| Authored by Alex Halsted - 30th May, 2008 - 5:51 pm
 Had the Twins not lost Torii Hunter in free agency, they may have held onto Johan Santana and made one final run at a title in 2008. Had they held onto Santana, they would never have seen Livan Hernandez or Carlos Gomez in Minnesota. After two months, it’s time to take a first look at how some of the biggest changes compare.
Livan Hernandez:
Hernandez, thus far, has been a pleasant surprise for the Twins. Signed for just $5 million this past off-season, Hernandez was a fairly cheap veteran investment. So far, he has provided the Twins with pretty consistent starts and is on pace to provide the team with 228 innings pitched.
Hernandez, in twelve starts, has a 6-2 record, and the Twins overall have won nine of his twelve starts. He doesn’t strikeout a great number of hitters but has been able to get them to swing and miss when needed. His 4.60 ERA is pretty good, and for the most part his runs have been given up in two separate outings.
Johan Santana:
Santana early on faced the same problems that he did in the 2007 season with the Twins; he received very little run support and lost games that he pitched pretty well in. To this point, Santana is on pace to go over the 200 innings mark and is also on pace for 17 wins. However, it seems as if the strikeout numbers are down. Unless Santana picks up the pace, he’ll record just 188 strikeouts in 2008 which is down 47 from his 2007 season with the Twins.
The Mets, like the Twins have done with Livan, have won the majority of Santana’s starts. In eleven starts, Santana has posted a 6-3 record, and the team has won eight of his outings.
The Verdict:
This head-to-head comparison has nothing to do with whether or not trading Santana was a good move for Minnesota or whether the Twins won the deal with the Mets. Instead, it is to take a better look at who has been better, and who is or would have been a better fit for their price.
So far, it looks as if it’s a wash. Both pitchers have been pretty solid, and both the Mets and Twins have won the majority of the pitchers' starts. With that said, Hernandez is probably a better option for the Twins since he is costing them more than $10 million less.
Carlos Gomez:
Gomez has been an exciting player for the Twins and has definitely single-handedly won the team a few games. Through this writing, Gomez is hitting .293 on the season with four homeruns, twenty-two runs batted in, seventeen steals, and maybe, most importantly, thirty-one runs scored.
His defense and speed has also helped him make some solid catches, and he has two outfield assists as well. Overall, he has made some “young player” mistakes, but they have been limited for the most part and haven’t been a big issue.
Torii Hunter:
Hunter started off poorly in the Metrodome, but when the Angels left Minneapolis, Hunter had a pretty solid first month with his new team. He hit .317 with four homeruns and sixteen runs batted in during the month of April.
However, since the month changed, and more so after the first week, Hunter hasn’t been very good at all. In the first eight games of the season, Hunter hit four homeruns and batted in eight. After that point, Hunter didn’t hit any other homeruns in April and collected just eight runs batted in through the next twenty-one games of the month.
After two months, Hunter is hitting .275 with six homeruns, twenty-five runs batted in, twenty-six runs scored, and five steals. Since the month of April, Hunter has a .239 average, has hit just two homeruns, and batted in just nine.
Verdict:
This one is much simpler than the Santana vs. Hernandez debate. It’s a much better fit for the Twins to have a 22-year old Carlos Gomez who costs the team just $395,000 per season and who has put up just as good, if not better, numbers. Hunter costs the Angels an average of $18,000,000 per season for the next five seasons, and he is already 32-years old. In addition, his numbers haven’t been any better than Gomez’s. |
