Monday, February 11, 2008
Mets and Johan Destined
1. A few years ago for a number of years the Mets were talking trades with the A's. All of them involved Barry Zito. Zito, Cy Young winner, is an ace which the Mets had lacked. Both teams had talked numerous times about traded involving Lastings Milledge, Phil Humber, and David Wright on more then one occasion. In the end the trade talks died and Barry Zito became a free agent leading us to point #2.
2. In last years off-season many New York fans were excited by the fact ace lefty Barry Zito was a free agent and the Mets were on the top of his list. Everywhere you looked people projected Zito to be a Met and some even projected him to be the Cy Young winner with the Mets. The Mets with their no longer than 5 year contract rule made the decision here. Zito was blown away with an offer and signed a 7 year $126 million dollar contract with the San Francisco Giants. Fans across the nation were stunned at the team and the amount of cash he received. The Mets then had to enter the season with a rotation of Glavine-El Duque-Maine-Perez-Pelfrey.
3. During this years Winter Meeting the Yanks were willing to deal top prospect Phil Hughes and Melky Cabrera in a deal for Johan Santana, but put a 3 day deadline on the deal. The Twins did not take them seriously and felt they could get more and never responded by the deadline. When the Twins went back to the Yankees they would not put Hughes in a deal as Hank had a change in heart.
4. The Red Sox had a similar effect as the Yankees. They were also offering some combination of Lester ,Ellsbury, Lowrie, Masterson , and Crisp. Just like the Yankees and mostly because of the Yankees they refused to make a deal with the Twins after Johan demanded a deal.
#5. The last reason also pertains to the Red Sox. Starter Curt Schilling learned that he has severe shoulder problems and will be out to AT LEAST the All-Star break. This is a big blow to the Boston pitching staff who had Schilling penciled in as their #2/3 starter for the upcoming 2008 season. If they had known about this a few weeks earlier there is an extremely good chance they pulled the trigger on a Johan Santana deal.
In the end the Mets wound up getting Johan and everyone in New York is happy. Mets fans are happy they got Johan for change on the dollar and Yankees fans are happy they were able to keep Phil Franchise and Ian Kennedy. The Mets acquired the ace by a lot of things going their way and will look forward to having the best pitcher in baseball take the mound of them to kick off the 2008 Major League Baseball season.
