Santana not worth the money?

This one comes from Vincent Gennaro, consultant to Major League Baseball and baseball economics expert. His headline says it all: Santana not worth the tariff.

Santana is only one season from free agency, so much of his value is shifting from the team to the player, yet the Twins seem to be pricing Santana as if he has two or three years remaining until free agency. This trade is basically free-agent signing with a tariff tacked on – a payment to the Twins in the form of promising low-salaried prospects in exchange for the right to sign Santana to a long-term contract without a bidding war.

This is the same thing we’ve been saying here all winter, preferring “bribe” to “tariff.”

Gennaro then goes on to analyze the financial implications of signing Santana, both what he’ll cost and what the potential return on investment will be (i.e., playoff appearances and playoff wins). And then we have my favorite paragraph in the entire piece:

The net impact for the Yankees is a contract extension for Santana that gets the Yankees about $25 million in value, but is more than offset by trading Hughes, Cabrera and one or two other minor league prospects, giving up about $60 to $70 million in value. What would need to happen to make this a good trade for the Yankees? If Santana signs with the Yankees at $5 million to $7 million per year below the price he would have gotten in an open bidding war as a free agent next winter, or if Hughes becomes only a fifth starter or bullpen reliever, the deal could make sense for the Yankees.

I like that rationale. He also discusses the Mets and the Red Sox, saying that the deal makes even less sense for the Red Sox, but wouldn’t be a bad move for the Mets.

He sums up the piece perfectly:

Any team who makes this trade will likely set its farm system back while placing a tremendous investment – and therefore risk – in one player. But if Santana ends up taking the hill in Game 1 of the World Series, the deal will considered a good one.

A very sober analysis indeed. I know some people are going to scoff, saying that the Yankees shouldn’t be worried about money, that they’re a billion-dollar enterprise that won’t see a shortage of cashflow. Yet every single person that says that has never seen the Yankees books. This is Gennaro’s realm, and I tend to defer expertise to him.