Ken Davidoff's baseball insider

Melky Cabrera is such a pleasure to watch that you can lose sight of where he fits into the greater baseball universe. This became relevant when reporting on the Yankees' interest in Johan Santana, which is considerable.

Take a step back and look at things from the Twins' point of view. They have, arguably, the best pitcher in baseball, who is a year away from free agency and will probably be too expensive to re-sign. They are also quite likely to lose Torii Hunter, their franchise centerfielder, to free agency.

But they have two cornerstone position players in Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, and with Francisco Liriano coming back from Tommy John surgery, they have a starting rotation that should keep them in nearly every game _ and a closer in Joe Nathan who will protect nearly every lead they get. There's enough still here, in other words, to contemplate a playoff run.

So if you're going to trade Santana, you want to replace his spot in the starting rotation, but also, you want to upgrade your offense, which will have taken a hit with Hunter's departure. Phil Hughes would be a fine replacement in other words, but he's a downgrade from Santana, even when you consider the finances and the years you'd have Hughes under control. You need an impact offensive player.

So how would Cabrera do as Hunter's replacement? Let's look at OPS+, which measures players' OPS (on-base-plus-slugging percentage) against their contemporaries. An OPS of 100 means that you're average offensively - above that means that you're above average, and below that means you're below average.

Torii Hunter's 2007 OPS+ was 122. Melky Cabrera's? 89.

As a complementary player for the Yankees, as the ninth hitter, Cabrera is perfect. He's strong defensively, takes the extra base, brings a youthful energy to the party, switch hits. And he's only 23, so there's every reason to think that he can get better.

As a trading chip, though? His value has a ceiling. The Twins need a middle-of-the-lineup hitter - like Robinson Cano. His 2007 OPS+ was 120.

Perhaps the Twins will decide to fully rebuild, and decide that a package of Cabrera, Hughes and a prospect (Jose Tabata?) is enough for Santana. I wouldn't bet on that, however.

My impressions: 1) That has to be the series finale. Where can they go from there? The last minute or so was sort of an epilogue; 2) Given Larry David's real-life issues, we should've realized that he and Cheryl wouldn't get back together on the show; 3) This marked David's second chance to do a series finale right, since most of us were disappointed by the final "Seinfeld." If the "Seinfeld" finale swung for the fences and missed, the "Curb" finale connected like Roy Hobbs at the end of "The Natural." Incredible.