Twins Make Another Big Mistake

Over the past four years or so, baseball's best pitcher has resided in the American league - the city of Minnesota to be specific. Pending a physical and a contract extension, the Minnesota Twins have agreed to trade Johan Santana to the New York Mets for minor leagues pitchers Philip Humber, Deolis Guerra and Kevin Mulvey along with outfielder Carlos Gomez. Humber is a top prospect, but the others are still developing. If you're a Mets fan, you have to be happy with this trade as it effectively amounts to getting Santana for next to nothing.

As for the fans in Minnesota, well I don't think any of them can be too happy at the moment. They signed Justin Morneau to an $80 million, six year deal after posting an abysmally bad three home runs, 26 RBI's and a .237 batting average in his final 63 games. Is he injured? Was he pressing? Are the bone spurs in his elbow acting up again? If healthy, he could produce a 40 home run season easily, but if not, this could turn out to be a HUGE mistake for the Twins. They also gave outfielder Michael Cuddyer a three year, $24 million contract after posting 16 home runs, 81 RBI's and a .276 batting average last year. After his career year in 2006 (24 homers, 109 RBI's, .284 BA), maybe he was worthy of this kind of money, but after last year's numbers? No. As any fantasy leaguer will tell you, those 2007 stats put up by Cuddyer are very average. The Twins would have been a lot wiser in spending their money to either resign Torii Hunter or give Santana a contract extension.

Just how good has Santana been the past four years? In 134 games started, he's got a 70-32 record (including 15-13 last year when he got very little run support). His other numbers: a 2.89 ERA a 0.9996 WHIP and 983 strikeouts in 912 1/3 innings (9.7 per 9 innings). Simply put, these numbers are FAR and AWAY the best in baseball over that time. Now that he's moving to the National League, where there is no DH, guess what? The numbers are going to get BETTER! If you have him in a keeper league like I do, consider yourself very blessed. When it comes to draft day in your fantasy leagues, you better bump him up about $3 in auction leagues and 2-3 spots in your snake draft.

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