This does seem to be a departure from your "signing a big name FA doesn't mean anything, since such and such team could have signed extra minor leaguers with that money" approach...
in this regard, i'll agree that it sounds like a departure, but only because the players the twins are getting from the mets are ... not...
anything. not only are they not established, they're not even prospects. it was like literally signing 4 random minor leaguers. my colleague is a die-hard mets fan and never even heard of two of them. it was a really, really,
really bad deal.
but the overall argument i hold to, and i'll use the potential yankee trade as an example.
the twins wanted 4 youngsters from the yankees in exchange for santana. relatively unproven prospects with little-to-no big-level experience, and a community salary of about 1 mil. yanks were willing to offer 2, and later 3 of these players. the two teams couldn't agree to final terms. team steinbrenner made a "final" offer in november. and in december. and in january.
twins pass on the yankees best offer, the three players, which was of significantly higher quality than what the mets offered.
had that deal gone through, i would have been pissed. whether it was the 4 youngsters, the 3, or the deal for only 2. i would have felt it was a poor trade on the yankees behalf.
yanks are famous for giving away an entire farm system for a "big name" only to find out that big name never lives up to any of the hype. you've joked about... geez... a dozen? two? but the ramifications are so much more severe, as this does a few levels of devastation:
1) yanks are out major money
2) yanks have no farm system to replenish vets
3) yanks have no farm system to offer in better deals
4) yanks lose any established "team/chemistry" aspects by bringing in the egoey hired gun.
i know your counter argument is "well, they're getting superstarX in return" and its certainly a valid point to some extent. but, as a yankee fan, i can't understate how much more i'd rather not have that player.
those are a lot of the aspects that i truly, truly hate about the yankees, and why i always hold to the argument you quoted.
the guys the yankees were offering are
not superstars. yet. they're merely bundles of potential. but i value you that so much more than a guy like santana for any number of reasons.
that trade would have been tremendous for the twins, and they had every opportunity to make it which, in my mind, put them in total control over the situation.
