Nobikadobi77’s Weblog

Johan Santana is officially a New York Met as he passed a physical Saturday in New York. This gives the Mets the dominant starting pitcher that they had been looking for. The contract was the richest ever given to a pitcher at 137.5 million over six years. The Twins added two of the prospects from the Mets to their forty man roster as Chris Gomez looks to take over the vacant center field position and Phil Humber will try to fit somewhere into the Twins pitching rotation.

In an unbelievable upset the New York Giants stunned the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII 17-14. Eli Manning was the MVP of the Super Bowl. The Giants defense proved to be too much for the until now unbeaten Patriots. Finally the Patriots now know what it feels like to come out on the short end of the stick in the Super Bowl.

Well The Minnesota Twins traded Johan Santana today to the New York Mets. The Twins did get some prospects in a deal that could benefit them for the future. The Twins needed to trade Santana as after this season he becomes a free agent and the Twins wouldn’t have enough money to sign him. The Mets have till Friday to sign Santana and the price will be around the twenty two to twenty five million dollars a year range. The deal should be able to get done.

The Twins’ package includes two raw prospects with high ceilings and two near-in, low-upside arms. Carlos Gomez is a plus-plus runner, has a quick bat and makes a lot of contact with a wrist-heavy swing, but doesn’t project to hit for power now because he doesn’t use his lower half to get more power into his swing. He’s an excellent defender in center with a plus arm — imagine a Coco Crisp who could throw the ball to the catcher without 15 hops — which may encourage the Twins to use him in the majors right now, even though his bat’s not ready.

Deolis Guerra is almost all youth and projection at this point, with his one major current skill an above-average changeup. His velocity is fringe-average and wildly inconsistent within outings, so the optimistic projection is that he’ll eventually sit 92+, but there’s also a good chance that he settles in where he is now. His curve has some depth, but like his velocity is inconsistent, and his feel for the pitch is particularly poor. He has a great pitcher’s frame, 6-foot-5 with very broad shoulders and lots of room to fill out, and the fact that he has an advanced secondary pitch bodes well for him improving his command and feel with experience. But the bottom line is that he’s 18 years old, so in the best-case scenario, he’ll be contributing in the majors in three or four years, and that’s if he doesn’t get hurt or hit a snag in his development.

The other two arms are major-league ready or close to it, but have limited upside. Philip Humber’s curveball was once a big-league out pitch, but since Tommy John surgery, it hasn’t been as tight and he hasn’t commanded it as well, leaving him more reliant on his average fastball to get hitters out.