Buster Olney on ESPN cites a report that Santana turned down a five-year, $93 million offer from the Twins, and writes that Twins GM Bill Smith is quietly gauging the market for left-hander Johan Santana.

Olney beleives the Mets will be among the most aggressive teams in any Santana bidding.

Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe, writes that the Red Sox could be players for Santana but won’t be willing to give up both Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz and certainly not Jacoby Ellsbury.

The Yankees don’t appear willing to give up Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy, or Phillip Hughes either.

Omar Minaya has stated that ‘nobody is untouchable’ and that he is willing to trade his top prospects in return for a front line starting pitcher.

The Dodgers and Angels could be players but that is predicated on if they acquire Miguel Cabrera or Miguel Tejada.

Cafardo believes the Twins would want one young pitcher but their needs are at CF, 2B and 3B.

Would Pelfrey, Humber or Mulvey along with Milledge or Gomez and Ruben Gotay do the trick?

Sid Hartman in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune reports

The word in baseball circles is that the Twins have made a five-year offer to two-time Cy Young Ward winner Johan Santana calling for $93 million.

At $18.6 million per year, it would exceed deal that Barry Zito received last winter and Carlos Zambrano received during last season.

Omar Minaya has expressed that with the likelyhood of Tom Glavine leaving, the Mets are willing to trade top prospect to get a top tier pitcher in return, reports MLB.com

“There’s no doubt, if you’re going to trade for pitching in this market — the way pitching is right now if you look at the free agents — you’re going to have to part with some premium guys,” Minaya said Wednesday.

“There’s no doubt that our premium prospects are very well-liked. The question is whether we’d trade them. We could be players in some of the pitching that might be traded.”

The Mets top prospects, in order of value to the team, are Minor League outfielders Fernando Martinez and Carlos Gomez, Mike Pelfrey and Minor League starter Kevin Mulvey, Lastings Milledge and Philip Humber.

A deal involving Martinez and Gomez is highly unlikely. The Mets might be more willing to deal them if the return was someone like Johan Santana.

The clock strikes the witching hour and the deadline for teams to have exclusive negotiating rights has passed. The big deal last night was Jorge Posada returning to the Yankees with a 4 year, $52.4 million deal. Lets look at some of the players who are expected to reach the open market today.

• The Mets are not expected to make offers to Paul Lo Duca and Luis Castillo until they have a chance to look at other options such as Yorvit Torrealba, Jason Kendall, Orlando Hudson and David Eckstein.
• The Palm Beach Post reports that the Marlins are looking to upgrade over Miguel Olivo, and may join the Mets in kicking the tires on Lo Duca and Torrealba as well.
• The Red Sox were unable to reach an agreement with Mike Lowell before the deadline. They reportedly offered a three year deal. What happens with Lowell now will have implications on where Alex Rodriguez and Miguel Cabrera will land. The Dodgers, Angels, Yankees and Phillies have all expressed interest in Lowell.
• The Twins do not seem optimistic they can resign Torii Hunter. The Twins will have some tough decisions to make if Hunter leaves, including if they can afford to trade Johan Santana on top of losing Hunter and not have Twins fans marching in the streets looking for new GM Bill Smith’s head. The White Sox, Rangers, Nationals, Royals, Braves and Dodgers are believed to be interested in Hunter’s services.
• The most prized member of a weak free agent market for pitchers, Carlos Silva, is unlikely to receive an offer from the Twins and will likely be pursued by the Mets, Phillies, Angels, Royals, Tigers and Mariners.
• A number of relievers will hit the open market, barring some midnight madness. Scott Linebrink, Jeremy Affeldt, Ron Mahay, Eric Gagne and Francisco Cordero among the most notable names on the list.
• The Yankees have reportedly offered Mariano Rivera a three year, $40 million deal. At this time it appears that Rivera will be hitting the open market and is likely to be one of the most sought after free agents available. The Phillies were once thought to be interested in Rivera but with the addition of Brad Lidge that seems to be dead issue.

Kevin Kernan in the New York Post suggest that the Mets make a push to get Oakland A’s pitcher Dan Haren.

Billy Beane has long coveted Lastings Milledge, and Aaron Heilman could be included in a deal to get Haren as well.

Haren and Johan Santana each had 15 wins this past year. Haren (76) allowed fewer earned runs than Santana (81) as he posted the third best ERA in the AL at 3.07. Santana was seventh (3.33). Haren surrendered 24 home runs while Santana gave up 33.

I’d be shocked if Beane made Haren available, he’s discussed Rich Harden with the Mets before but Haren has been pretty much untouchable. If he was available, I would have to think the Mets would have lots of competition for his services and there are teams who have more chips than the Mets to go get him. This seems like a pipe dream to me.

Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald notes that some of the whispers heard in the lobby that the Padres are letting other teams know that Padres SP Jake Peavy is available. Silverman also notes that the Twins have yet to let it be known that Johan Santana is available.

Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com polled baseball executives and GMs regarding what will happen this winter.

Asked where Alex Rodriguez would be playing next year, 7.5 of them out of 15 said the Los Angeles Angels, next on the list was the Mets with 3 votes.

When asked where Barry Bonds would be playing next year, most executives believed it would be in Oakland. Nearly every baseball executive preferred Torii Hunter over Andruw Jones.

14 of 15 executives believe Johan Santana would be pitching for the Twins on Opening Day 2008.

Among the pool of free agent pitchers, Bartolo Colon, Josh Fogg, Livan Hernandez, Kyle Lohse, Carlos Silva or Jeff Weaver, four people chose Silva, four chose Lohse, three chose Hernandez and three chose Colon, while nobody selected Weaver or Fogg.

According to MLB.com, the Mets are interested in Chad Cordero, while the Nationals seek Carlos Gomez and Mike Pelfrey.

Gomez is also, sought by the Minnosota Twins, and could be part of a deal to land Johan Santana. However in an ESPN poll by Jerry Crasnick, 14 out of 15 baseball executives and GMs polled at the General Managers meeting in Orlando do not believe the Twins will deal Santana this winter.

Buster Olney reports on ESPN.com from the GM meetings.

Olney sees the Johan Santana market heating up. Rival executives began for the first time to get a serious vibe that if the Twins don’t sign Santana, they will definitely put him on the market. The Twins will make a contract offer to Santana and if he refuses their offer they will look to trade him.

Olney heard of possible offer from the Dodgers for Miguel Cabrera that consisted of third baseman Andy LaRoche, minor league pitcher Clay Kershaw, and an outfielder, possibly Matt Kemp. The Chicago Sun Times believes the White Sox have enough young pitching to get Cabrera.

Two teams told Olney that their A-Rod bidding would need to begin with eight years and $32 million per season bringing it to $256 million, $4 million more than his old deal. Many GMs feel that A-Rod relatively fits into the market at $20 to $23 million, but as we have seen, the market for A-Rod defies reality.

The next best closer on the market after Mariano Rivera, Francisco Cordero, could net a deal worth $40 million.

The most coveted middle reliever on the market is Ron Mahay, who held hitters to a .189 average, and allowed just two homers in 106 at-bats.

Roy Oswalt is not available, however the Houston Chronicle reports that Brad Lidge is.

Ryan Zimmerman has a broken bone in his wrist.

Many more rumors, news and notes regarding the GM meetings can be found on Olney’s blog on ESPN.