Four years later, it turns out no one should have been happy.
Initially, though, it looked like a blowout victory for the Mets. Santana was his usual brilliant self in 2008, throwing a league-leading 234.1 innings with a league-best 2.53 ERA. Meanwhile, the Twins rushed Gomez to the majors as their Opening Day center fielder, replacing Torii Hunter, and he hit just .258/.296/.360 with a 142/25 K/BB ratio in 153 games while looking anything but MLB-ready at age 22.
Guerra got knocked around at High-A as a 19-year-old, posting a 5.47 ERA with as many walks (71) as strikeouts (71) in 130 innings, and was nowhere to be found on top-100 prospect lists the next season. Humber and Mulvey spent the year as Triple-A teammates, and neither pitched particularly well, although Humber at least saw some September action as a mop-up man in Minnesota.
Santana continued to pitch very well in 2009, making the All-Star team and posting a 3.13 ERA, but he was limited to just 25 starts and spent the final six weeks of the season on the disabled list following surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow. Meanwhile, the Twins tired of Gomez’s hacktastic ways and total lack of progress, benching him for Denard Spanand then trading him to the Brewers for J.J. Hardy that winter.
Guerra again struggled in the minors, posting a 4.89 ERA with just 106 strikeouts in 149 innings between High-A and Double-A as a 20-year-old who had no business that far up the organizational ladder. Mulvey repeated Triple-A with similarly underwhelming results and was traded to Arizona for reliever Jon Rauch in late August. Humber also repeated Triple-A and was so unimpressive that the Twins let him leave as a free agent.
Santana returned from 2009 elbow surgery with a 2.98 ERA in 2010, but his strikeout rate fell to a career-low 6.5 per nine innings, his average fastball clocked in at 89 miles per hour, and in September he had rotator cuff surgery. He hasn’t pitched since, missing all of last year, and may not be ready to begin 2012. He made $22.5 million without throwing a pitch in 2011, and the Mets still owe Santana, now 33, another $55 million for 2012 and 2013.
Guerra is the lone piece of the original Santana package still in Minnesota’s organization, but instead of developing into a top-of-the-rotation starter, he’s 23 years old with a 4.95 career ERA in the minors and is now hoping to reach the big leagues for the first time as a reliever. Gomez hasn’t put his physical tools to good use in Milwaukee either, and Mulvey has spent four straight seasons at Triple-A with a 4.45 ERA to show for it.
Against all odds, Humber now looks like the most valuable player from Minnesota’s haul, although he hasn’t done the Twins any good. He was picked up and let go by the Royals and A’s but finally stuck in the majors with the White Sox last season and threw 163 innings with a 3.75 ERA at age 28. Rauch left the Twins as a free agent after one-and-a-half solid years, and Hardy had an excellent 2011 only after being dumped on the Orioles.
There's a tendency to declare an immediate “winner” in every trade, and even when taking a long-term view of a blockbuster deal involving a superstar in his prime being swapped for a multi-prospect package, it's usually fairly easy to determine who benefited most. When it comes to this trade, however, the question is more like who suffered least. And even that’s tough to say, because everyone involved went bust.
Four years into their six-year, $137.5 million investment in Santana, the Mets have gotten just 88 starts of ace-caliber pitching and an uncertain future. And for their in-his-prime ace, the Twins ended up with 1.5 seasons of a replacement-level Gomez and a year of Hardy that they later squandered, 1.5 seasons of Rauch by way of Mulvey, nothing from Humber, and whatever hope still remains that Guerra can turn into a useful reliever.
Remarkably, it wouldn’t have turned out any better if the Mets had given in to the Twins’ request for Martinez, whose arthritic knees and lack of development while being rushed through the minors resulted in his being placed on waivers last month. Houston used its No. 1 waiver priority to snag him directly in front of Minnesota, but Martinez is now a gimpy 23-year-old corner outfielder who slugged .417 at Triple-A last season.
No matter which prospects Minnesota asked for and which prospects New York agreed to part with for Santana, any trade with the Mets was essentially destined to be a failure for the Twins. Many of their reported Red Sox and Yankees targets went on to become impact players, but even if the Twins could have talked them into upping the ante, there were plenty of landmines among those future stars.
In retrospect, the Twins would have benefited most by trading with the Red Sox. Ellsbury and Lester have excelled in Boston, Buchholz has at times been on the verge of the same, Masterson became a borderline ace after being traded to the Indians for Victor Martinez in mid-2009, and even Lowrie has been useful despite a lengthy injury history. Any package of Red Sox would have dwarfed the Mets’ return.
Yankees prospects linked to Santana have been more of a mixed bag. Chamberlain and Hughes have both seen their careers derailed by injuries, and Cabrera, despite a very good 2011 season, has been little more than a decent regular. Kennedy turned into an impact starter, but only after struggling through injuries and a trade to the Diamondbacks, and Jackson has so far been just a rich man’s Gomez after being traded to the Tigers.
Months of headline-grabbing rumors about baseball’s best pitcher being shopped for an assortment of baseball’s best prospects, leading to a blockbuster trade and a $137.5 million contract extension. And four years later, the general managers who pulled off the swap, Smith and Omar Minaya, have both been fired, and Mets fans and Twins fans could argue all day about which team got the worse end. At least it made for an interesting winter.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15979
