With the Minnesota Twins saying F you to Johan Santana by offering him a 4-year $80 million extension and Santana wanting at least a 6-year extension, you can expect many teams to get in on the bidding for his services. My initial guesses of teams that will be interested in him are in no particular order, the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and maybe the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Basically, the best offer to the Twins is going to get Santana. The Yankees and Red Sox have the best pieces to offer as far as major league ready talent, which of course the Twins are going to want.
The Twins would probably want Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz for Santana. That’s something as a Red Sox fan, you don’t want to happen. The Red Sox do have Coco Crisp they can dangle out there to the Twins as well, especially with Torii Hunter bolting out of Minneapolis faster than stripper grabbing a dollar bill from you. Now if I was Theo Epstein, I would offer the Twins, Lester, Crisp, and two prospects. The Sox do have some good young talent in the minors in Justin Masterson, Jed Lowrie, Craig Hansen and Michael Bowden.
The Yankees have a plethora of young arms in Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy and Phillip Hughes they can give up for Santana although I’d think the Twins would also want either Robinson Cano or Melky Cabrera to be included.
Two things are going to happen here. The Red Sox don’t want Santana going to the Yankees so they are going to do their best to let that from happening. The Yankees will do the same. So either Santana ends up with one of these teams or another team woes the Twins with an offer better than the Red Sox and Yankees can offer. The Twins won’t wait to move Santana when he might be at his highest value right now. If they don’t trade him, they run the risk of losing him without any compensation other than a draft pick at the end of the 2008 season.
Since I am equal opportunity here, if you were Theo or Yankees GM Brian Cashman, what would you give up for Santana, if anything at all.
