracts and never make any progress in building a solid foundation. Why is Mike Sweeney still there? He could have netted a lot of value in any of the last three deadlines. Of course, when they do trade guys like Beltran, they don't get much quality in return either. So I don't know.

It all starts with scouting. If you have good player evaluation people, you can win on a small budget or a big one. If you're like the Roals and you can't tell the difference between Meche and Schmidt, there really isn't any help for you.

Joe Mauer for MVP (for real).

by cmathewson on Dec 8, 2006 4:22 PM EST up reply actions

It really is...

...all about being able to effectively evaluate players. For a long time, the Mets were really awful even though they were spending a lot of money. (Sort of like how the Cubs are going to be pretty awful next year, even though they've spent a ton of money this offseason.) If you wind up spending lots of money in the wrong places, it doesn't help your club.

by ubelmann on Dec 8, 2006 7:19 PM EST up reply actions

Screw

Screw all this talk, let's make like the Cards as get our super ace an extension NOW. Carpenter was on a contract though 08 like Santana. We have the couple extra mil this year, lets give him some more now to save a bit later. I'll take a 5 year, 80 mil extension starting this year with a 6th year option for 20 mil in a flash and be very, very happy.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Dec 8, 2006 6:17 AM EST reply actions

Yep...

I had the same thought. And those figures would seem about right for just such an extension.

by djskilbr on Dec 8, 2006 12:29 PM EST up reply actions

Yes

For once we agree. But the 2009 year should only be $16 million because it will be in the Dome, the other four million should be backloaded for 2010-2013 or hidden in incentives.

Joe Mauer for MVP (for real).

by cmathewson on Dec 8, 2006 2:04 PM EST up reply actions

(OT) Speaking of...

...hidden incentives, Roy Oswalt was given a bulldozer as part of his contract, and Troy Glaus gets $25k/year so his wife can learn to ride a horse. Maybe Johan needs to move some earth somewhere, or has relatives in need of equestrian training.

by trtrnx on Dec 8, 2006 2:27 PM EST up reply actions

Bulldozer

A bulldozer?

What the hell?

The couldn't just GIVE him the 50 k to buy it?

And what the hell, a bulldozer?

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Dec 8, 2006 6:28 PM EST up reply actions

He

likes them. and it was a big one too more like 150k.

by FrozenTed9 on Dec 8, 2006 11:01 PM EST up reply actions

Hmm

Still seesm an odd thing to put in a contract. Seems like it would be more difficult to get everything done with it with more parties involved.

At any rate, definitely sounds like a childhood fantasy fulfilled.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Dec 9, 2006 4:21 AM EST up reply actions

Yeah

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2265422

sounds like it wasn't even in the contract either.

by FrozenTed9 on Dec 9, 2006 1:37 PM EST up reply actions

You know...

I'm dead against trading Johan, but man, this Jennings bounty sure does get me thinking. How about Florida for Olsen/Johnson/Sanchez/Cabrera, as a starting point? HEHE

by djskilbr on Dec 12, 2006 7:24 PM EST reply actions

Dont

Don't forget about Ramirez and Uggla.

Man is that an amazing duo up the middle to build around...

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Dec 13, 2006 12:33 AM EST up reply actions

Ya...

I'm still not completely sold on Uggla longterm, but HanRam is going to be an annual 30-30 guy with excellent defense very quickly here. Marlins have a ton of talent. I expect this to be a 1-year delay of breakout stardom for both Hermida and Kubel this year. The two are pretty similar in my mind.

by djskilbr on Dec 13, 2006 2:20 AM EST up reply actions

I'd say

I'd say the two were somewhat similar before Kubel got hurt, but fairly different now. Hermedia is a speed player with crazy strike zone skilled, while Kubel is a bit hobbled now with decent patience but more power.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Dec 13, 2006 4:22 AM EST up reply actions