Santana Coming To Town

The Minnesota Twins have agreed to trade pitcher Johan Santana to the New York Mets for outfielder Carlos Gomez, pitcher Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey and Deolis Guerra.

The Mets and Peter Greenburg whom is Santana's agent are working on a contract extension. Both sides met in Manhatten, but they've refused to discuss the details.

Santana is seeking a deal worth more then 120 million over six or seven years. Greenburg and Mets owership have until five o'clock on Friday to reach an agreement.

When an agreement is reached, the players will need to pass a physical in-order for the trade to be finalize.

"Every team in the division became stronger, but now with Santana we're the favorites again," Moises Alou (left fielder) said in the Dominican Republic.

The Mets are comfortable with Greenburg, because he represents outfielder Endy Chavez whom just recently signed an extension with the Mets, and shortstop Jose Reyes.

Mets general manager Omar Minaya declined comment according to club spokesman Jay Horwitz. Greenburg refused to return e-mail from others as well.

The Met fans were excited about the news, because lots of feelings were hurt after their collapse last season. Minaya was praised by many, because it wasn't expected from the Mets. "I can't really comment because it's not done. All I can say is that the Twins did what they had to do," New York Yankees senior vice president Hank Steinbrenner told reporters in Tampa Bay, Florida. "I hope it works out well for them. The Mets made a good trade from their end. Hopefully it works out for both teams."

The Yankees showed interest in Santana, but decided not to pursue the deal. The Yankees were willing to trade pitcher Phil Hughes, center fielder Melky Cabarer, and others. During the Winter Meetings in December, the Yankees lost interest.

The World Series champions Boston Red Sox were interested in Santana, and they were willing to trade pitcher Jon Lester or outfeilder Jacoby Ellsbury. The Red Sox weren't able to trade players the Twins were interested in, and that caused them to pull away.

The Twins offered to extend Santana's contract by four years and 80 million dollars. Santana refused to accept the offer, but didn't have confidence about being traded. "I'm a Minnesota Twin. That's all I know. It's up to them. Whatever they have to do is going to happen. It has nothing to do with me at all," Santana mentioned to the News-Press. "I said it from the beginning during the season last year, whatever will be the best for this team and this organization, I'll agree with that."

Mets third basemen David Wright is happy about Santana. He believes the pitching staff is deep with young pitchers. "To have one of those handful that I would call an ace is obviously special to a team that, offensively, we look good on paper," Wright said Tuesday. "And our pitching staff is very deep, especially with these young guys, and they're only going to get better. So obviously there's a lot of positive energy, if it's true, going into spring training."

According to studies, pitchers aren't successful with long-term contracts. Only three pitchers have over 100 million dollar contracts: Barry Zito (San Franisco Giants), Mike Hampton (Colorado Rockies) and Kevin Brown (Los Angeles Dodgers).