Thoughts in a bottle: The day after Santana changed baseball
6. As much as the early conventional wisdom seems to be that Smith overplayed his hand, remember that the Yankees are the biggest cavers in the game. They weren't going to trade for Randy Johnson, then they did. They weren't going to reopen negotiations with A-Rod, then they did.
Poor Mr. Smith simply had the back luck to have come along at the precise moment that the Bronx boys developed a backbone. You can't say that Smith's strategy was a poor one, because many a GM and agent have scored by doing exactly what he did -- namely, playing the Red Sox and Yankees against one another. It just didn't work out, is all.
The real problem here is that the deal destroys any credibility Smith has with his home fans. Unless at least two of the four prospects become legit contributors or Santana blows out his arm within the next nine months, Smith goes down in history as That Guy Who Traded The Great Johan Santana And Only Got A Few Warm Bodies In Return. Perception is everything and right now, fairly or not, Smith is perceived as an easy mark.
7. Hell no, I wouldn't have done that deal if I were Smith. Come on. Be serious.
8. Reading about actual baseball transactions is just a teensy bit more fun than reading about pharmaceutical supplements and their possible minimizing effect on one's genitalia. The explosion of excitement and interest about Santana once again underscores why the Lords of Baseball were stupid to revisit the past via the Mitchell Report.
Had Selig & Co. merely said, "Yeah, we screwed up in the late '90s/early '00s. We're testing now and it won't happen again," we'd long since have emerged from under the steroids cloud. Instead, we're still splashing about in a wading pool of depositions and Congressional hearings, and listening to talk-radio pundits opine about legal concepts beyond their limited comprehension. What a waste of time and energy.
9. Phil Hughes has no more or less pressure on him than he did before his name was floated for inclusion in the Santana deal. He plays for the Yankees. "Dealing with mouthy, delusional retards" is part of his job description. The pressure of being tagged as the guy who coulda/shoulda been traded for Johan Santana is no more or less suffocating than the pressure of performing day-in, day-out under the harsh New York spotlight.
Besides, rational individuals realize that Hughes has thrown 73 innings in the majors and won't turn 22 until June (the subset "rational individuals" does not necessarily include Smokin' Hank Steinbrenner). The kid remains very much a work in progress, and the organization and Yankee fans alike seem to understand this. Leave him be.
10. The pressure on the Mets to win NOW, not tomorrow or the day after that or even next Tuesday, has been vastly overstated. Assuming the Mets get Santana's signature on an extension -- if this doesn't happen, Queens will burn -- the Mets have the following core under command for the next bunch o' seasons: Reyes (24 on opening day), David Wright (25), Carlos Beltran (30), John Maine (26) and Santana (29). Their farm system may be somewhat gutted, but they somehow avoided parting with either their best positional prospect (Fernando Martinez) or their best pitching prospect (Mike Pelfrey) to get Santana. Assuming no catastrophic injuries, the question isn't whether the Mets will snare a title. It's when.
