Yanks should say no thanks for Santana

http://yankees.lhblogs.com/2007/12/27/yanks-should-say-no-thanks-for-santana/#comments

By the time 2008 rolls around, the Johan Santana Rumor Mill will get cranked up again.

The latest bit of speculation is that Minnesota would accept a package of Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera and Jeff Marquez for their lefty ace. I’m sure that sounds acceptable to many fans.

But, for a second, look at the bigger picture. Are the Yankees developing their kids to play them or trade them?

Santana is terrific, no doubt about it. But adding him to the roster would cost $20 million a season plus a 40-percent luxury tax penalty. The Yankees will be paying for what Santana did in Minnesota.

Santana could be great again. But he was 15-13, 3.33 last season and will be 29 in March. He also has thrown 932 innings the last four seasons, counting the postseason. Sure, he could be terrific. Or he could be the next Mike Hampton. Nobody knows.

Hughes and Cabrera are symbols of what Brian Cashman is trying to do with the Yankees. The organization did a great job of scouting, drafting and then developing Hughes into the best pitching prospect in the minors.

Cabrera is a guy they rushed to the majors in 2005, screwed up and then built back up into a player good enough to take a job away from Johnny Damon. He would have been cut or traded five years ago.

Trade these guys now and the message is pretty clear: The Yankees are only paying lip service to development. This isn’t trading a few B-level prospects for Bobby Abreu in July. This would be an old-school Yankees move.

It’s their money, not ours. But I sit there at the Stadium and listen. People cheer loudest for the players who came up in pinstripes. People respect A-Rod but they love Jeter. They wanted Clemens do well. They adored Andy Pettitte.

Cashman has somehow made it cool for Yankee fans to care about Jose Tabata even though 99 percent of them have no idea what he looks like.

Spend the money on draft picks, Dominican shortstops and Taiwanese pitchers. Go find kids in Korea, Australia, Venezuela and everywhere else. Hire more scouts and go see every junior college prospect in Texas. Go find the next Santana, don’t trade for the old one.

Let Santana go to the Mets or the Angels or better yet, let him stay in Minnesota where he belongs. If the Red Sox were serious, they would have done the deal weeks ago. They’re pushing chips around the table hoping somebody in Tampa will go all in so they can fold.

We’ve spent two years wondering how good Phil Hughes could be. Let’s find out.

#

Can’t agree with this.

You know who had a great young core at one time? The Los Angeles Clippers.

They had Elton Brand, Lamar Odom, Michael Olowakandi, Darius Miles, and Quentin Richardson all around the same age. You want to know how many of those guys ended us as true stars and are still on the Clippers today? 1 in Elton Brand. You want to know how many that were huge flops? 2 in Olowakandi and Darius Miles. You want to know how many became role players and left to get inflated contracts elsewhere? 2 in Odom and Q-Rich.

How does this pertain to the Yankees?

The fact is that while it’s great to fantasize about how we could have three great aces in our rotation for years to come, the fact is that likely only 1 out of this group will fulfill their potential and become one. Injuries or just a lack of special ability will likely derail 2 of the other 3 from ever reaching stardom in some way or another. It is stupid to have a pitching rotation core that is the same age because it rarely works out. We are talking about a bonafide ace right now. We like to talk about homegrown talent, but the Yankees’ teams of the 90’s thrived with acquisitions like Clemens, David Cone, David Wells, Chuck Knoblouch, Tino, David Justice, etc. The Yankees took a risk on an injury prone pitcher with great stuff in the first round in the 20’s and it paid off, they can TRADE him for the best pitcher in baseball. I don’t see a better 1-2-3 punch in all of baseball then Santana, Wang, and Pettitte.
# TomoPogo December 27th, 2007 at 3:42 am

“Santana could be great again. But he was 15-13, 3.33 last season and will be 29 in March.”

It sounds like you think Santana was not great last year. You can’t seriously be judging him by W-L record. Do you realize how horrible his run support was last season? The Twins scored 3 runs or less in 18 of his 33 starts. For comparison’s sake, the Yankees scored 3 euns or less in 4 of Wang’s 30 starts. Wang had 2 full runs of higher run support on average per start over Santana. That is a huge difference. Yet Santana still had 15 wins. Think about how many wins Santana would have had with the yankee offense behind him. He most likely would have won the Cy Young award. Beckett had the same run support that Wang had - 2 full runs more per start than Santana. And the Red Sox scored 3 runs or less in 6 of Beckett’s 30 starts. Santana was put in those unfavorable situations 18 times out of 30+ starts. Think about that. You can try to defend the Win stat all you want, but you cannot deny that run support was a huge factor there. And there’s no other possible way you can try to suggest that Santana wasn’t great last season. Beckett’s WHIP (in a career year) was 1.14. Santaan’s WHIP in a “down” year was 1.07. Santaan has had WHIP’s under 1.00 in 3 of the last 3 seasons. He was great last season. Beckett’s ERA was 3.27, Santaan’s was 3.33. That is a difference of about one earned run. Which means there is essentially no significant difference. Santana’s gap in WHIP and K/9 were far far greater than that. Santana was terrible at giving up homers last year. That is the stat you should look at if you want bring up red flags regarding Santana. Not his W-L record and ERA. I’ll paste it again:

“Santana could be great again. But he was 15-13, 3.33 last season”

I mean come on, don’t you see now how foolish that sounds? Santana has been great every season for the last 5 seasons. Which leads to the next foolish statement…

“He also has thrown 932 innings the last four seasons, counting the postseason. Sure, he could be terrific. Or he could be the next Mike Hampton. Nobody knows.”

Wow. This might be dumber than the previous statement. Are you seriously comparing Johan Santana to Mike Hampton? Santana is the best pitcher in baseball over the last 5 seasons and is in the beginning of his prime. You say he is 29 years old like it is a bad thing. The fact that he is 29 is the good news. This is not 40 year old Randy Johnson coming to save the day. This is a guy the Yankees will pay not only for what he has done in the past but also for the dominance they expect in the future. Mariano is a guy they are paying for what he has done in the past. Ditto for Jorge. In fact that is the case with most players who are signed in their mid to late 30’s. But that’s not the case with Johan. It goes both ways with Santana. He deserves to be well paid for what he has done in the past, but they expect huge things out of him in the future FOR A LONG TIME. This is not some short-term move that the old-style Yankees would make. The Yankees aren’t trading the farm for a one or two year fix. Santana is expected to be dominant for at least the next 5 years. That’s a long time, in case you don’t know.

The 932 IP for Santana is not a bad thing. Brandon Webb has thrown 921 IP over the last 4 seasons and is 28 years old. Yeah sure that must mean his arm is going to fall off any day now. When you look at guys that have thrown the most innings over the last 3 or 4 seasons, you generally see the elite pitchers in baseball that have stayed healthy like Santana, Webb, Peavy, Oswalt, etc.

Santana has been remarkably healthy. And having guys that throw 200+ IP per year saves the bullpen immensely. In case you haven’t noticed, the Yankee bullpen is a mess. Do you realize how helpful it is to have a guy like Santana that can throw 230 IP a year, in terms of saving the bullpen from overload? Hughes is going to throw 180 max this year, and probably less. Of course it would be foolish to trade Hughes based solely on the fact that he won’t throw 200 IP this year, but my point is that the fact that Santana has thrown 900+ IP over the lst 4 seasons is a GOOD THING. When he is healthy he is a innings eater and saves the bullpen, in addition to providing 200+ insanely dominant innings. The Yankees only had one pitcher that broke 200 IP last year. And there’s no way Joba/Hughes/Kennedy are doing that in 2008. Mussina likely won’t get there either. Santana’s presence will help the bullpen tremendously every year. And he has been healthy every year. In fact who has the more recent injury history, Santana or Hughes? So maybe Hughes could be the next Mike Hampton instead? Any pitcher can get a freak injury. That is the danger with signing a pitcher to a long-term contract. But saying that “nobody knows”, as if that random chance is reason enough to stay away from Santana, is flat-out absurd. Your point should have been this: signing pitchers to contracts of more than 4 years has generally not worked out in most cases. There is no need to imply that Santana is going to get injured because he has thrown 900+ innings. The Baseball Prospectus guys have shown that pitcher injuries are not correlated closely with IP. Instead, injuries are highly correlated with how often a pitcher exceeds a benchmark pitch count, like for example 110 pitches. The point is that total IP are misleading when considering how much wear and tear a pitcher has accumulated. Wang threw 199 IP last year, and Pettitte threw 215 IP last year. That’s only a difference of 16 innings, yet Andy Pettitte threw 534 more pitches than Wang did. So this goes back to my main gripe here: the fact that Santana has thrown 900+ IP over the last 4 seasons is a good thing. It shows that he is one of the healthiest and most effective pitchers in baseball. If you want to get worried abour injury possibilities you should analyze pitch counts. Mark Prior and Kerry Wood were ruined because Dusty Baker didn’t know how to manage a pitch count. The Twins always kept Santana at a reasonable number of pitches. This goes a lot deeper than “oh Hampton got injured so any pitcher that sings a long-term deal has a decent chance of getting injured too.”

I don’t know if I am in favor of the proposed trade or not. I like Hughes and would love to see the Yankees win some titles with him and Joba and Cano, etc. However, Johan Santana is heads and shoulders above every pitcher in baseball and he is the one guy that is so darn good that you actually do have to consider trading the untouchable Hughes for. It’s a tough call for me. SJ44 has already argued many times that the trade is a no-brainer for the Yankees to make. Lots of other people feel that way as well. I’m kind of undecided at this point. But why you think Santana’s age and IP over the last 4 seasons are warning signs is beyond me. And the fact that you think he was not great in 2007 is also hard to believe. He’s the best pitcher in baseball and is as reliable and consistent as they come.

# December 27th, 2007 at 4:04 am

“But adding him to the roster would cost $20 million a season plus a 40-percent luxury tax penalty.”

The money factor is mostly irrelevant for the Yankees. This would be a good argument for not trading for Santana for just about any other team in baseball. But the Steinbrenners are willing to spend the money to put a better team on the field. The tax threshhold is raised to 155 million next season. Then the Yankees will be losing a lot of payroll in the next offseason with Giambi, Farnsworth, Mussina, Pavano, Abreu, and Pettitte’s contracts ending. At least those first 4 guys will be gone, and that’s close to 50 million right there. If one of Abreu/pettitte also are not re-signed that will be another 16 million cleared up. There are a lot of good free agent pitchers next offseason (especially compared to this offseasons garbage offerings) and if the Yankees don’t spend 20 million per year on Santana right now, they will likely sign some other starter next offseason for like 15 million per year, like Sabathia.

But basically my point is, the Yankees are the one team where your point about Santana’s financial cost does not matter much at all.
# TomoPogo December 27th, 2007 at 4:21 am

“Trade these guys now and the message is pretty clear: The Yankees are only paying lip service to development. This isn’t trading a few B-level prospects for Bobby Abreu in July. This would be an old-school Yankees move.”

This is also incorrect. The Yankees have shown that they are very serious about having a strong farm system. Just look at the Yankee signings this offseason - none of them were Type A free agents from other teams. This means that the Yankees did not lose any future draft picks. If this was the old-style Yankees, Rowand would probably be wearing pinstripes right now and Melky already would have been traded for Gagne back in July. This is not the old-style Yankees. What this is, is a chance for the Yankees to acquire a rare talent and the best starting pitcher in baseball.

Having a strong farm system is good for multiple reasons. If you actually expect every high draft pick and top prospect to stay with the organization for the next 10 years then you are nuts. Ideally many of them do in fact show enough ability to become productive mainstays on the MLB roster down the line. But having a deep farm system also provides you with more trade possiblities. The Yankees can afford to lose Hughes/Melky/Marquez for Santana because the farm system is so strong. Losing Melky would actually be the bigger blow in 2008 since he is so good defensively and there is no obvious replacement in 2008 for that aspect of his game. Losing Hughes is obviously a bigger long-term loss than losing Melky, but that’s ok because Santana will likely be much better than Hughes over the next 5 years, and by then the Yankees will probably have more prospects like Hughes/Joba in the minors. This is because the Yankees are drafting very intelligently in recent years and using their financial resources to sign high-ceiling players that other teams will stay away from. They are also very active in the international market and have an advantage there over most teams. There will be more guys like Hughes in Yankee minor league system. So losing him for Santana is not in any way a sign that these are the old-style Yankees. Don’t let this one move overshadow what’s been obvious over the last couple of years: The Yankees are serious about drafting and player development, and this makes them more self-sufficient as well as a more flexible trade partner, as well as less dependent on mediocre free agents that cost them high draft picks like the Farnsworths of the world.

http://www.projo.com/redsox/content/sp_bb_lowrie27_12-27-07_2B8C4MN_v9.27dbfdc.html


The Red Sox were pleased with the development of numerous prospects during the 2007 season, especially Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury. Both players made significant contributions to Boston’s world


championship run, but they weren’t the only ones who impressed management.

Enter Jed Lowrie, an infielder, and Justin Masterson, a pitcher.

Both enjoyed success in 2007, but there’s still plenty of developmental work that needs to be done before they can say they have exceeded the organization’s expectations.

Lowrie proved that he possesses solid skills. But there was a strength issue. That’s something he said he focused on last season, and he continues to do so in his offseason workouts. He’s been in Arizona working out with a personal trainer.

Lowrie is considered a solid hitter with good knowledge of the strike zone. When he steps into the batter’s box, he approaches each at-bat with a plan. He is a well-prepared player, and there should be improvement in spring training because of his increased strength.

“I’m continuing to work out and let my body mature,” said Lowrie, a 6-foot, 185-pounder. “I feel like I’m still growing and I feel like I have a lot of potential, but it’s something I need to work at and I’m working at it pretty hard. It’s just a matter of gaining some strength and maintaining my flexibility and range of motion at the same time.”

The 23-year-old, in his third year as a pro, began the 2007 season at Double-A Portland and hit .297 with 49 RBI in 93 games for the Sea Dogs. He was promoted to Pawtucket on July 27 and finished the season hitting .300 for the PawSox, with 21 RBI in 40 games.

Defensively, he made tremendous strides at shortstop for the PawSox, and proved to the parent club that he has the ability to play the position at the major-league level. Even though the Red Sox are pleased with his development, it’s a safe bet — barring a trade — that Lowrie will be back with the PawSox in 2008 and likely will play other infield positions.

From the winter meetings in Nashville earlier this month until now, there have been reports that Lowrie and Masterson could be part of a possible deal between the Red Sox and Twins for two-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Johan Santana of the Twins. However, Lowrie said he’s preparing for spring training with the Red Sox.

“Any time you’re mentioned in the same trade for a pitcher like Johan Santana, you feel pretty humble because he’s one of the best the game has to offer,” said Lowrie. “You get sort of humble when you’re mentioned in that company.”

At the conclusion of last season, the Red Sox sent Lowrie to the Arizona Fall League, where he played for the Mesa Solar Sox. Despite a hand injury that sidelined him for the first week, Lowrie was pleased with his performance. He played shortstop, second base and third base, which was exactly what the Red Sox wanted him to do to become more versatile in the infield.

“I really enjoyed my time out there,” he said. “It was a great experience.”

Masterson spent the majority of last season working on command of his secondary pitches, especially his changeup and sinker. The 6-foot-6, 250-pound right-hander has also shown that he’s mentally tough. He pitched last season at Class-A Lancaster, Calif., where Clear Channel Stadium is a hitter’s paradise because of the wind, which usually blows toward the outfield.

The JetHawks led the California League with 217 home runs last season. Lake Elsinore finished a distant second with 148. So pitching in Lancaster isn’t easy. Still, Masterson posted an 8-5 record and a 4.33 ERA in 17 starts for the JetHawks. In 95 2/3 innings, he allowed only 22 walks and recorded 56 strikeouts. He gave up four homers, and opponents had a .275 batting average.

The 22-year-old was promoted to Double-A Portland, where he continued to have success. Masterson posted a 4-3 record in 10 starts and had a 4.34 ERA for the Sea Dogs. He walked only 18 and struck out 59 in 58 innings. Because of his rapid development, the Red Sox invited him to Fenway Park during the postseason.

If the Red Sox don’t make a trade for Santana, they’ll continue to look to their solid minor-league system for help.

jmcdonal@projo.com

Published by Dugout Scout on December 24, 2007 08:55 am under Scouting Reports

“The injury bug hit us this year” or “it’s just been a run of bad luck” are some excuses voiced by losing teams throughout the baseball season. The clubs that continue to contend year after year (Angels, Yankees, Braves, Dodgers) have some way of identifying and projecting the part of the game that has to do with injuries.

The following evaluation and projection has been made by a collective effort of professional scouts using resources such as live game analysis, historical video comparison, statistical evaluation and injury history.

The risk category is defined by the level of risk each particular pitcher (closer) has with respect to injuring his throwing arm while delivering pitches during live game competition. The players are put into categories based on a comparative analysis between the proper fundamentals of a pitching delivery from the windup and the stretch to each particular closer’s current pitching mechanics.

#

Agree 100% with Pete’s post. Develop talent, don’t trade it away.

Don’t pay for past performance.
# Brandon (Proud supporter of "ALEX BEING ALEX") & dammit SAVE HUGHES !!! December 27th, 2007 at 11:18 am

December 27th, 2007 at 11:09 am
I dont want to trade phil
but comparing a Hughes/Santana trade to the moves trades in the 80’s is dumb. It’s a redsox fan opinion.

just because he doesn’t agree w/ your opinion which alot of Yankee fans on this blog don’t and some do doesn’t mean you have to keep insulting Pete like that. He’s a Red Sox fan ok yet he worked 15 years to build this blog and yet you type in it, if you don’t like it leave, this isn’t the Capulets vs. Montagues we share opinions and really I’d say Pete is one of the most fair weathered Red Sox fan on his blog he doesn’t throw that around so come w/ a stronger point next time.