Gomez and the Santana Trade

[Physics Guy]

The Twins broadcasters brought up the Sabathia trade on Sunday and I thought of this thread. They traded Sabathia for Matt LaPorta, Michael Brantley, Zach Jackson and Rob Bryson. Being as they ended up with a starter in the OF, they clearly did better than the Twins. They also traded away only three months of Sabathia. Gomez appears to be better than Brantley, so maybe the trade wasn't as bad as we think it was, if we had stuck with Gomez. Granted, that would have been an extreme exercise in patience.

[stringer bell]

Gomez should have stayed in the minors longer, no one questions that. Then he had the audacity to bloom in his mid to late 20s. Too bad for the Twins. They didn't hold on to him long enough.

[zenser]

That trade was brutal for the Twins. To make matters even worse, a week later Baltimore traded Eric Bedard for Adam Jones, George Sherrill, Chris Tillman, and another minor league pitcher.

[Shane Wahl]

I think the Mets really hurt him by keeping him at the ML level but not playing him his rookie year. He's turning into a pretty good player but Span was the better CF entering this year, so I think the Twins were right to go with Span.

 

I'm still not that bothered by the Santana trade as others are. We knew we were going to trade him, we got back two top 60 prospects and two more pitching prospects. We flipped one for Rauch. Gomez gave us a few moments and one season of Hardy. I'm sure there have been worse trades in Twins history.

 

The Mets might be the worst team in handling their minor leaguers with talent. They ruined him for a number of years. His first year with the Twins should have been his full AAA year.

[ALessKosherScott]

I remember Nick taking me to task for saying Gomez's upside was Devo White at the time of the Santana trade, but in hindsight that's the player he's become. IMO, the biggest problem with the trade was people read the scouting reports and fell in love. But they didn't see the fatal flaw in his game was that he never hit for a high enough average to counteract how much of a free swinger he is. Even with his start to 2013, what happens when Gomez's batting average normalizes?

 

You could almost say that's the most just way to sum up Bill Smith's reign as GM. He never really had the patience to succeed at the job. More fun question, are the Twins even playing a game 163 in 2008 with Santana, Garza and Bartlett?

[LaBombo]

are the Twins even playing a game 163 in 2008 with Santana, Garza OR Bartlett?

 

Fixed.

[Kobs]

Gomez is going to need a hell of a lot more than one decent season and an unsustainable hot start to have been a net positive since 2008. If I sign a free agent to a sizeable six year deal, and he's Rondell White for the first five and Babe Ruth for the sixth, I'm still down.