And The Winner Is......The Mets?!?

As you've no doubt heard by now, Johan Santana, the current Best Pitcher In Baseball, has been traded to the Mets in exchange for four young players. Whooah!

The deal is pending the signing of a contract extension which will deliver a metric assload of money to Mr. Santana, plus the requisite physical. It would be a huge surprise if the deal didn;t go down, since the Mets have to know roughly what it will take to lock up the lefty for the foreseeable future.

Mets GM Omar Minaya can now be forgiven for the inactivity of the last few months, with the notable exception of the head scratching Lastings Milledge/Ryan Church/Brian Schnieder deal in November. One thing is certain: there are no longer any excuses for this team to not win the East in '08. A rotation headed by the innings eating strikeout machine that is Santana, followed by a healthier Pedro Martinez, a maturing John Maine and Oliver Perez, with El Duque where he belongs as a fifth starter should be able to dominate the National League. The bullpen gets Duaner Sanchez back, which is huge as well. The offense should be fine, provided the extended slump Carlos Delgado went through last year was more an aberration than the beginning of a decline in skills. Jose Reyes, David Wright and Carlos Beltran will still be the main cogs, and a full year from hitting machine Moises Alou would be nice. It will be interesting to see how these guys respond to being an overwhelming favorite, especially after the classic collapse of '07.

The best part of the whole trade, though? Simple - #57 will not be suiting up for the Yankees or the Red Sox, much to the chagrin of ESPN, which simply adores all things pertaining to those two teams. Ha!