Because no New York baseball can stand being on the outside of any trade specualtion involving the most valuable players in the game, the New York Post and New York Times report the Mets are still in pursuit of the Minnesota Twins' Johan Santana.  In the NYP, Joel Sherman and Mark Hale say "There was a sense among rival executives that the Mets had made themselves viable."  An AL executive is quoted as saying, "There is a sense that Omar [Minaya] will do something crazy to solve his biggest problem."

Those same executives "portray the Mets as aggressively trying to fill that breach, working diligently to see if they can configure packages to make them overall more attractive than anything else being offered to Minnesota," and one executive believes "Aaron Heilman could be an important piece in a package" because the Twins are expected to deal 2008 free agent closer Joe Nathan if Santana goes and heilman could possibly fill that void.

I am hesitent to think of Aaron Heilman as the best answer as the Twins closer if Joe Nathan were dealt.  The team could fill that role internally.  

In the NYT, Ben Shpigel follows the Mets top two OF propsects, Carlos Gomez and Fernando Martinex, to the Domican Winter League.  He quotes Mets' Gm Omar Minaya from a "recent interveiw" saying, "It's always hard to give up those guys." He implies Minaya said this prior to dealing Lastings Milledge and look what happened to him.

George King  chimes in that the Yankees could get back into the discussions now that the glare of the Winter Meetings has gone out.  He quotes Twins' GM Bill Smith as saying, "It was a little overwhelming from a media standpoint.  I am whole lot more comfortable under the radar."  

Is this the first of a couple articles to soften the stance taken by Hank Steinbrenner earlier this week?

Update [2007-12-7 11:45:42 by Eric Hz]: Newsday reports this: