It was exactly one year ago today when the Minnesota Twins, backed into a corner (one they aided by pushing together the perpendicular walls of Johan Santana’s immense talent and contract demands) traded their ace to the Mets for Deolis Guerra, Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey and one Mr. Carlos Gomez. In honor of anniversaries, Go Go and the need to talk baseball in this cold month, we would like to as briefly as possible assess the trade to date.

The minuses: Humber and Mulvey had pretty pedestrian years at Class AAA Rochester. While they add pitching depth and are potential bullpen arms, we suppose, they aren’t exactly breaking down the door for a spot in the rotation. In fairness to the Twins, nobody knew the organization’s young arms would pitch as well as they did last year in setting up the rotation as a strength going into 2009. But the development of Slowey, Blackburn, Baker, etc., does make that portion of the trade look even less useful. … With the benefit of hindsight, we also can look at two other things: 1) The Twins, had they chosen to keep Santana and then let him walk for draft picks like they did with Hunter, would very likely have won the division last season. Add Santana to the mix for the entire season — particularly the stretch, where he was 7-0 with a 1.84 ERA for the Mets — and woulda coulda shoulda becomes did. 2) Carlos Gomez, like the aforementioned pitchers, also finds himself in a crowded position. While nobody could have predicted Michael Cuddyer’s prolongued injury (and now return) or Denard Span’s emergence, the Twins have a crowded outfield. That means the three players acquired who were most ready to contribute are in positions of strength, not weakness, for the team.

The pluses: At least they didn’t trade with the Yankees. If Ian Kennedy/Phil Hughes and Melky Cabrera was really the deal, there would have been as little or less immediate and future payoff as what the Twins received. Remember, Guerra (19 years old) is the wild card in this deal. He could still be great. … Gomez, for all his crazy and frustrating habits/antics, is one of the most exciting Twins players in recent memory and could still turn into a star. He looked more disciplined in September, batting .289 with an .800 OPS. In the outfield, he covers more ground than the Old Testament. … Pitching depth is never a bad thing to have. Humber and Mulvey could contribute in the majors.

Overall: It’s a classic deal built on circumstance and evaluated in hindsight. Knowing what they know now, the Twins might have targeted a young infielder with pop as the focal point of the deal. Or if they knew the AL Central would collapse, they even could have kept Santana and taken a shot at 2008. But they didn’t, and so what we’re left with is a deal that really hinges around Gomez and Guerra. The latter won’t be ready for several years, so for the purposes of the here and now, the question is this:

What is your impression of Gomez’s ceiling, and will he become the kind of mainstay that brings the trade, production-wise, closer to even in the end?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 11:51 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.