Yankees Drop Out of Chase for Johan Santana

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NASHVILLE, Dec. 4 — The Yankees’ pursuit of Johan Santana is over, according to Hank Steinbrenner, the team’s senior vice president, after the Yankees and the Minnesota Twins failed to agree on a deal Tuesday.
“The deadline is the deadline,” Steinbrenner said in a telephone interview. “I extended it a few hours more, and that was it. So it’s done.”

Steinbrenner, who had imposed a deadline of midnight Monday for a deal to be completed, sounded almost relieved that the Yankees would be keeping starter Phil Hughes and center fielder Melky Cabrera, the key players in their proposal.

“I’m very pleased,” Steinbrenner said. “We got Andy Pettitte back, and everything I wanted to accomplish at the beginning of the off-season has happened. We got Pettitte, Rodriguez, Posada and Rivera back. We’ve got our young pitchers. I’m very glad we didn’t have to lose Hughes and Cabrera. Everything is copacetic.”

The Yankees were willing to include starter Jeffrey Marquez in the deal after the Twins backed off their demand for starter Ian Kennedy late Monday night. But other prospects, including starter Alan Horne and outfielder Austin Jackson, remained off limits.

General Manager Brian Cashman would not comment on the breakdown of the Santana talks, but he said: “We’ve worked hard to get guys to a certain point where we’re ready to grow with them, and hopefully, we can. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to move them at some point, but at this stage, I’m happy to say that we’re holding onto guys.”

Hughes, 21, went 5-3 in 13 starts last season, and added a victory in the playoffs. This was the first time he had been involved in specific trade rumors.

“It’s been sort of tough the last week not really knowing what’s going on,” Hughes said via e-mail. “Obviously things can still happen, but I’m very happy to still be a Yankee.”

The Twins privately acknowledged that Cashman had not informed them that the Yankees had pulled out. But Steinbrenner is the final authority, and Cashman has never seemed overly enthusiastic about parting with young talent, either.

That leaves the Boston Red Sox as the clear favorites to land Santana if the Twins trade him.

The Red Sox are offering varying packages centered on center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury or starter Jon Lester. Steinbrenner said he was not fazed by the prospect of Boston’s adding an established ace like Santana to a rotation of Josh Beckett, Curt Schilling, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Clay Buchholz.

Steinbrenner added that keeping up with the Red Sox was not enough of a reason to strip the Yankees’ farm system.

“Maybe Boston isn’t at that point, because they obviously worry about what we do, and I don’t blame them,” Steinbrenner said. “Of course we’re always concerned about them, but at the same time, I can’t let that affect what we do. I can’t help what Boston does and what Minnesota does.”

Steinbrenner said “there were a lot of factors involved, including money” to explain why the Yankees dropped their pursuit of Santana. The Yankees already have the majors’ highest payroll, and Santana probably would have cost at least $20 million a year. Already this off-season, the Yankees have reached agreements to re-sign Pettitte, Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera, who will make more than $70 million combined next season. With Pettitte back, adding Santana was less appealing, considering the cost in players and money.

But Steinbrenner said he would continue to “pour as much money as possible” into scouting, the draft and Latin America, and he emphasized that he was excited about the Yankees’ young pitching.

“We’re always going to have a good lineup, and I think we could be a pitching powerhouse in a few years,” he said. But he said they could be good this year, too, “and it’s only going to get better.”

On Sunday, before Pettitte’s decision, Steinbrenner had seemed frustrated, believing that the Twins were using the Yankees’ offer to get the Red Sox to raise their bid for Santana. On Tuesday, he praised the Twins’ front office for “negotiating in good faith” by backing off its request for Kennedy.

“I’ve got no problems with Minnesota,” Steinbrenner said. “It’s just that a deadline is a deadline, and there are a lot of reasons for that, not just Santana. So that’s it.”

Asked if the Yankees would move on to pursue trades for other starters, like Baltimore’s Érik Bédard or Oakland’s Dan Haren, Steinbrenner declined to offer details. But the Orioles rarely deal with the Yankees, and the A’s have asked for Hughes and Kennedy for Haren, an offer the Yankees will not consider.

“Billy Beane doesn’t necessarily have to deal Haren, and he’s going to want a lot,” Steinbrenner said, referring to the A’s general manager. “It’s still going to come down to the same thing, isn’t it?

“Everybody wants pitching back, and I think maybe it comes down to a point like it was during the season, when I said our pitchers were untouchable. Maybe it’s getting back to that point, because that’s what everybody is going to ask for. Maybe we just shut it down and say forget it.”

For now, the Yankees have six starters: Pettitte, Hughes, Kennedy, Chien-Ming Wang, Mike Mussina and Joba Chamberlain. On Tuesday at the winter meetings, which end Thursday, Manager Joe Girardi said he expected his current staff to be enough to win a championship.

“Those are my expectations,” he said. “You don’t have it down to an exact science, who the 12 names are going to be. There’s going to be some competition in spring training, which I think is a great thing.”

The Yankees added a reliever to the mix late Monday by trading a young starter, Tyler Clippard, to Washington for the right-hander Jonathan Albaladejo. Steinbrenner said he was “very pleased” with that deal, which is pending physical exams.

The Yankees have shown some interest in free-agent relievers like LaTroy Hawkins and Ron Mahay, but for now, their primary setup man is Kyle Farnsworth. Though Farnsworth’s strikeout rate dropped and his earned run average rose last season, the Yankees say they are confident in him.
“I had a chance to catch Kyle in Chicago when he was dominant,” Girardi said. “I’ve always had a lot of confidence in what he can do. I’ve seen Kyle at his best, so I look forward to him getting back to that.”


By TYLER KEPNER New York Times
Published: December 5, 2007
 

The Great Govenor of California
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could have had him for half of alexs salary, would much rather have Santana on my team than rodriguez, especailly in October.
 

Stumblin' around, drunk on burgundy wine.
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Gotta love pointless deadlines.

Thanks for being a moron Hank.

Signed,

Red Sox Nation
 

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Gotta love pointless deadlines.

Thanks for being a moron Hank.

Signed,

Red Sox Nation
As a 40 year Yankee fan, allow me to say Hank is such a moron he makes George look like a Mensa member.
 

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