First of all, Reusse throws any sort of reasonable prospect analysis to the wayside when he goes for the totally hack "Yohan replacing Johan" angle.

"topprospectalert.com"? The only reason Reusse used their prospect list is probably because they are the only people who think Yohan Freakin' Pino is the Twins' 5th best prospect. He doesn't finish in BA's Top 10 at all, which tells me that there's nothing special about his stuff. Then, we can go and check out his performance record. He was a 22-year old in A-ball last year who made only 7 starts (accounting for maybe around half of his total innings) and otherwise was relieving. If you're a 22-year old reliever in A-ball you'd darned well better be putting up good numbers. He had 9.5 K/9 against 1.9 BB/9, which certainly doesn't make me think he's bad, but it's pretty worthless information if you want to know if he's actually good. Then Reusse gives us this gem:

He's also 5-0 with a 1.73 ERA as a reliever for Aragua in the Venezuelan Winter League.

Oh, I see, because win-loss record and ERA in the Venezuelan Winter League are really good indicators of how well a relief pitcher is performing.

Ignoring context like what level of minor league ball a pitcher is throwing in, whether or not he's starting or relieving, and what his age is are cardinal sins of analyzing prospects by their statistics. It's a big reason why guys like Reusse say that numbers don't tell us anything. If we want to learn something from the numbers, we need to learn to interpret them in the first place.

Pino could turn out to be a servicable major league pitcher, but he's eons from the major leagues right now, and making him largely the focus of an article about Santana has everything to do with his name and practically nothing to do with his future as a Twins pitcher.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't johan have a no trade clause. I know he does for 07. At the very least in 08 he has a limited no trade (12 teams) that becomes a full no trade WHEN he finishes in the top 3 of the cy young this coming season. I can't see a reason why johan would waive his no trade in a contract year especially with the success he has at the dome.

Who is Santana's agent? Perhaps therein lies some clue in how this situation will play out. My guess is that Carl is no longer with us when it's time to pay the piper which could mean the club might take a different tack when it comes to signing their superstars.

Santana: Reusse will be canned prior to 2008 Season

First, it isn’t beyond belief that the Twins will extend Santana at something like $70-$80 million for 2009-2012. This would be somewhere between $17.5-$20 million a year. They have a new stadium coming, and opening it with Santana pitching to Mauer has to be their highest priority. I don’t know that he would go for this, but if you make the offer right now, he has to at least think about it; there is value for him in certainty. Besides, I saw someone else make this point: when was the last time the Twins lost their best player to free agency?

On a more general point. The conventional Twins fan wisdom is that the free agent market, especially for pitching, is out of control, and that it’s another sign of Terry Ryan’s wisdom that he didn’t get involved in that market. I wouldn’t want to argue with this particularly; I can’t say I would have advocated giving Gil “Ga” Meche $55 million, or paying Adam Eaton whatever he’s getting. Still, there’s an alternative argument which is this: markets aren’t “too high” or “too low,” they are what they are. They represent the willingness of buyers to pay. To simply opt out of that is to abdicate any intention to compete. That doesn’t mean you pay Meche or Suppan or Eaton, but it does mean that you try to keep arguably the most valuable property in baseball.

Look, Kansas City may have a higher payroll than the Twins this year. I’m not a believer in spending to spend, but to assert that you can’t afford the payroll that KC can is absurd, especially with a new stadium coming. However, it obviously requires intelligent choices. I’m not sure paying Hunter $12 million is the right decision—you have to reserve premium dollars for premium players. Right now, that’s Santana and Mauer. Those guys have to be your priority.

If you aren’t willing to make a commitment to Santana, then maybe it makes more sense to trade him now. His value has to be higher now, with two years left on his deal then it will be next year when he’ll only have one. The whole idea makes me nauseous, frankly.

Ok, it is about time for the annual Bert Belongs In the Hall bitchfest, this time prompted by ESPN.

Eat this, Buster Olney. Bert Blyleven's list of ten "most similar" players has EIGHT Hall of Famers on it (plus Jim Kaat and Tommy John; neither a HOFer, but both with some impressive credentials).

Against those ten, Bert has the second best ERA+ (117 to Tom Terrific's 127), second most Ks (behind Steve Carlton).

In 1971, he was 9th (tied) in adjusted ERA+ in the Majors. At age 20.
In 1973, he was 2nd.
In 1974, he was 5th.
In 1977, he was 5th.
In 1984, he was 2nd.

That's 5 years in the Majors top 10, 4 in the top 5. Seaver made the top ten 8 times (6 in the top 5).

In 1971, he was 10th in K/9 in the Majors.
In 1972, he was 9th.
in 1973, he was 6th.
In 1974, he was 2nd.
In 1975, he was 6th.
In 1976, he was 7th.
In 1977, he was 8th.
In 1978, he was 7th.
In 1979, he was 6th.
In 1980, he was 4th.

That's 10 consecutive years in the Majors top ten. Seaver was in the top ten 9 times. Yes, Seaver's peak was higher than Blyleven's. But how the hell can Buster Olney argue that Blyleven was not a dominant pitcher? He was pitching huge innings (top ten in his league 11 different years; top ten in his league in complete games 12 different times, when leading in complete games actually meant something) and he was STILL among the leaders in the Majors in K/9 ten straight years and among the leaders in adjusted ERA+ 5 different times.

These are points that are not weighed heavily enough. Bert was throwing heavy innings for mediocre teams with mediocre bullpens because that gave his team its best chance to win. He lost a ridiculous number of close, low-scoring games. Give him a good bullpen OR a good offense and he would easily have won well over 300 games and we wouldn't have to have this annual conversation.

How would you have liked to have Greg Maddux from 1994-2000? How about Pedro during his run in Boston? They weren’t regretting his salary.

Here's the deal. That's two pitchers. Even though they are highly comparable because they are ace pitchers, we can't assume that Santana will automatically be highly durable for the length of his deal. Good, even great, pitchers get injured, too. Making your investment based on other investments that worked well but ignoring the ones that didn't work is a bad strategy in the long run.

My initial statement that I think a six-year commitment is a bad idea is certainly a bit of an overstatement, and I agree that if anyone's a candidate for that sort of commitment, it's Santana. But even if you decide that Santana is worth six or seven years, you have to contend with meeting his salary demands, which are probably quite high right now.

Say you figure that the Twins can sit down and decide that given their budget of X dollars, Santana is worth Y dollars over Z years, where Z is greater than five. If the Twins figure that Santana is durable enough to warrant that sort of commitment, then Santana and his agent probably figure he's durable enough to be healthy for the next two years and get a big free agency paycheck.

So then, if Santana is worth {X,Y,Z} to the Twins given their budget, even if it's something like $110M in the near future, the Yankees and Red Sox and whoever else is increasing their budget to the $150M-$200M range is going to figure that they can pay a lot more than that. Again, that's something Santana's agent knows, so TR is in a tough spot with very little leverage in this situation.

To me, any realistic hope of the Twins retaining Santana hinges either on Greenberg being even more risk averse than Terry Ryan or Santana's willingness to take a huge hometown discount. I personally don't see either of those things happening, but if the Twins do get Santana at a large discount over what the Yankees or Red Sox would pay, it could be a winner for the Twins.

Ubelmann,

I don't dispute any of your points. (Though you dismiss my "only 2 pitchers" without actually citing, you know, any pitchers for your point. It isn't easy to find a guy with Santana's profile through age 27 who was a poor long-term investment. Maybe Sandy Koufax, though he had already had arm problems by then and wasn't as good as Santana ages 25-27 anyway. Plus he gave you 3 fairly decent years ages 28-30). Of course there is risk. Concluding that 6-7 years is too much, isn't wrong.

It's true that Santana and his agent can understand the variables as well as the Twins can, and that might preclude any realistic agreement before Santana reaches free agency. However, to the extent that Ryan has any leverage at all, it's right now. Another year, and Santana is another year closer to the payoff. Right now, 2 years away, avoiding risk has value. That value goes down as time goes by and we get closer to 2008.

Here's the question: if you try to extend him now, and your best efforts cannot get it done, when do you start marketing him for a trade?

Though you dismiss my “only 2 pitchers” without actually citing, you know, any pitchers for your point.

Go check out Johan's PECOTA comps for this year. His similarity index is 27, so he's not really as unique as you might expect, and his long term forecast has his value all the way down to 4.4 WARP in 2010. That means that of all the pitchers who are comparable to Santana, on average they were only worth 4.4 WARP five years down the road. So sure, there are some guys in there who keep their value, but the attrition rate is large.

Cy Youngs are nice for a laugh, but they aren't really a good way to find comparable pitchers. Also, it's difficult to remember off hand the guys who dropped off a cliff because, well, they dropped off a cliff. PECOTA can look back through history to find comparable pitchers a lot better than we can do it by hand, so in this case, I defer to PECOTA.

Here’s the question: if you try to extend him now, and your best efforts cannot get it done, when do you start marketing him for a trade?

I don't think you trade Santana unless you're really, really out of it at the deadline in '08. We'll get draft pick compensation if he leaves through free agency, and right now he's a great player signed to a great contract. Unless you can get more value than a first-round pick and a sandwich first-round pick, which is nothing to scoff at, just keep Santana around and enjoy him while it lasts.