Sabathia trade vs. Santana trade

So last winter, there were a lot of folks clamoring that the Twins had
to trade Johan NOW because his value would diminish during the season.
But after seeing what Cleveland got for Sabathia, a vastly inferior
pitcher who has all but said he wants to be a free agent, I can't
imagine that's true. LaPorta is at least as good a prospect as Gomez.

I was wishing all along that the Twins would hold onto Johan and deal
him if and when it became time to do so. Replace Livan Hernandez with
Santana in this rotation and you've got yourself a first-place team
right now.

"Matt" <AcesWired DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote in message
news:ebe5fb70-48eb-412f-a748-032700852e5f@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> So last winter, there were a lot of folks clamoring that the Twins had
> to trade Johan NOW because his value would diminish during the season.
> But after seeing what Cleveland got for Sabathia, a vastly inferior
> pitcher who has all but said he wants to be a free agent, I can't
> imagine that's true. LaPorta is at least as good a prospect as Gomez.
>
> I was wishing all along that the Twins would hold onto Johan and deal
> him if and when it became time to do so. Replace Livan Hernandez with
> Santana in this rotation and you've got yourself a first-place team
> right now.

I don't know if LaPorta is truly as good a prospect -- Gomez plays CF and
seems to have all the potential in the world.

Your larger point is a better one, that the Twins didn't have to do anything
right then... I don't think they realized this team would be this good...
you're right, with Johan over Livan, you'd have to give an edge to this team
winning the division. Span in CF would be fine this season compared with
what Gomez has given.

On the other hand, haven't the Twins won 13 games Livan has started of out
19 starts? As great as Johan is, I wonder how many more games you could
have reasonably expected them to win than that... don't get me wrong,
moving forward I wouldn't expect the Twins to win more than 2 oout of every
3 games he starts... but still, it's interesting...

brink