Johan to Mets for “Prospects?”

Okay so the scare quotes around ‘prospects’ is kind of rude and unfair. The Twins and Mets have apparently agreed to a trade with the Mets receiving Johan Santana and the Twins receiving four prospects from the Mets. If Santana agrees to a long term extension with the Metropolitans, the Twins will receive center fielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Phil Humber, Deolis Guerra and Kevin Mulvey.

I don’t think much of Humber, and Gomez is very ‘toolsy’ which in the circles I tend to travel in is often a bad word. Guerra and Mulvey are at least interesting, with Guerra being very young and a long term prospect. Mulvey had a nice year in Binghamton, though that’s a fairly good environment for pitchers there. Mulvey will live and die by throwing strikes and keeping the ball in the park.

All and all, it looks like an awfully modest haul for an absolute superstar like Santana. Gomez apparently is being slotted as the Twins starting centerfielder, and that looks awfully optimistic to me. Maybe if he can save a ton of runs with his glove and develop a little more power it won’t be too bad this year, but the point is that so far Gomez has not really shown he’s ready for a full-time major league job. The Twins are not all that far out of contention in the AL Central, but this obviously doesn’t help their chances at all.

Now normally I’d give the Twins a ton of leeway when it comes to their evaluation of young talent, as their record the last decade has been impeccable (including a master stroke in trading for Santana in the first place). But those were Terry Ryan’s Twins, and as much as many of the same people are in place, it’s difficult for me to give full credit for the work done under Ryan to the new guy Bill Smith. I don’t despise this trade from the Twins point of view, but I sure don’t like it a lot. One problem is that the Mets system really doesn’t have anything spectacular in terms of prospects and so the Twins got more or less what there was to get. Compared to what the A’s got for Haren and Swisher, this looks pretty skimpy.

From the Mets point of view, considering that they look pretty incapable of developing a coherent plan for the future other than spend, spend and hope Wright and Reyes carry the lineup for the next decade, this is an excellent deal. If you don’t know how to use a scalpel, power up the chainsaw and carve away. The Mets are doing that by adding Santana to the rotation.