Johan?

One of the biggest pitchers on the market at the moment is Twins ace Johan Santana. The man is a bona fide ace who consistently provides a solid ERA and W-L record. He has become discontent with the Twins unwillingness to spend to make the team a contender and as such he's being actively shopped around to the large market powerhouses.

Worst Case Scenario:
The Yankees have made some solid offers of some of their highly touted young talent: Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Melky Cabrera's names have been thrown around quite a bit. Even with Andy Petite on board for another year, the Yankees have some notable gaps in their pitching staff that held them back last year. Santana would solve that problem nicely for the Yankees and make them almost as dangerous pitching as they are hitting with Wang, Petite and Santana in their rotation. Hank Steinbrenner has reportedly set a deadline for negotiating with Santana that has since passed, but this is the same guy who told us that A-Rod was gone and never to return.

Best Case Scenario:
The Red Sox move some combination of Coco Crisp and one of their top level prospects, either Jacoby Ellsbury or Jon Lester. Ideally the Twins would take Crisp, Lester and some mid-level prospect and the Sox sign Santana for an extended deal. The Red Sox starting Rotation would be undoubtedly the most feared in baseball and strong for years to come.

I think it's important to make competitive offers for Santana, but to not completely sell out the farm system in order to get him. Santana is a superb pitcher, but Lester, Bucholz and Ellsbury all have the tools and the drive to become great players. When we traded Hanley Ramirez for Josh Beckett we knew that Ramirez was a future all star, but we got an all star in return. But if we had traded two Hanleys we'd probably all be kicking ourselves.