A Red Sox State of Maine: Mets Win

Well, it looks like the Santana Wars are over. Finally. I'm not sure Bill Smith did his team any favors here-in fact, the baseball punditry seems to think he got hosed. But that's what happens when you play chicken sometimes. I don't pretend to understand a whole lot about the Mets farm system, but it seems to me that Phil Hughes by himself would have been worth more than what the Twins got for Santana. Two decent prospects and two fillers is how one of them described the package the Mets are sending. Carlos Gomez seems to be the guy with the most immediate upside, a speedy CF'er (who I can't figure out why the Twins would prefer over Jacoby Ellsbury) who looks like the heir apparent to Torii Hunter, and Deolis Guerra, an 18-year-old who is the personification of "potential" and may be major league ready in five years. So much for all the yak that the Twins had to have a ML ready prospect as part of the trade. While I'm disappointed the Sox didn't land Santana, I'm not broken up about it. Even with some anticipated time spent on the DL by both Schilling and Wake this year, I still think the Sox have the horses to win them the division title. I don't think the Yankees do without Santana, although to their credit they didn't break into a panic and throw the baby out with the bath, either. I'm also kind of sad because I really do like Coco Crisp, and I'm sure he'll be traded now before spring training, but I'm glad Jacoby Ellsbury is staying with the team and hopefully Jon Lester can consistently show us why the team's been so high on all that "potential" for so long now.

In an ongoing case of schadenfrade, it appears that Andy Pettitte may be preparing to drop a dime on his old buddy Roger Clemens. It wouldn't make that much difference to me, of course-I think both Clemens AND Pettitte are lying about their steroid use-but wouldn't it be delicious fun to watch the Yankee fans implode and start turning on each other if indeed that prediction comes to fruition? It would be like a city wide episode of "War of the Roses." From perusing other fan sites, it actually seems that most of them have pretty much accepted the fact that the savior was a juicer from 'way back and are now trying to blame his use on his "upbringing" in Boston, or just trying to discredit the whole process that exposed their world champions (no, I won't provide links because I don't want to drive up their traffic. but they aren't hard to find). What was really amusing in the recent media was the attempt to even discredit the fact that Clemens and Pettitte were once buddies. Yeah, they worked out together, did commercials together, Andy called Roger to please come play with him in Houston...but they're nothing more than teammates! Andy's drug use had nothing to do with Roger Clemens because they weren't even friends!

Spare me. Please.