Friday, February 01, 2008

Johan Santana - officially my favorite non-Cardinal until he becomes a Met.

Two points about the Santana trade:

1) Why wouldn't the Mets just go ahead and offer him the 6 year deal? I saw Steve Phillips (who if you ever hear talk about baseball, you understand how bad of a GM he was) say how he was likewise nervous about extending Mike Hampton a 7-year 105 million dollar deal. Yeah, great comparison Phillips - except that Hampton was an above average pitcher and happened to have a great postseason for the Mets. And Santana is the best pitcher of the decade and is just outside the Pedro-Maddux-Clemens-Johnson group of post 1990 greatness.

Also, if there has been one constant among phenomenal pitchers - they can go into their thirties and still be effective if not dominant. So there just isn't a lot of risk for a team with nearly unlimited resources to sign the best pitcher in baseball until he is 35 years old for what is a reasonable amount of money.

2) The most awesome twist of this whole story recently occurred, however, because Santana said he would make a few concessions in order to become a Met. At first, I thought, well that's pretty gross. But the reason he wants to be a Met is SO HE CAN HIT!

Santana wants to go to the NL cause he misses being a hitter.

That. . .is. . . awesome.