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Finally, some consummation in the Johan Santana derby. My God, it's like finally being allowed to eat after staring at the cold-cuts spread for 11 hours. Ten thoughts:
1. The Mets are the best team in the National League East. The Mets are the best team in the National League. The Mets are the best team in New York. The Mets are the second-best team in the eastern time zone, unless Josh Beckett shows up in Florida next month with a boulder-sized blister on his pinky-winky.
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| With Johan Santana, the Mets are suddenly the best team in the NL. (Getty Images) |
I know the Phillies still have the "we-done-did-it!" swagger in their step, but you have to think that lefty bats like Ryan Howard and Chase Utley are something less than euphoric about the arrival of the game's best southpaw in their backyard. It's rare that a trade this late in the offseason truly tips a league's balance of power. This one clearly does, vaulting the Mets past the Diamondbacks, Cubs and the rest of the unwashed masses.
2. I wanna watch a whole lot of Mets games this season, even as my loyalties as a fan lie elsewhere. If you like baseball, Tuesday's trade should jump the Mets way up on your to-watch list, right alongside the non-satanic Rays (hordes of frisky young'uns) and Diamondbacks (I [heart] Justin Upton).
Just book my ticket for any town where Santana leads off a three-game series.
- Game 1: Johan and his swagger.
- Game 2: Pedro and his eight pitches and love for all things mango.
- Game 3: Ollie Perez, one of the few guys in the game as likely to throw a no-hitter as to brain somebody in the on-deck circle with an errant heater.
Frankly, I'm jealous of those who have some rooting interest here.
3. Last September never happened. Nope. What is this "soul-searing collapse" of which you speak? I must've been busy that afternoon.
4. Johan Santana likes money. I know, I know -- it's difficult to accept that any individual, much less a professional athlete used to having his place of employment dictated by forces outside his control, could be dazzled by lucre and similarly shiny trinkets, but here we are.
In the days ahead, I have a feeling we're also going to learn the following: That athletes prefer playing for a winner than for a middle-of-the-packer; that major metropolitan areas with a massive media presence offer more in the way of marketing opportunities than smaller burgs; and that grass is, indeed, green. Leave it to baseball to shatter all our preconceptions about the universe.
5. Twins GM Bill Smith isn't the boob he's being made out to be. No, he didn't get a whole lot for Santana, a quartet of unproven kids who provoke a wildly enthusiastic "meh" from the scouting community. Yes, the package he eventually accepted pales besides the ones that were reportedly on the table from the Yankees (Phil Hughes and Melky Cabrera) and the Red Sox (either Jacoby Ellsbury or Jon Lester and Jed Lowrie) back in December.
What we have to remember is that the trade wasn't an eternity of Johan Santana for Carlos Gomez, Deolis Guerra, Kevin Mulvey and Philip Humber. It was a single year of Johan Santana for the four of 'em, with the burden then falling on the Metsies to ante up something in the neighborhood of $150 million. In this covet-your-cheap-labor climate, four could-bes for one year of an established star seems about right. All together now: Nobody on the planet can project prospects with any degree of certainty.
