After a couple of days of commentary about the Minnesota Twins trade of Johan Santana to the New York Mets for Carlos Gomez, Deolis Guerra, Phil Humber and Kevin Mulvey, one can reasonably conclude that the Twins got the worst end of the deal. Assuming the Twins had the option of either of the Red Sox deals - Jon Lester/Coco Crisp/Jed Lowrie/Justin Masteron or Jacoby Ellsbury/Jed Lowrie/Justin Masteron/4th prospect - or a Phil Hughes-led one from the Yankees, Twins' GM Bill Smith did get hosed.
However, that assumption seems to be as big as the assumption one needs to make about Bill Smith's intellectual capacity to be a general manager, doesn't it? Smith would have to be be quite challenged in the brains department to accept the Mets deal over any of the other rumored offers.
What makes the first assumption (the rumored offers were offered on Tuesday) even more tenuous is the fact that recent reports have the Twins calling-up the Yankees at the last minute to see if an alternative deal sans Phil Hughes can be worked out. Given any of the Red Sox offers would be judged better than an Ian Kennedy and Melky Cabrera package, does it stretch plausibility to think the Red Sox had neither of their offers on the table?
What the facts on the ground do support is neither the Yankees' offer nor the Red Sox' ones were made on Tuesday. While it may shake the baseball writing world into a fit of cognitive dissonance on par with the belief politicians are really out for someone other than themselves, the facts lead to the conclusion the Twins did accept the best offer on the table.
Unless....
The Twins are smarter than the Yankees/Red Sox dominated mass media would allow anyone to believe. Could Kevin Mulvey possibly be considered on par or better as a prospect as Jon Lester? How about Carlos Gomez' upside of speed and power being greater than the certainty of Melky Cabrera's skills or Jacoby Ellsbury's? Isn't he already considered to be faster than Ellsbury, and he is younger than both players.
While Phil Humber has lost all the glow of the 3rd overall pick in the 2004 draft, he is still considered a 4th or 5th starter versus Justin Masterson's middle reliever projection. Then the final piece would be Deolis Guerra's upside versus 24-year-old SS Jed Lowrie.
Is it impossible to imagine a legitimate baseball mind thinking the Mets offer was worth taking?