February 02, 2008
Stark Reality
Jayson Stark writes an excellent column today on how the Santana trade changes baseball:
So that contract extension Johan Santana negotiated with the Mets on Friday -- all $137.5 million of it -- made a lot of people happy, all right. He's a franchise-changing guy. He's a pennant-race-changing guy. And now he's also a salary-structure-changing guy.
Which means he already has left an indelible imprint on the baseball universe, before he has even thrown his first pitch as a Met.
He also makes a very important point about the trade, as well as letting Torii Hunter go. These were choices by the Twins. The offer Minnesota made to Johan Santana shows they could have kept him. They could have gone more money/more years. It was their business plan, not their revenue that the prevented them from doing that.
And remember, offer to Santana would have made him the highest paid pitcher in terms of yearly salary. That wasn't enough for Johan. He wanted a bigger total contract that Barry Zito. So I'd argue it was Zito's contract that actually changed the landscape. The Giants made a good but not great pitcher the highest paid in the game for a very long time period. If the Giants sign Zito for five years, $18 million, then the Twins might actually keep Santana with a five-year, $20 million per year contract. But if the Twins have to beat the total dollar amount, that makes it much tougher.
Posted by David Pinto at
09:35 AM
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If it came down to just total $ amount, ISTM that it was length of the contract (six years after 2008?) rather than per annum salary. Is it really wise for a mid-market team to spend all that extra dough that far down the road on a pitcher? I have and will hammer Pohlad for sitting on his wallet, but I'm not sure the Twins were wrong not to go more than 4 (5 at the outside) years for a pitcher. Isn't it tough to get insurance on pitchers for more than 3-4 years now anyhow?