Johan Santana Forced the Trade

Fellow FanHouse blogger Josh Alper recently posed the question of how Twins GM Bill Smith could trade Johan Santana to the Mets without getting Fernando Martinez in return. It's a very good question, and one I was asking myself when I found out about the trade on Tuesday.

Well, it turns out that Smith may not have had a choice. According to the Pioneer Press' Charley Walters, who told us recently that Santana would be traded within 10 days, Johan forced the Twins to make the deal.

Johan Santana forced his trade to the New York Mets.

The two-time Cy Young Award winner told the Twins that unless they traded him by Tuesday, he would not waive his no-trade contract clause, he would go to spring training and play this season with the Twins, then become a free agent at season's end. That would mean the Twins' only compensation for him would be two draft picks.

As I've said before, Walters is somebody whose word I trust, and I don't doubt for a second that he's telling what he believes is the truth here. At the same time, it's entirely possible that Walters' source for this is someone within the Twins organization that's trying to spin the deal. After all, if I were a Twins fan I wouldn't be happy at all with what the team got in return for the greatest pitcher in organization history, and finding this out may turn the focus of my anger from the team to Santana.