Ervin Santana Is Actually Affordable

As of a week ago, Ervin Santana still was seeking a four-year deal in the $60M range. Chances of him getting anything close growing slimmer.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 23, 2014

The entire starting pitching market should now really start to take form, and fast, with the signing of Masahiro Tanaka and Ervin Santana has started it off by throwing out his asking price. Santana is actually pretty affordable when you consider Tanaka got an AAV of $22.15 and other free agents, Ubaldo Jimenez for example, will probably get a higher AAV than Santana. Santana has asked for a four year deal and $60 million for an AAV of $15 million for those without the use of a calculator at the moment.

Jeff Passan from Yahoo Sports said that Santana asked for a much larger deal earlier in the offseason but the closer we inch to the calendar saying February the more I think free agent deals will start to come down. Santana comes with draft pick compensation so that is something the team that will sign him will have to consider as well as his awful 2012 season before breaking out in his contract year. Santana is 31 years old though so there is plenty of his prime left to be bought, I wonder if it will be from the Yankees.