Johan Santana and Bad Santa

I hate blogs that take a full post to explain what they are going to be posting about. So you get a sentence: I am going to be writing about sports, movies, and, from time-to-time, me.

Being in the NYC area, we are being constantly bombarded by the latest news on Johan Santana (They ate lunch today! Miss Lippy's car is Green!). In other news, apparently there's some sort of New Jersey rugby team playing in some sort of some super game.

Now, there's no way the Mets made this trade without knowing that they were going to have to give him 6 years and probably $150 million. After last season's collapse, they have no leverage because there's no possible way that they can put their fans through three more days of harried excitement to leave them ultimately unfulfilled...again.

Why are the Mets posturing then? How dumb do they think his agent is? For people that don't know, an agent is someone who was too smart to become involved in running a pro sports team ("Hmm, so you're telling me I can worry about ticket sales, sponsorship sales, TV rights, player contracts, the luxury tax, developing a minor league system, making trades, etc. etc. etc., or I can just make 10% of what that famous guy is making? Hold on...give me a second...man this is tough...").

I see this negotiation playing out like the scene from "Bad Santa" where Bernie Mac (the head of mall security) tells Billy Bob Thornton and a man who lacks stature (now known as MWLS) that he knows they are thieves and he wants half of what they rob from his mall. If you haven't seen the movie, the MWLS keeps asking for some percentage lower and Bernie Mac keeps saying half. He does it in a lot of funny ways (accents, pauses, feigns of contemplation) until they agree to give him half. I swear it's funny.

Isn't that exactly what's happening here?

Omar Minaya (OM): 5 year, $100 million!
Johan Santana's Agent (JSA): Let's go with 6 years, $150 million.
OM: 6 years, $120 million!
JSA: Hmmm...how about 6 years, $150 million?
OM: 5 years guaranteed, option 6th year for $135 million!
JSA: Intriguing (rubbing his chin)...I shall counter with 6 years, $150 million.
OM: 6 years, $145 million!
JSA: 6 years, $150 million, and you shall pay Johan's unborn child $1 million a year for the first 20 years of its life!
OM: DEAL!

At the end of the day (to be technically accurate, 5 pm tomorrow), this deal gets done to exactly the specifications that Johan wants. You want to know why? Because the Mets HAVE to do it. Because they owe it to their fans. Because they offered the Twins the worst deal Bill Smith had seen all off-season and he had to take it. And, most importantly, because it makes them title contenders. And a title in New York, with a new field on the horizon, is worth a HELL of a lot more then $150 million.

That being said, I'm looking forward to seeing how the Mets f this bad boy up!