King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Johan Santana to the Mets: The rich get richer and the poor ... build for the future? We'll see.
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Jan. 31, 2008 | So what are we to make of the Johan Santana trade, which as of this writing is still contingent on the New York Mets reaching a deal on a contract extension with the left-handed ace?
The Mets got Santana from the Minnesota Twins for four prospects Tuesday, provided they can get him signed by 5 p.m. EST Friday. Santana, the premier pitcher of the last half-decade, would be a free agent for the first time after this season. The likelihood the Mets won't reach a deal with Santana by the deadline is approximately zero.
This kind of trade has become familiar to baseball fans, the star or superstar nearing the end of his contract shipped off, usually from a smaller market to a larger one, in exchange for a passel of prospects. A Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial lamented that Minnesota sports fans are all too familiar with their best players leaving town.
We're all savvy enough these days to recognize that the team giving up the star isn't necessarily a victim. We're hip to the idea that those three or four guys we don't know much about may end up being more valuable than the big guy we do know.
We're not as likely to be fooled as we were as recently as spring training of 2002, when I and many other geniuses criticized the Florida Marlins' salary-dump trade of Antonio Alfonseca and Matt Clement to the Chicago Cubs for a bunch of minor leaguers -- one of whom turned out to be Dontrelle Willis, who helped pitch the Marlins to the World Series title the next year.
So were we shocked when the Oakland A's were forced by economic circumstances to trade away ace lefty Mark Mulder and ended up getting the better of the deal with Danny Haren, Daric Barton and Kiko Calero? We were not. Will we be surprised if the A's get the better of this winter's similar trade that sent Haren to Arizona for about half of the Diamondbacks' farm system? We will not be.
Not that it always works out that way. The Philadelphia Phillies hardly got fat off the Bobby Abreu trade, for example. Sometimes it is what it looks like, the rich getting richer.