Time seems on Sox' side with Santana

December 18, 2007|Gordon Edes, Globe Staff

These things, you surely understand, can take time. And it may be no different with Johan Santana.

The Red Sox contested the Yankees for Jose Contreras right up until Christmas Eve, 2002, before Theo Epstein, then the Sox' assistant general manager, and international scouting liaison Luis Eljaua left Nicaragua empty-handed, the Cuban defector deciding he preferred Yanqui dollars.

The Sox went deep into Christmas shopping season again the following year for Alex Rodriguez, and had all the pieces in place - Manny Ramírez and Jon Lester were going to the Rangers, Nomar Garciaparra was being swapped for Magglio Ordonez, and A-Rod was giving back money to come to the Sox - until the players' union decided Rodriguez's re-jiggered contract wasn't going to fly. It wasn't until Valentine's Day that A-Rod changed teams, and it was the Yankees who got him.

In 2006, after he'd ended his brief hiatus and returned as GM, Epstein traded for Coco Crisp at the end of January, giving the club a new center fielder just a couple of weeks before the start of spring training.

The Sox last winter waited until after the new year to sign Joel Pineiro, who in some circles was installed as the favorite to succeed Jonathan Papelbon as the team's closer, until everyone got down to Florida and decided that wasn't such a good idea after all.

So while it might make abundant sense for the Sox to try and strike a deal with the Minnesota Twins for the services of Santana before Major League Baseball shuts down for the week between Christmas and New Year's, it's not as if they're about to see the last grains of sand seep out of the hourglass.

The Twins have a new general manager, Bill Smith, who is content to sit back and see whether any of the prospective suitors for the two-time Cy Young Award winner are prepared to blow him away with an offer. If not, he holds onto his ace, not an unhappy prospect for Twins manager Ron Gardenhire.

The Sox are operating from a position of strength, not desperation. Would they love to have Santana? No question. Do they need him? Coming off their second World Series title in four seasons, with a rotation anchored by a prime-of-his-life Josh Beckett and a certain-to-improve Daisuke Matsuzaka, a raft of coming-of-age pitchers like Clay Buchholz, Lester, Justin Masterson, and Michael Bowden, and last-hurrah lions like Curt Schilling and Tim Wakefield, that's a matter of interpretation.