Baseball's winter meetings were really the wild, wild West

This week's winter meetings gab-a-thon in San Diego had something for everyone. The multitude of transactions helped stoke the hot stove fires like never before, while satisfying the after-hours crowd.

Even the Twins slipped in before last call by getting righthander Ervin Santana to agree to a four-year, $55 million contract on Thursday afternoon as some executives were headed for the airport. By then, trades involving 45 players and contracts totaling more than $420 million had been reported.

"The one word that sums it up is 'crazy,' " MLB Network analyst Harold Reynolds said. "The money has now helped equal things between the lesser clubs and the big clubs to make moves. Like San Diego. There's no way they could take on a Matt Kemp contract years ago."

Officials left the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel breaking down how Chicago became the epicenter of the baseball transaction universe, how the Dodgers' express makeover included sending a core player in Kemp to a division rival and how it's beneath super-agent Scott Boras to negotiate with anyone not an owner.

There were 12 trades (up from five last year) and 12 contract agreements reported during the winter meetings. Many of those came late in the evening or early in the morning. Everyone had red eyes by Thursday after trying to keep up with the excitement all week.

The White Sox finished deals for righthander Jeff Samardzija and closer David Robertson after 10 p.m. Monday. On Tuesday, the Cubs trumped their Windy City counterparts by leaking word that they had signed one of the free-agent jewels — lefthander Jon Lester — after 11 p.m. A flurry of moves were made Wednesday, but the highlight of the winter meetings took place around 3 a.m. Thursday.

That was when the Padres finalized their deal with the Dodgers to bring Kemp to San Diego. Padres officials went to the hotel lobby and started talking about the deal. Yes, there were still people hanging at a lobby bar — which had closed down an hour earlier.

Twins General Manager Terry Ryan pointed out that the Dodgers held a news conference at midnight during the meetings to announce trades with the Marlins and Angels.

"That's the good thing about the Internet," Ryan said. "We would not have learned about some of these deals until late the next day. Not we get up and reach the Internet and find out the Dodgers and Padres made a deal overnight."

Ryan wouldn't comment on his signing of Santana because he was taking his physical on Friday. The Twins will unveil their new starting pitcher at a 10 a.m. news conference at Target Field on Saturday. But Ryan said he was open for business until 2 a.m. at times during the meetings, as he was on the prowl for pitching upgrades. Texting between clubs has become an efficient way of finding out whether a trade is possible.

"It's not unusual to finalize a trade at 2, 3, 4 in the morning," Ryan said. "You have a lot of balls in the air. Clubs are counting on you to give them an answer. If it's no, they move on to the next team. There is not a lot of hopscotch or moving to different rooms because of technology."

One agent stood in the lobby Tuesday and talked about how the industry is flush with cash right now. The industry is headed toward $9 billion in annual revenues, thanks in part to rich TV contracts, online revenue, merchandising and ticket revenue, among other endeavors. That can be seen in the Cubs breaking the bank for Lester and San Diego — with the help of some money from the Dodgers — adding Kemp. By the way, Santana's deal with the Twins was the second-richest free-agent deal during the meetings.

"It puts [small-market teams] in play to get superstar players," Reynolds said. "If you can't get them through free agency you can get them via a trade."

Reynolds also said adding a second wild card not only encourages teams to make moves but to trade prospects they would otherwise keep.

"There an urgency now, which I like," Reynolds said. "It puts pressure on everybody."

One last takeaway from the meetings: The status of the AL Central Division is soaring with the moves the White Sox made, Detroit adding outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, the Royals being the defending AL pennant winners and Cleveland adding a needed lefthanded masher in Brandon Moss.

The Twins added Santana and should be a better club with several young players making strides. But the chatter in San Diego was that they are now in a loaded division.

"You can't get too depressed or too elated as you go through this," Ryan said. "Starting in spring training you have to prove it, and the schedule is unrelenting.''