Nearly ten years ago, the Twins traded top catching prospect Wilson Ramos to the Nationals for closer Matt Capps. Was the move justified? MLBTR’s Steve Adams makes his video debut in today’s discussion with Jeff Todd.
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[narrator voice] No, it wasn’t.
Remember when right before then the Pirates let Capps go for nothing?
I’d rather not.
I would like to say there was a missed sentiment of fans. Drew Storen was the nats top reliever at the time. Fans were pretty upset they couldn’t swing a closer, and got a mid relief swing closer. I think they had copped at the time – that woulda been better.
It was one of those hardy era trades where there was no foresight. Bill Smith was a laughing stock in the league.
*clippard
I have 3 takeaways from this vid:
1. Steve Adams looks like he makes craft beer in Austin (not a bad thing, it’s actually nice to see the faces of these writers).
2. If you slow down the video and look at all of the top 100 prospects from 2010, almost everyone on the list has had good mlb careers (unless you’re the Mets… Fernando Martinez…)
3. Mauer Power makes everything better.
..unless you are the Mets.
Mets fans cannot have nice things.
Yeah, it sucks, just ROYs like DeGrom and pete Alonso
Oh well, at least they don’t have as bad as the Mariners, who last made it to the postseason when I was 5, despite the fact that they have actually had some winning records since then.
So true and Tanner Scheppers is finishing up his HOF career with the Rangers
Yeah, that too. Don’t forget Shelby Miller. BTW the Rangers suck at drafting, I feel like each time they draft it turns out to be a bust…
Maybe it’s that they suck at developing then more than drafting. Just a thought.
Yeah, now that I think about it, it’s probably development. Profar, Tanner, and even Neftali Feliz they screwed up.
Cuz Texas sucks.
I think he kinda looks like Jake Gyllenhaal.
The modern day equivalent of this is if the Braves traded Drew Waters for Shane Green last season.
That’d been devastating lol
Quick answer: no, I don’t.
Bad trade. About as bad as Tom Brunansky to the Cardinals for Tommy Herr
At least it never would’ve mattered with how awful things were about to be. That regime wouldn’t have moved him for much better during that time.
It’s easy to look at trades in the rear-view mirror, but this trade looked good at the time for the Twins. Ramos was an unproven commodity who played the same position as Joe Mauer, who at the time was looking like a sure-fire HOF catcher and had just signed the biggest contract in team history to stay in that position. Joe Nathan needed TJ surgery and no one was stepping up internally to fill Nathan’s role. This was the first season at Target Field and it really did look like the Twins were destined for great things that season. To get a proven All-Star closer for a prospect that was stuck against a glass ceiling was a no brainer trade to make.
Of course, none of us have a crystal ball. It may have been predicted that Ramos would be a good player, but no one could’ve predicted that Capps would’ve sucked, Mauer would be moved from behind the plate because of concussions or that the Twins would’ve started their downward spiral after that season.
What I find interesting is that the same Twins fans who complain that “we traded Ramos for Capps” are the same ones who bellyache that the team didn’t trade some of our highly-touted prospects last year at the deadline for a rental. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
If I could find that damned crystal ball (I left it here somewhere), I could be the best GM in the history of baseball!