In a guest post for Baseball Prospectus, Aaron Gleeman examines the Mets’ trade for Johan Santana, which now looks pretty bad for both sides. I covered this a bit last year: The Mets traded for young players for the right to sign Santana to a market-rate contract extension, and the trade was contingent on the extension getting done.

Since Santana missed all of 2011 and appears unlikely to ever again be the pitcher the Mets paid for, and especially since due to circumstances unforeseen in 2008 Santana’s salary now accounts for more than 1/4 of the Mets’ total payroll, his contract looks like a pretty massive albatross in the Mets rebuilding/retooling/time-biding plans.

And again: No one’s saying Johan Santana’s not totally sweet, and no one is more psyched than me to see him pitching again at whatever capacity. We just can’t keep calling that deal “a steal” unless you mean it was some sort of art heist in which the Mets came away with some beautiful sculpture that looks awesome but takes up most of the room in their house and makes it difficult for them to add anything else to their collection.