Ervin Santana Once Wanted $100 Million, but Didn't Get It. by Coincidence, Signing Santana Means the Twins Have to Contemplate
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Minnesota Twins Daily Clips Monday, December 15, 2014 ➢ Twins feel armed, durable with Santana. Star Tribune (Miller) pg. 1 ➢ Here's one more position for Tovar: A spot in Twins' HOF. Star Tribune (Reusse) pg. 2 ➢ Rand: Expecting returns on Twins' rotation investment. Star Tribune (Rand) pg. 3 ➢ Twins: Signing Ervin Santana about more than the arm. Pioneer Press (Berardino) pg. 4 ➢ Minnesota Twins: No payroll 'ceiling,' but it won't go to $150M. Pioneer Press (Berardino) pg. 5 ➢ Twinsights: Doug Mientkiewicz leaning toward return in 2015. Pioneer Press (Berardino) pg. 6 ➢ Twinsights: Chris Parmelee designated for assignment. Pioneer Press (Berardino) pg. 6 ➢ Twinsights: Ervin Santana enters smiling as he opens Twins career. Pioneer Press (Berardino) pg. 7 ➢ Santana ready to get started with Twins. MLB.com (Sandell) pg. 7 ➢ Why spend now? Terry Ryan says, ‘We’re going to be better’. 1500ESPN.com (Mackey) pg. 9 ➢ Chris Parmelee designated for assignment to make room for Santana. 1500ESPN.com (Wetmore) pg. 9 ➢ Owner Jim Pohlad says Twins don’t have a payroll ‘ceiling’. 1500ESPN.com (Wetmore) pg. 10 ➢ Wetmore: Twins probably got Ervin Santana on a discount. 1500ESPN.com (Wetmore) pg. 11 ➢ Twins' link with Ervin Santana has history. FOXSportsNorth.com (Mason) pg. 12 Twins feel armed, durable with Santana Phil Miller / Star Tribune – 12/13/14 Ervin Santana once wanted $100 million, but didn’t get it. By coincidence, signing Santana means the Twins have to contemplate that round number, too. But both sides seemed delighted, or at least satisfied, by the terms they signed their names to Saturday. “It was just negotiations. I ended up with a good contract for a good team,” Santana said after pulling on a Twins jersey, No. 54, at an introductory news conference at Target Field. Santana entered baseball’s free-agent marketplace 13 months ago with a target price of $100 million over five years but ended up agreeing, after an interim season in Atlanta, to General Manager Terry Ryan’s offer of a four-year, $55 million deal. “I hope it’s fair for both sides,” Santana added. So do the Twins, whose return on the first year of Ricky Nolasco’s four-year, $49 million pact didn’t live up to the price, and whose $11 million, two-year investment in Mike Pelfrey last winter bought mostly time on the disabled list. And now, with Santana becoming the fourth free-agent starting pitcher signed by Minnesota in the past two winters (along with Nolasco, Phil Hughes and Pelfrey), Minnesota’s payroll projects to eclipse $100 million for the first time since 2011. “It’s not going to go to $150 million or anything like that, but it’s headed north of [$100 million],” owner Jim Pohlad acknowledged. The rise in payroll from last season’s $85 million — the exact number won’t be known until arbitration-eligible players agree to contracts next month — was triggered by the signings of Santana and Torii Hunter, transactions that happened because he became convinced the price was worth it, Pohlad said. “It’s being able to sign when the players are available. They can add to it if we feel good about the risk when we sign them,” Pohlad said. “It’s not like we made a concerted effort to get the payroll up. You know Terry — Terry doesn’t spend money for the sake of spending money.” That’s true, though Ryan sounded enthusiastic over adding the durable Santana, who has averaged roughly 207 innings over the past five seasons. The signing will cost the Twins their second-round pick, currently No. 44, in next June’s draft, but Ryan said it’s worth it to add a stabilizer to the starting rotation. “He’s got enough velocity. He’s got a slider, which is probably his best pitch. He is the type of guy who doesn’t want to come out of games,” Ryan said. The former Angels and Royals righthander “is not afraid of the American League, which is another good thing.” And like Hunter, the 32-year-old Santana might serve, Ryan believes, as a veteran example for the young roster the Twins are assembling. “This guy’s makeup is pretty solid, Torii Hunter’s makeup is pretty solid,” Ryan said. “We’ve got a couple veterans here to help show the way.” For Santana — who went by his given first name, Johan, while in the minor leagues a decade ago but changed it to avoid confusion with the Twins’ former Cy Young winner — the signing is a way to settle in after playing for three different teams the past three seasons. He said ex-Twins Francisco Liriano and Alexi Casilla both recommended the organization, and “I like the city. I like the fans. I like the [ballpark].” Santana has a 3.10 ERA in three career starts in Target Field. His contract is guaranteed for four years, which seems to be the limit to the Twins’ comfort level. “It’s a big gamble when you sign a player to a long-term contract. ... I’ve said all along, the term is the big wild card in any of these [contracts]. Not the annual amount, but the term,” Pohlad said. “Terry told us, this guy has been durable and performed well. That’s what you worry about, of course — a contract where they can’t give you the innings.” Ryan worries about it, too, and he’s no fan of the free-agent market. “This isn’t exactly the blueprint we had in mind, going out and signing a guy for $55 million,” Ryan said. “Jim Pohlad gave us the ability to do that, and hopefully it’ll pay off, but the ideal is to keep [prospects] coming through the system, through player development.” Here's one more position for Tovar: A spot in Twins' HOF Patrick Reusse / Star Tribune – 12/13/14 The Twins started a Hall of Fame in 2000. As someone who had watched them since the first-ever game at Met Stadium, I felt as if the Twins Hall of Fame was a hollow place as the years went by without Camilo Pascual being elected as a member. That was rectified in 2012, when the Twins’ original ace and curveball master finally made it past the voters without the strong tie to major league baseball’s first decade on the Bloomington prairie. Camilo was inducted, and I’m now at peace with the Twins Hall of Fame. A year ago, we decided to vote in Chuck Knoblauch, ignoring his link to steroids, his demand to leave the Twins and the ugly reception given to him as a Yankees’ left fielder by Metrodome customers with cheap hot dogs to spare. The voters decided to recognize Knoblauch as an excellent Twins player, while also providing an opportunity for a Minnesota reconciliation. No surprise, Knobby messed it up, getting charged with domestic assault against an ex-wife. The honor and the induction ceremony were canceled (not postponed). The new ballot arrived last week with 16 names and a limit of five selections. I voted for one: Cesar Tovar, the marvel of versatility here for seven full seasons from 1966 to 1972. The headline on most Internet searches of Tovar is that he played nine positions on Sept. 22, 1968. That was a desperate attempt to sell tickets at the end of a noncontending season. There was no gimmick to Tovar’s adaptability. In 1967, he played in 164 games (two ties) and started from four to 70 games at six positions. Max Nichols, the baseball reporter for the Minneapolis Star, voted for Tovar as the MVP, notoriously costing Boston’s Carl Yastrzemski’s unanimous selection in his Triple Crown season. 2 I can’t defend Max’s vote. I can say that a man of Tovar’s skills would be even more valuable in today’s baseball, with its three- and four-player benches. A guy who could hit some, steal bases and field adequately at six positions … 30 clubs would covet that. Plus Three from Patrick Three things to know about Cesar Tovar: • Small and wiry, he died of a heart attack in his home of Venezuela in 1994 at age 54. • Acquired at ’64 winter meetings from Cincinnati; a surprise deal with Twins giving up young lefthanded starter Gerry Arrigo. • ”Pepi’’ led the American League in doubles (36), triples (13), hit 10 home runs and had 30 steals in 1970. Rand: Expecting returns on Twins' rotation investment Michael Rand / Star Tribune – 12/15/14 The 2010 Twins had a middle-of-the-road starting rotation, ranking 16th in MLB in starters’ ERA, but it was enough to get the teams to the postseason. From there, of course, everything fell apart. From 2011-14, the Twins starters’ ERA ranked, in order, among the 30 teams in baseball: 26th, 29th, 30th and 30th. In 2011, the Twins could be excused because a reasonable plan fell apart. Carl Pavano, Francisco Liriano, Scott Baker, Brian Duensing and Nick Blackburn, who took the bulk of the starts after anywhere from adequate to promising performances the previous year, regressed. In 2014, the Twins again had the makings of a better plan … and again, it fell apart. The plan in the two middle years … that was a wing and a prayer, which wasn’t answered. The objective here, then, is to look at the rotation in 2012 and 2013 — both seasons in which the Twins lost 96 games — and see just how much better, realistically, we could expect the rotation to be in 2015 given only average performances from the three free-agent pitchers to whom they committed more than $125 million: Ricky Nolasco, Phil Hughes and Ervin Santana.