Bob Cook

With Johan Santana coming to Shea Stadium, no National League team should be able to block the New York Mets' path to the World Series.

Who is going to beat the Mets? Arizona? Too weak-hitting. San Diego? Same problem. Colorado? Until proven otherwise, a fluke that got hot at the right time. Chicago? Until proven otherwise, not a fluke, what with being baseball‘s version of the 100-year flood — rarely cresting to spectacular heights. (It’s the law that any sportswriter must point out, often, that this year is the 100th anniversary of the last Cubs World Series.)

Acquiring Santana for four players that may or may not make a major-league impact — for now, the young quartet is “may not” — is going to have a similar impact on the weak NL that the Boston Celtics acquiring Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen had in the weak NBA Eastern Conference. Except that the Mets weren’t bottom feeders last season as were the Celtics, meaning New York should be able to bury its competition even faster in the NL East than Boston is doing in the Atlantic Division.

No one in the National League comes close to the starting rotation of Santana, Pedro Martinez, John Maine, Oliver Perez and Orlando Hernandez, and the Mets’ hitters like David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes will see to it the team has enough offense to help them.

That’s the greater beauty of the deal — after all the rumored scenarios of young stars-to-be such as Jacoby Ellsbury of Boston or Phillip Hughes of the Yankees demanded by Minnesota in exchange for Santana, the Mets were able to get him by giving up no one who was essential to this year’s World Series chase. Boston and the Yankees, it turned out, had neither the prospects to spare, or prospects willing to give, to make this deal a reality, thus making another AL World Series win no guarantee.

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Someday Carlos Gomez, Phil Humber, Deolis Guerra and Kevin Mulkey can be great major league players. More than likely, one or none will be. Top prospects are often overrated, and they’re especially overrated when you have a chance to acquire a player as transcendent as Santana, the best lefthander the NL will see since Sandy Koufax.

Santana's acquisition was contingent upon his signing a seven-year deal for $150.75 million. Ordinarily, locking a pitcher into a long-term contract should give general managers the shakes, and bad, LSD-like flashbacks that feature the hideous, disfigured, melting faces of Mike Hampton and Carl Pavano.

But Santana has never had arm trouble and rarely misses a start. His ERA was up last year because his sinker didn’t quite sink as much, turning double-play balls into two-run homers. But with his motivation back, Santana should pad the defensive statistics of his infielders. And, sheesh, most pitchers would pop champagne corks if they were as “lousy” as a 3.33 ERA. (Perez led Mets’ starters with a career year for him, 3.56).