All Santana, All The Time (Again)
Yesterday was one of the most-trafficked days in the history of AG.com, so apparently everyone enjoyed the near-hourly
Johan Santana updates. Things seem to have slowed to a crawl on the Santana front after a frenzied 48 hours and the winter meetings finish up this afternoon, so there may not be a ton of Santana-related speculation to pass along today. However, just to be safe I'll devote one more day to Santana rumors. As was
the case yesterday, notes will be posted in reverse-chronological order ...
10:05 A.M. UPDATE: Over at his Boston Globe blog, Edes notes that Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein is leaving the winter meetings without a deal for Santana, but "said there would continue to be an open dialogue with the Twins."
8:45 A.M. UPDATE: For whatever it's worth, LEN3 passes along this quote from Bill Smith regarding the possibility of simply keep Santana long term: "I've said all along, it's our first choice. We would love to have him, love to keep him." While that sounds good, there's zero chance of Santana sticking around unless the Twins significantly increase their reported offer both in years and per-season salary.
2:30 A.M. UPDATE: Over at his Minneapolis Star Tribune blog, Official Twins Beat Writer of AG.com LaVelle E. Neal III writes that "the winter meetings are over as far as I'm concerned" because "unless the Twins have a whopper announcement when I wake up, nothing is happening." LEN3 previously reported that the Red Sox, Yankees, Mets, Mariners, and Rangers were all in the mix, but now thinks that Seattle and Texas are long shots because Santana may only want to go to the East Coast.
Along with the Santana update, LEN3 had some interesting thoughts on the winter meetings:
These meetings were a disappointment. The media horde wanted to see a bunch of deals, but only one was announced this week. ONE! We tired of writing about the same rumors and recycling the same names and putting teams in negotiations, pulling them out and then putting them back in.
I didn't update as much because I didn't know anything new. We shook our heads as crazy rumors were floated. It got to the point where the plausible outranked the factual, and that's when you know you've been here too long. Someone here described the winter meetings as, "four days where good journalism goes out the window." I agree.
We fed the monster. We're tired of feeding the monster. All we want to do is go home on work on the Christmas card mailing lists.
Aside from the part about Christmas card mailing lists, that's almost exactly how I felt after attending last year's winter meetings in Orlando (where I was lucky enough to witness first-hand LEN3 fending off boredom by forcing other writers in the media room to talk about soccer). And on that note, it's probably time for a little sleep.
2:00 A.M. UPDATE: David Lennon and Ken Davidoff of New York Newsday report that "the Mets sweetened their offer to the Twins by adding players to the package, but as long as Jose Reyes is not part of it ... the Twins insist a deal is virtually impossible." General manager Omar Minaya reiterated that he has no plans to trade Reyes and Newsday notes that "Minnesota apparently is not satisfied" with some combination of Carlos Gomez, Fernando Martinez, Mike Pelfrey, and Philip Humber.
1:30 A.M. UPDATE: Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe reports that as of Wednesday night "there was scant evidence that a trade for Santana was in the offing." He notes that the Red Sox "expected to maintain some dialogue" about Santana, but that the Twins seemed "no more inclined to accept the Sox proposals than the Yankee offers that went by the board earlier this week."
12:15 A.M. UPDATE: Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports reports that the Red Sox "warmed to the idea of trading for" Santana "mere hours after questioning the merits of the deal," but that "the parameters of the trade have not changed." In other words, the Twins are still looking at a Jacoby Ellsbury-led package or a Jon Lester-led package. While Brown confirms previous talk of the Mariners joining the mix for Santana, he notes that "talks there have stagnated, as they did with the Angels."
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
