“The best pitcher in baseball,” according to Sports Illustrated’s May 4 cover story, is Kansas City’s Zack Greinke, who is 6-0 and leading the major leagues with a 0.40 ERA. 

SI is wrong.  They might have changed their minds had they been at the game last night, where Johan Santana threw seven shutout innings, allowed two hits and struck out 10 against the world champion Phillies to extend his record to 4-1 and a National League-leading ERA of 0.91.

Greinke is a fine pitcher, who is currently performing way over his head. With luck, he will be touted at the end of the season as a candidate for the American League’s Cy Young Award.  Santana is on the verge of nailing down a plaque at the Hall of Fame.

If Johan had been luckier last season, everyone would already understand that he’s headed for Cooperstown, or at least if he’d been lucky enough to have J. J. Putz as his set-up man and Francisco Rodriguez as his closer. Thanks to those two, the Mets are currently leading the National League in bullpen ERA at 2.94; K-Rod, as we go to press, has an ERA of 1.42 with eight saves.

Santana has already led his league in earned run average three times in nine previous seasons (2004 and 2006 with Minnesota and 2008 with the Mets) and won two Cy Young awards. Last season the Mets’ bullpen cost Santana a third Cy Young Award—that’s my opinion, anyway. Seven times he left the mound with a lead only to have the relievers blow it. He wound up third in the Cy Young voting behind San Francisco’s Tim Lincecum and Arizona’s Brandon Webb.  How much did those blown saves hurt Johan?  Let’s compare the NL’s three best pitchers last season:

                        W-L     ERA     Starts   IP         Hits      SO-BB

Lincecum          18-5     2.62     33        227      182      265-84

Webb               22-7     3.30     34        226.2   206      183-65

Santana            16-7     2.53     34        234.1   206      206-63

Santana and Lincecum were neck-and-neck in just about every statistic; Lincecum gets the edge in win-loss percentage and gave up 24 fewer hits, while Santana had a slightly lower ERA, pitched a few more innings, and had a lower strikeouts-to-walks ratio.  You can make a good argument for either man’s credentials. But note that Webb, who did not have a better season than Santana, finished second in the voting to Johan’s third.  That’s because he was 22-7 to Santana’s 16-7, which is, unfortunately, the first thing that Cy Young voters look at. 

If Mets relievers had held on to the lead those seven times Santana presented them with it—or, let’s say it a different way: If the Mets had had K-Rod as a closer last year and he held on to all seven leads (he’s 8 out of 8 this year)—then Santana would have been 23-7 and finished ahead of Lincecum in the voting just as Webb finished ahead of Santana.

And if that had happened, Johan Santana would currently be regarded, correctly, as someone who is on the fast track for the HOF, as nobody with three Cy Youngs has ever been left out of Cooperstown. Blown saves or no in 2008, Santana won’t be left out, either. Look for him to nail it down once and for all down this year’s pennant stretch. 

That’s if the Mets have a pennant stretch.  As of Wednesday morning, the Mets were 13-13; Santana had won three of four decisions while the rest of the Mets staff was a combined 9-12. Unlike last year, when the bullpen collapsed, the team’s problem this year is that the starters behind Santana can’t hold the lead long enough to hand it to the relievers.  Right now, the Mets are looking like a ship that plugs a leak only to see a bigger one spring open somewhere else. 

When the Mets made Santana the richest pitcher in baseball with a $137.5 million, six-year contract—the Yankees, of course, topped that with C.C. Sabathia’s seven-year, $161 million deal—it was to “Erase the disgrace,” as one homemade sign seen at Shea last year implored.  That it didn’t work out that way was hardly Santana’s fault. Now, after the 2008 ending, he’s got two disgraces to help erase. 

At a press conference shortly after he arrived in Port St. Lucie in the spring of 2008, he told reporters, “I’m not going to go out there and try to be a hero. I’m just going to be myself, and, hopefully, with my help we can make everyone forget what happened last year.” But that “with my help” stuff isn’t enough, and no one knows it better than Santana. If the Mets win the pennant, he—not David Wright or Jose Reyes or Carlos Beltran—will have been the biggest reason.

Two years ago Jeff Souhan of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune told me, “Johan didn’t just go to New York for the money. At this point in his career, he’d have chosen New York over Minnesota even if the Twins had found a way to match the money.”  What did he want? “He wants more run support,” said Souhan. “He wants to build his credentials for the Hall of Fame, and he wants to perform in front of a large Latin community. He wants the national spotlight.”

He’s entitled, of course, to all those things. And if the rest of the Mets rotation can pull itself together, he’ll get them. And in return, Santana will give the Mets a very good shot at erasing those disgraces.

Yes, the Mets have Johan Santana, the best pitcher in baseball, anchoring their staff. But behind the two-time Cy Young winner, the Mets’ rotation is shaky. Backing up Santana and Pelfrey are three gifted-but-unreliable pitchers: Oliver Perez, who looked like a particularly errant batting-practice pitcher in his last preseason start, against the Red Sox; John Maine, who is coming off an injury-shortened 2008 season; and Livan Hernandez, 34 years old and one year removed from a season in which he had a 6.05 earned run average. After Mets general manager Omar Minaya devoted most of the off-season to restructuring the Mets dismal bullpen, the rotation could end up being the thing that lets the Mets down.

In other words, if the Mets want to make the playoffs, Mike Pelfrey has to pitch like Jerry Koosman, who complimented staff ace Tom Seaver in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the nine seasons between 1968 and 1976, Jerry Koosman was one of the best pitchers in baseball, averaging slightly over 14 wins per season and helping the Mets reach the playoffs twice.  Koosman won two games in the 1969 World Series, pitching 8 and 2/3 innings of one-run baseball in Game 2 and closing out the series in Game 5 with a five-hit, three-run complete game. He wasn’t Tom Seaver, but the Amazin’ Mets wouldn’t have been so amazing without the workmanlike pitching from Koosman.

Mike Pelfrey stands 6 feet 7 inches tall and has one of the best sinking fastballs in the majors. Mixing in a decent changeup and an average curveball, Pelfrey doesn’t dominate games, but he is efficient when he is pitching well, forces a lot of groundball outs with his sinker and can pitch late into games. Unlike the other pitchers in the rotation, Pelfrey is an original Met, having been drafted in the first round by the Mets in the 2005 draft. Formerly a top prospect, he seemed to put it all together last year after struggling in limited major league appearances in 2006 and 2007.

In 2008, Pelfrey’s first full season in the majors, he went 13-11 with a 3.72 ERA in 200.2 innings. Those are fine numbers for a young pitcher, but he effectively pitched two different seasons last year.

From Opening Day to June 16th, Pelfrey started 13 games and had 3 wins, 6 losses and an era of 4.62. On Monday, June 16th, Pelfrey pitched poorly in the series opener against the Anaheim Angels, giving up six earned runs in six innings. He still managed to pick up the win, although he did not deserve it, and the Mets improved to 34-35 on the season. It was Willie Randolph’s last game as the Mets’ manager. Later that night, Randolph and pitching coach Rick Peterson were fired and replaced by Jerry Manuel and Dan Warthen, respectively.

Coincidence or not, both the Mets and Pelfrey thrived under the new leadership.

From June 16th on, the Mets went 55-38, although the season ended with Mets missing the playoffs on the last day of the season for the second year in a row. In that span Pelfrey pitched like a true number-two starter and did all he could to get the Mets into the postseason. In 19 starts after the Anaheim game, Pelfrey went 11-5 with a 3.35 earned run average, and pitched into the seventh inning in 12 of his starts. Immediately following the coup, Pelfrey pitched seven games without a loss and later, in August, pitched back-to-back complete games.

Whether it was getting rid of his mouthguard, or ditching his slider in favor of his curveball, or just a chemistry issue, Pelfrey pitched much, much better with Warthen as his pitching coach.

Now, the Mets are hoping he can reproduce his second-half form over the course of a full season, even though his workload jumped 48 innings from 2007 to 2008. Pelfrey had mixed results in spring training. In his final preseason tune up, he got shelled, giving up six runs in just 4 and 2/3 innings.

If the Mets are to make the playoffs for the first time since 2006, Pelfrey has to deliver. Around 200 innings, with an ERA around 3.50 and 14 wins should do it. He needs to be a great number-two starter. He needs to pitch a lot better than he pitched on Wednesday night.

The rest of the page is so graphically quiet, with so little left to it, that the News' decision to flag the earthquake in Italy loses much of its potential drama. And never mind the third story, which isn't really even a story so much as a refer to the back page: “Santana's sharp, but CC is not.” Since fans already know what happened last night in the Mets' and Yankees' first games, we think a Sports refer on Page One ought to advance the point of view on the news a bit, and this is pretty lame. Taking the risk of looking at the back page, we see that the News isn't shy in its analysis of what happened last night: “MONEY FOR NOTHING” reads the Sports-page cover depicting Yanks' last great hope, the expensive C.C. Sabathia, looking tolerably worn out. We can understand not wanting to repeat the same analysis on the front and back, but could we have had some of the energy of this coverage on the front? We'd have voted to give C.C. somewhere between a half and a third of a page, and some real display copy, too.

The New York Post gives more real estate to last night's baseball action, but somewhat inexplicably gives it to Johan Santana instead of C.C. Sabathia. It's not just that we think bad news sells better than good news—both the tabloids have disproved that old canard over and over again. It's that the loss by the Yankees and the buildup over Mr. Sabathia was such more dramatic fodder than Johan Santana's (to his credit) predictably good performance for the Mets. Again, the back page isn't shy (though it's a bit of a stretch): “BIRDBATHIA,” it reads. We don't see this entering the sports fan's vernacular for future poor performances.

The Post, too, has decided to flag this letter from the Binghamton shooter, but manages to get the message across in a single line at the bottom of the page, in knockout text on a red field. This is probably what we would have done with it, too, though we hadn't thought of “HAVE A NICE DAY.” But now it's time to talk about something else: Hello, FRIAR TUCK! This morning the Post goes big on Staten Island pastor William Blasingame, who apparently embezzled congregation money to buy fancy clothes and get cosmetic procedures, as well as to pay insurance on his car. It's a pretty great headline. And it's one of those Post pieces that you imagine will dribble out the facts in a series of paragraphs that repeat the premise with a new joke that might have been the headline. Inside the headline is “Tale of Beauty and the Priest.” Not bad! “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the cutest clergyman of them all?” the article begins. Later, it is explained that his Stapleton parish, with its Victorian Gothic church, had set up a fund to cover the “maintenance, upkeep and beautification of its grounds.” But! “Blasingame was using the money to fund his own beautification and upkeep, officials said.” Zing. On its face it's just another instance of tabloid anticlericalism, in the broad sense of the word: The petty officials that run your life are vain, prideful and preposterous, and will take you for a ride if you let them! Come join us as we catch them redhanded and humiliate them! But the fact that this priest isn't Catholic will greatly reduce the population that will feel directly implicated in the case: Countless Catholic readers will devour anything about a Catholic priest's misdeeds pretty much wherever he works, but a charismatic pastor with mostly his own congregation—on Staten Island no less!—and not much else to worry about still seems like somebody else's business. And no, the fact that the Post doesn't specify the denomination before the jump doesn't matter: If the priest were Catholic it would say so. Is it a stretch to think that the prospect of the “FRIAR TUCK” headline is what led the Post to put this on the front page in the first place?

General observations: It's a hard one. Which is worse: devoting so little space to the season opener on Page One that it does you no good, or choosing the wrong story to play big?  The box treatment at the top of the page over at the News may as well not exist, but the Post doesn't exactly hit it out of the park with that Johan Santana display either. We think this breaks to the Post, by a hair. We also think the Post gave the right treatment, from a news perspective, to the Jiverly Wong letter; it's a question of what's left to you, and whether you're forced to do something big with "HAVE A NICE DAY." Without asking what else there was in the paper today (presumably that was already handled in a Page One meeting yesterday and the answer was "not much"), and strictly from the standpoint of selling the poor consumer on the front page, we have to give points for drama to the News here. If you haven't picked it up yet, though, keep in mind you'll be disappointed. What's left is the earthquake in Italy and ... Friar Tuck! Faint heart never won fair maiden, but sometimes going big with the wrong story means going wrong in a big way. We call "FRIAR TUCK" a stinker, though we again have to hand it to the headline writer.
"HAVE A NICE DAY" beats it.

Winner: The Daily News.

But from start to finish, the Mets showed in their 6-3 victory over Philadelphia on Sunday night that however the season turns out, their 2008 club is a different model from last year’s.

Most obvious among these differences is the presence of Johan Santana, who entered the night with an ERA at Shea Stadium of just 1.99. Santana was dominant in the first half—in the second half, he has been even better. Santana gives the Mets quantity as well as quality, pitching into the eighth inning Sunday night for the fourth time in his last ten starts. In 2007, the Mets had three pitchers do that in the entire month of September.

But the differences showed themselves as early as the first inning, when the Mets responded to Philadelphia’s first inning run with three of their own. With one out, Ryan Church singled, one of his two hits on the night. Flash back to 2007, and Church was also hitting—but for the Nationals, in three September victories over the Mets. Church had a pinch-hit home run against New York on September 17, two hits and two RBI on September 24, and his grand slam against the Mets provided the final margin in Washington’s 9-6 victory on September 26.

Two batters later, New York had a run and two runners on for Carlos Delgado, who promptly singled in the pair to give New York a 3-1 lead it would not relinquish. And while it is easy to forget within the turmoil of last year’s collapse, Delgado was not a part of much of it, with an injury keeping him out of action from September 4 to September 21. That was far from an inconsequential loss for the Mets—Delgado was a very effective offensive player for New York in 2007’s second half, posting a .285/.375/.469 line following the All Star break.

While that is short of the .284/.380/.574 second-half line in 2008 that has catapulted him into National League Most Valuable Player discussions, he was a critical bat that might have made the difference during last year’s stretch run. That became more obvious as the night went on, and he hit not one, but two home runs to help pad New York’s lead.

In the eighth inning, Jerry Manuel showed once again why his replacing Willie Randolph as manager makes an enormous difference when the Mets play critical September games. With a 5-2 lead and one out in the eighth inning, Santana gave up a double to Jason Werth. Up stepped NL home run leader Ryan Howard, a lefty. Who did Manuel bring in to pitch to Howard? Lefty Pedro Feliciano, who grounded him out. Manuel then turned to righty Brian Stokes to retire righty Pat Burrell and end the inning.

Seems simple enough, but the Mets lost many games, particularly to the Phillies, down the stretch in 2007 when Randolph failed to play the percentages. In late August, Randolph let righty Guillermo Mota pitch to Howard in an extra-inning game. Howard homered as closer Billy Wagner and lefty specialist Scott Schoeneweis sat unused in the bullpen. Even as late as September 16, Randolph let righty Jorge Sosa pitch to Greg Dobbs, who cannot hit lefties, with the bases loaded while multiple lefty relievers were available to him. Dobbs’ grand slam was the difference in a 10-6 Philadelphia win.

The ninth inning showed another difference between the two seasons. Billy Wagner had attempted a simulated game earlier in the day, but the pain from his elbow injury was too great to overcome. So while Randolph had a legitimate closer, the Mets relied on Luis Ayala, a serviceable reliever, but not a pitcher on Wagner’s level. But while on so many occasions Randolph would not have other options warming up, even when he turned to pitchers that had struggled for months, Manuel had both Joe Smith and Al Reyes, a pitcher who hadn’t thrown for the Mets all year, waiting in the wings.

Ayala, like Church, played well down the stretch in 2007—for the Nationals, against the Mets. Ayala threw three scoreless innings in three September Washington wins over New York, even earning the save on September 26. In 2008, Ayala ended the game by striking out Jimmy Rollins, leaving him hitless for the game. Last year, Rollins had a hit in the final eight games between Philadelphia and New York—and the Phillies won all eight of them.

The Mets have now eliminated Philadelphia’s last chance to gain ground directly, but new and potentially deadly flaws may still doom the Mets—and their margin for error is smaller. Luckily, this is a different cast of characters. They have reason to hope for a different result.

While the starting rotation has been a strength thus far, much of that success has come from the young Mike Pelfrey’s development, and from surprise success story Nelson Figueroa. With a traditional five-man rotation, either Pelfrey or Figueroa would need to go to an already-overstocked bullpen or the minor leagues.

Consider instead the effect a six-man rotation would have on the effectiveness of each of New York’s top-four pitchers. Johan Santana, who may have struggled in September due to fatigue last season (4.94 ERA after September 1), had a 3.69 ERA with four days of rest, 2.93 ERA with five days of rest. While the six-man rotation will leave four fewer starts for Santana, the prospect of improving his performance in the estimated 22 others he will have is a strong incentive for the change.

And for the other starters, such a change, if history is to be believed, would have nothing but upside.

Take Pedro, who pitched on five days of rest upon his return last season. His numbers—23 innings, 28 strikeouts, and a 2.35 ERA—are ace-level, even though he’d be pitching out of the number-two slot. It is impossible to estimate how he’d pitch with only four days of rest—but at age 36, and increasingly brittle, the odds that he’d improve on less rest are small.

The results are no different for third starter John Maine. Last season, his ERA on four days of rest was 4.44—on five days of rest, 3.80. His career splits are even larger—4.69 on four days, 3.60 on five days. His strikeout rate goes up and his walk rate goes down with that extra day.

Meanwhile, fourth starter Oliver Perez did have a higher ERA on five days of rest than on four days. But for Perez, whose main bugaboo is control, the extra day did wonders for his location. On four days of rest, he walked 36 in 58 1/3 innings. On 5 days, he walked 40—in 99 innings. (Six-plus days of rest was even kinder to Perez, with three walks in 19 2/3 innings.) Considering also that Perez’s velocity seems to improve with extra rest, and that his career ERA on four days of rest is 4.87, but on five days of rest is 4.00, and it’s at least arguable that even he could benefit from such a move.

Even the fifth and sixth starters in this arrangement, Pelfrey and Figueroa, have excelled with more time off. Though his total innings pitched make such numbers suspect, Pelfrey’s career ERA with four days of rest is 8.59; on five days that number drops to 3.42. And his seven shutout innings against Washington, the best start of his career, came on five days of rest. As for Nelson Figueroa, both of his first two masterful starts in 2008 came on five days of rest; his career ERA on four days of rest is 5.19, and on five days of rest, 4.02.

In total, the six would-be Mets starters have put up a 4.26 ERA and 7.94 strikeouts per nine innings on four days’ rest in 310 2/3 innings since the start of the 2007 season. On five days’ rest, the totals are a 3.31 ERA, and 9.26 strikeouts per nine innings in 358 2/3 innings.

There are two additional benefits to the six-man arrangement. The three pitchers who pitched full 2007s, Maine, Perez and Santana, all had higher ERAs in the second half than the first half—in Maine’s case, the ERA more than doubled. For a team with October aspirations, keeping all three pitchers fresh could make a critical difference in a September pennant race, not to mention the grind of several October series.

The Mets also face an offseason of decisions after the 2008 campaign. Both Pedro Martinez and Oliver Perez will be free agents. The Mets will likely need to spend heavily to keep Martinez, and especially Perez, who will be entering his age-27 season. With holes in left field and first base, it will be hard for New York to spend free agent money to fix it all.

But a full season in the rotation could answer whether or not Mike Pelfrey is ready to assume a primary role in New York’s rotation, as well as whether Nelson Figueroa, whose success is reinforced by his strikeout rate, can give the Mets a Rick Reed-style mid-30s renaissance. If either or both are ready, it gives the Mets options should they decide Martinez’s usefulness is compromised by his health, or that breaking the bank for Oliver Perez is not a good idea.

And should either Figueroa or Pelfrey falter, Orlando Hernandez might be ready to return. Worst comes to worst, the Mets can return to the five-man setup. But before settling, New York should consider this as a possible way to optimize the rotation, for now, for October and for the future of the franchise.

In front of a sellout crowd at Tradition Field, Johan Santana quickly took command of the game against the Orioles in the first inning. A recent criticism leveled by former major leaguer Jack Morris is that Santana is relying too much on his change-up. And considering that a change-up is merely a slow fastball, such a pattern could be problematic.

But Santana consistently set the tone for at-bats with a fastball that showed no reduction in velocity from his best outings.

Luke Scott, a formidable fastball hitter, fell victim to a high heater to end the top of the first inning. And even when Santana fell behind, as he did to Jay Payton in the second, he returned to the fastball to induce the out.

It was instructive to see him battle against Guillermo Quieroz, Orioles catching prospect, in the third as well. After getting ahead, Quieroz was able to lay off a pair of sinkers on each side of the plate. But Santana’s change-up simply froze Quieroz, one of seven strikeouts on the night.

“I threw some sinkers, but the fastball really allowed me to get hitters out tonight,” Santana said after the game to a herd of reporters. Fellow Mets stars David Wright and Jose Reyes walked by unmolested. “I know if I do what needs to be done, I’ll be ready for opening day.”

The pitching was only part of the show. In the third, Santana, a lifetime .258 hitter, got to the plate. He took an outside strike, fouled a fastball off, then laced a curveball into the right-center-field gap for a double, providing evidence of why he insisted his contract with the Mets include a bonus for a Silver Slugger Award.

He even provided a base-running highlight. The next hitter was Jose Reyes, who singled through the hole in right field. As Santana tried to score, Reyes tried to stretch the single into a double. Reyes was thrown out at second for the third out of the inning, and Santana’s run would not have counted if he hadn’t been hustling around the bases—but Santana crossed the plate first.

The experience was a relatively new one for Santana, who didn’t get many opportunities to hit in the designated-hitter-infested American League.

“That is the toughest thing to do as a pitcher, to run the bases, and then go out there and pitch,” Santana said. “I got to the mound, and it was tough—but once the inning started, I knew I was prepared for these kinds of things.”

The third inning would prove to be the last time Baltimore would challenge Santana. Adam Jones was frozen by a fastball, then a change, but did not chase a 3-2 fastball out of the zone. Santana got ahead of the next hitter, Luis Hernandez, but the light-hitting shortstop flailed at a 2-2 outside fastball and dumped a double into left. That brought up Luke Scott again. And once again, on a 2-2 count, Santana went not to the change-up, but to the fastball. Scott had no chance, watching it go by for the third out of the inning.

Normally during a Mets game, fans will get up following the home half of the frame—they don’t want to miss the Mets’ at-bat. But overwhelmingly, bathroom and hot dog breaks took place following the visitor’s turn at bat—everyone knew Santana was the show. Wright was due up second, Beltran third—but nobody wanted to miss seeing Johan Santana pitch to Brandon Fahey.

By the fifth, Baltimore’s at-bats were a tableau of resignation. Anyone who saw Santana do the same thing to the 2007 Mets last season at Shea Stadium recognized the signs. Sliders in the dirt were hacked at, at-bats got quicker and quicker. These were not lazy batters. They simply realized they weren’t going to hit Santana.

“Spring training is for you to get ready,” Santana said. “As for now, I feel good. I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

The Mets, who haven’t had a pitcher of Santana’s caliber in roughly 20 years, certainly agree.

The Mets will give up outfielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey and Deolis Guerra. The deal is still pending both a physical by Santana and an agreement between the Mets and Santana on a contract extension—Santana is a free agent following the 2008 season—but neither is expected to be a stumbling block.

It is believed that Santana will sign for between 5-7 years, at an annual rate of more than $20 million per season.

Despite the outlay of players and likely of cash, make no mistake about it—this may be the finest trade in Mets history.

While talks between the Twins and various Santana suitors had dragged through much of the winter, Santana’s agent, Peter Greenberg, made it known to the Twins that his client preferred to be traded prior to the start of spring training next month. Since Santana had the right to veto any trade, this was a request the Twins took seriously, rather than risk losing Santana after 2008 for nothing but compensatory draft picks.

What is particularly striking about this trade is that the Mets acquired the best pitcher in baseball for less than it took for the Arizona Diamondbacks to snag Dan Haren or it is reported the Seattle Mariners will give up for Erik Bedard. Both Bedard and Haren are frontline starters—but not in the same category as Johan Santana.

Of course, Bedard and Haren are not eligible to be free agents until after 2009—but for once, the Mets parlayed their financial advantage into the acquisition of the best player they could get.

Johan Santana led the American League in strikeouts in 2004, 2005 and 2006. He fell to second in 2007, four off league-leader Scott Kazmir’s pace. And it wasn’t just due to his durability, though he has pitched 219 innings or more in each of his four full seasons as a starter—he also ranked first, first, first and third in strikeouts per nine innings.

But there’s more. His walk rate is consistently among the lowest in the American League. He’s won the Cy Young Award twice. He’s a great fielder—he won the American League Gold Glove for pitchers in 2007. He’s a career .258 hitter—and that is despite spending most of his season not hitting at all.

And he won’t be 29 until March 13.

The talent the Mets gave up, while considerable, is no sure thing—as opposed to the proven track record of Santana. Carlos Gomez is an outfielder with tremendous tools. But his best position, center field, is likely to be filled by Carlos Beltran for the foreseeable future, and it is far from certain Gomez will hit well enough to man a corner outfield spot.

And Gomez is a far superior bet to the three pitchers the Mets dealt. Philip Humber, a first-round draft pick of the Mets in 2004, had a middling 2007 in his second year back from Tommy John surgery. Kevin Mulvey, while succeeding well at AA Binghamton in 2007, lacks frontline stuff and may not be able to repeat his home run rate (4 in 151 2/3 innings) at higher levels. And Deolis Guerra, though a very talented 18-year-old, is miles from the major leagues, and has suffered through some elbow difficulty already. He is, as any low-level minor league pitcher is, a lottery ticket.

What makes this trade so lopsided for the Mets is that assuming Santana stays healthy, even should each of the four prospects reach their ceiling, a highly unlikely event, the Mets will have no cause to regret the deal. And that rarely happens—the Mets dealt an outfield prospect on par with Gomez (Preston Wilson), a pitching prospect better than any in the Santana deal (Ed Yarnall) and one on par with those they gave up (Geoff Goetz) for Mike Piazza. Needless to say, they did not regret that trade.

Ultimately, both the Yankees and Red Sox, the other two teams that could afford Santana both financially and in terms of talent to trade, decided to stand pat—the Yankees due to a desire to build around young pitching, the Red Sox due to a satisfaction with their current staff, which did, after all, just win a World Series.

And the Mets may yet manage to alter the spring storyline from the aftermath of their 2007 collapse.

So with no other alternatives, the Twins decided to get what they could. And the Mets got the best pitcher in baseball without sacrificing any major contributor from a team that fell just one game short of the playoffs in 2007, and of the World Series in 2006. By doing so, they greatly reduced their chances of falling short in 2008 and beyond.

Also from the Observer, Howard Megdal finds it hard to believe that the Yankees would let Johan Santana go to another team.

But according to numerous reports, the reason the deal didn’t happen had far less to do with the package of players involved than it did with money—Santana, who is a free agent after the 2008 season, would need to be signed to a contract somewhere in the neighborhood of six years, $150 million.

It’s not too late, and the Yankees may rally as they did in the Alex Rodriguez sweepstakes some weeks back, which cast a dubious light on Hank’s grasp of the words “deadline” and “out.” But if the Yankees let either factor keep them from Johan Santana, the more than $400 million in total salary commitments they’ve signed on for since the season ended were little more than jogging in place.

“The deadline is the deadline,” Steinbrenner told the New York Times on Dec. 4. “I extended it a few hours more, and that was it. So it’s done.”

And the Daily News reported that the final deal the Yankees turned down included Hughes, Cabrera, a AA pitcher in Jeff Marquez with a mediocre strikeout rate, and a A-level singles hitter in Mitch Hilligoss.

While Hughes would be a real loss, his spot in the rotation would be filled by the best pitcher in baseball. It is unclear just whether Melky Cabrera will be a star. And neither Marquez or Hilligoss are guaranteed to be much of anything.

The worst part of the non-deal is that the favorites to nab Santana are the Boston Red Sox. And the Yankees, by dropping out of the bidding publicly, have given Minnesota less leverage to extract talent from New York’s primary competition for the AL East.

Perhaps Hank believes that, as with A-Rod, any player or team is bound to come begging to the New York Yankees eventually. Or maybe the Yankees, having spent to retain Rodriguez, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera, are finally at the bottom of their Scrooge McDuck-sized pile of money.

But Santana is the finest pitcher to become available in many years. Through revenue sharing, a larger percentage of teams are able to lock up their top players to long-term contracts. The top pitchers simply don’t hit the free agent market—they are either traded or signed.

Once before in recent years, the Yankees walked away from a free agent who was in his prime: Carlos Beltran. The Yankees elected not to beat the Mets’ offer, even reportedly turning down an overture from his agent, Scott Boras, to play for slightly less money. They stayed with the aged Bernie Williams in center, and while Beltran has flourished in Queens, the Yankees have enjoyed a fraction of his production and defense in center ever since.

Minnesota has to trade Santana. The team cannot afford to sign him (or, at least, is unwilling to do so), and they do not want to lose the best pitcher in baseball for nothing more than compensatory draft picks.

But if the Yankees aren’t willing to pay for Santana, another team will. New York will be reliant on talented but aging hitters, a starting rotation hugely full of promise but short on track record, and a bullpen that currently consists of Mariano Rivera, talented but unproven commodities like recently acquired Jonathan Albaladejo, and yes, Kyle Farnsworth.

("I think he's here to stay," Cashman said of Farnsworth December 3. "I doubt we're going to move him, because we're going to need him.")

Chien-Ming Wang in a Game 1. Kyle Farnsworth in the eighth inning. And Johan Santana on the Red Sox. It’s hard to believe the Yankees are letting this happen.

Since the Minnesota Twins made their star pitcher available in a trade, the Yankees’ Hank Steinbrenner made it known that the team is negotiating to put him in pinstripes. Meanwhile, Mets general manager Omar Minaya is fixated on landing Santana to throw the first pitch at CitiField, and resolve a three-year obsession with landing a number-one starter.

The competition for Santana’s services is unlikely to be resolved based on money alone. The team that lands him, whichever it is, will certainly pony up for a contract extension of 6-7 years at $150 million. Instead, the question is: which team can put together the trade package that the Twins will finally bite on?

Here is a guide to the players you will hear about in the coming days (and weeks?) as elements of a possible mega-deal.

For the Yankees

Good Bets to Go

Philip Hughes

Why he will go: Hughes is a frontline pitching prospect beyond any that the Mets can offer. The Twins could simply slot him into the rotation next season, and with his four strong pitches, he could conceivably replicate Santana’s success, should he stay healthy. He wouldn’t cost the Twins much, as a second-year player, for several years.

Why he won’t go: If the Yankees can put together a deal with any other pitcher as the centerpiece, excluding Joba Chamberlain, they will.

Melky Cabrera

Why he will go: The Twins need a center fielder to replace the departed Torii Hunter, and Melky is the highest-upside, cheapest option the Yankees have. Questions about his long-term potential, with two straight seasons of below-average offensive production, leave him as an unlikely centerpiece. But it is hard to imagine the trade happening without Melky in it, simply because of the alternatives the Yankees can offer.

Why he won’t go: The Yankees won’t want to blow another $60-70 million on a free agent center fielder like Aaron Rowand or Andruw Jones.

Ian Kennedy

Why he will go: If the Yankees need to add a second quality pitcher, Kennedy could be the one. He could be put into a starting rotation right now, though his stuff is merely average, making him more likely to pan out as a number 3-4 than a number 1. The Yankees don’t really have another major league-ready pitcher to throw Minnesota’s way, unless they deal Chamberlain (they don’t want to) or Chien-Ming Wang (Minnesota doesn’t want him).

Why he won’t go: It opens up two spots in the rotation if Hughes and Kennedy are dealt. That either means another year of counting on Mike Mussina, or a free agent contract for Carlos Silva.

Austin Jackson

Why he will go: Despite his youth (he’s 20) and inexperience (only one season of high-A ball), Jackson represents the closest thing the Yankees have to a ready-to-go top hitting prospect. This is not a knock on Jackson, who tore through the Florida State League, a notorious pitchers’ league. But optimistically, the earliest he is likely to be ready is 2009.

Why he won’t go: Minnesota may prefer another high-end pitcher to Jackson.

Higher-Stakes Possibilities

Joba Chamberlain

Why he will go: If the Yankees are determined to get a deal for Santana done, and especially if the Mets end up as the other serious team in the running, a Joba/Hughes-based deal should put any Minnesota doubts to bed. He is a trump card.

Why he won’t go: Dealing Chamberlain and Hughes puts to rest any idea that the Yankees are looking to build around young pitching. Both the organization and its fans prefer Chamberlain to Hughes. They are both top-flight prospects.

Robinson Cano

Why he will go: If the bidding goes high enough, the Yankees may need to counter with a star offensive player. Cano is the only one young enough for Minnesota.

Why he won’t go: He’s still too expensive, entering his fourth year.

Chien-Ming Wang

Why he will go: If Minnesota decides they want a pitcher with a track record, Wang has it.

Why he won’t go: He’s also too expensive, entering his fourth year. He’d also be a poor fit for Minnesota, with a 4.85 ERA for his career on turf.

For the Mets

Good Bets to Go

Carlos Gomez

Why he will go: Because the Mets can trade him, a high-upside center fielder, without worrying about the position in the near future, thanks to Carlos Beltran. Because Minnesota likes him, and has asked about him on several occasions in the past. Because he’s probably not ready for 2008, and the Mets have a player in front of him developmentally in Lastings Milledge, and one behind him in Fernando Martinez.

Why he won’t go: Because if Minnesota wants someone to plug in immediately, Milledge is a surer bet, though without the same level of raw tools.

Lastings Milledge

Why he will go: Because he offers Minnesota a plus-defensive center fielder who already hit better than league average as a 22-year-old. He is younger than Melky Cabrera, most scouts see his long-term potential as better, and he’ll be more valuable to Minnesota than the Mets because he won’t play center field for New York.

Why he won’t go: If the Mets can package around Gomez, even if it means giving up more secondary players in the deal, they’ll do it, since Milledge is penciled in to start in right field in 2008.

Mike Pelfrey

Why he will go: He offers a frontline pitching prospect. Even though he has struggled at the major-league level, his fastball velocity remained consistent through the second half of the season, and if he simply fails to become consistent with his off-speed pitches, he still profiles well as a closer. If they work, he can be a top-flight starter.

Why he won’t go: He may not be a better in-house option than the pitchers Minnesota already has.

Kevin Mulvey

Why he will go: An insane home run rate in AA (4 home runs in 151 2/3 innings) and major-league polish to his pitches make this average-stuff pitching prospect a lesser-but-comparable counterweight to Ian Kennedy.

Why he won’t go: The Mets will need someone to step in when Orlando Hernandez gets hurt next year. Also, a groundball pitcher is less effective on turf. (See Wang, Chien-Ming.)

Higher-Stakes Possibilities

Philip Humber

Why he will go: If the Twins want a potential buy-low prospect, Humber is a nice bet. His numbers in AAA last year look artificially mediocre in the hitter-happy Pacific Coast League. But he was a top prospect and is now sufficiently removed from Tommy John Surgery to regain more sharpness on the three pitches he can command. And taking a chance on quantity over quality in the risk-rich world of pitching prospects is almost always a good idea.

Why he won’t go: If Pelfrey and Mulvey are already in the deal, the Mets would really leave themselves without a viable starting option if El Duque goes down. And the odds of that happening are, well, it’s happening.

Fernando Martinez

Why he will go: If the Twins demand a second high-level hitting prospect, the 19-year-old Martinez offers a plus bat. He also held his own at AA as an 18-year-old, which is rare. That he did it while playing through a broken hand makes questions about his ceiling moot at this point.

Why he won’t go: The Mets love him desperately, and if the Twins want more immediate help, both Milledge and Gomez are likely to provide that sooner.

Jose Reyes

Why he will go: His September swoon frustrated the front office and angered Mets fans. If the Yankees offer Cano, and the Mets want to top the offer, Reyes may be the only w
ay to persuade Minnesota.

Why he won’t go: Even Jim Duquette himself, father of Kazmir-for-Zambrano, knows you don’t trade gold-glove caliber shortstops with top-level offensive games entering their age 25-seasons. That combination might be the only thing harder to find in baseball than a number-one starter.