Are The Mets Are The Class Of The League Again?

John Donovan at Sports Illistrated writes about the Johan Santana trade and how it once again makes the Mets the best in the East and maybe even the entire league:

Take the best pitcher in baseball and put him into the lesser of the leagues. Move him from a killer division to a tepid one. Stick him into a good pitcher's park against thinner lineups, on top of a rotation with a couple of guys that won 15 games apiece last year and another who happens to own the lowest ERA of anyone still throwing, and it's immediately clear what you have.

The best team in the National League East. The best one, almost certainly, in the NL. An instant, and legitimate, World Series front-runner.

Santana, a player who has the second-best WHIP -- walks and hits per inning pitched -- of any active pitcher. (The one with the best WHIP --1.03 to Santana's 1.09 -- is the Mets' Pedro Martinez, who also boasts a lifetime 2.80 ERA, best among active pitchers.)

Put Santana at the top of a rotation that includes a should-be healthy Martinez (he started only five games last season), the team's two 15-game winners from '07, John Maine and lefty Oliver Perez, and ageless Orlando Hernandez, and the Mets have, without much doubt, one of the deepest rotations in the league. Mike Pelfrey, the team's best young pitcher whom Minaya refused to part with in the Santana dealings, is also in the mix.