Without Santana, Santiago is the Twins best veteran starter. We saw him last night. With Santana, Santiago is the Twins second best veteran starter. Its possible that a team could go to the playoffs with a couple rookie starters as your second and third best pitchers but very unlikely. I can't believe that the new Twins management saw this as a playoff year and hope they are not ready to change the game plan because of 50 better than expected games, Pitching is not a strength for the Twins and there have been no injuries since the season started to weaken the game one staff.. To me the real value of Santana this year is to take pressure off the young starters. I believe the plan at the start of the year must have included trading Santana for the right price.