While one New York paper raises the possibility the Mets are only bidding against themselves for Jason Bay, Fox Sports’ Bob Klapisch advises GM Omar Minaya to pursue an entirely different path and trade P Johan Santana while the talismanic starter’s value is still relatively high. “Dealing the franchise™s best pitcher would be tantamount to surrender,” admits Klapisch, “but it would be at least be an honest admission to fans.”
Santana was supposed to deliver the Mets a pennant when he signed in 2007, so in a sense he has failed them. But it™s the Mets who are the guilty party; they™ve sabotaged Santana from Day 1.
They™ve given him no help with pitchers who™ve either been injured (Maine), have regressed (Pelfrey) or were never worth the money (Perez, $36 million for three years).
Still, the Mets have to make peace with the idea that the Santana experiment has failed, just as the Carlos Beltran, Pedro Martinez and Billy Wagner gambles all turned to vapor. Yet, they continue to chase The Next Great Star as if this was 2006 and they were one player away from greatness.
Actually if the Mets were capable of making a cold business decision, they™d even dangle David Wright and Jose Reyes. Wright, in particular, could bring a bundle of prospects in return — and who knows, he might just welcome a trade since he™s playing in a new ballpark he obviously hates.
But the Mets could never part with either Wright or Reyes. They™re Home-grown talent; the emotional attachment is too strong. Santana™s place in the Met family is cemented only by cash.
Though the entire article, Klapisch makes a number of salient points. No one in their right mind (or for that matter, Minaya) believes giving Benjie Molina a three-year deal is going to solve anything. But I have a slightly hard time with the assertion Santana has “failed”. Short of serving as his own catcher and/or pitching on zero days rest, could Santana have done any more to put the club on his back during September of ’08?
to date this absurd ‘blow up the core’ argument – which foolishly asserts that the mets’ best players (when it’s perpetually the supporting cast, cf. Luis Ayala closing in ’08, for just one example) are responsible for the mets’ issues – has not extended to santana, who is the best thing going about the mets right now. the nl east is eminently winnable so long as one does not have daniel murphy, alex cora, omir santos and cory sullivan/sheffield’s corpse as four of its starting position players and livan/redding combining for a quarter of the team’s starts.
considering what johan fetched last time around, when he was younger and cheaper – carlos gomez and three minor league busts – i doubt such a trade would do anything but cut payroll.
Agreed on all points with the comment above. The only addition I’d make is how depressingly easy/commonplace it has become to suggest that the Mets Just Start Over. They’re not run by smart people at just about any level, from the Wilps on down/up, but there remains a lot of top-tier talent on the team at the big league level. More to the point, though, given that Klapisch — like everyone else to have paid attention to the last few years of Omar’s reign — realizes that the team’s current GM is among the most backwards and overmatched execs in the game, why would anyone assume that he’d be the guy to make the right deal for Santana, or Beltran, or anyone else media Mets-baiters recommend dealing?
(A qualification: Taking into account the fact that there’s no excuse for Omar to still have his job, period, the dude hasn’t ruined the offseason yet. If he negotiates against himself, Ollie-style, and hands the appalling Bengie “D. Original Pudge” Molina three years and Bay five, it’d obviously be bad news. But if he’s going to get one more shot with this roster — and annoying as it is, he is — I’m going to try to wait until he blows it to really get on him)
and without Santana, the Klap is planning to sell tickets to this troupe’s 2010 comedic performances how?