:(

To quote the Brooklyn Dodgers…

“This IS next year”

I see both sides… Did we overpay? No doubt, but we have a tough one two punch on the back end.

Exactly what “more” was out there for us to get???

what else was there to get?

but that’s what I said about Pavano last year

so maybe it will work out!

it’s scary!

Why would they give up our best trade chip for a reliever?!

At first I was a bit upset. But I think like most I overvalue Ramos. Rauch and Guerrier have been shaky the last few weeks. Crain has been amazing but who knows how long that lasts. This could be a huge shot in the arm for the bullpen down the stretch.

Ramos was nowhere near ready to actually contribute, Morales has a better bat right now, and Capps improves our bullpen this season.

On a side note, I really hope we keep Slamma up and pitching, even with this move.

Before the deadline? Or maybe waiver trades later?

Like how the Fangraphs article closes out, I just wonder if we could have maybe gotten more.

It might have been an over pay but my Minnesota friends welcome our new guy. Capps is ligit. Finally a k pitcher in the pen. C-a-p-s caps caps caps.

-And that’s the real possibility that Nathan is done. It’s not fun to think about, but there is a significant chance that Nathan will never be the same or anywhere near what he was. He’s 36, and he just had TJ surgery. Even if he does rediscover his form, it’s likely not until 2012 at the earliest… when he’s 38.

If he is done, the Twins need more than Rausch as an option to replace him long term. Bill Smith has to take into consideration that potential worst-case scenario.

than going for some reliever that is just average. If this is THE year, and yes, it very well could be, then let’s freakin go for it.
And I think, with the way the FO seems to value their prospects, if they could have gotten more for Ramos, you think they wouldn’t have?

Truth is that noone on here is running an MLB franchise so we dont know what was out there.

I like the addition. It makes us a better team. Simple as that.

I posted something th’other day about being a Bucco fan too and having seen all I ever needed to see of Matt Capps in 2009, but also how looking at his peripherals this year I had to concede he wouldn’t be a terrible bullpen pickup, so long as the price was reasonable.

Washington, remember, has their closer of the future in Drew Storen, and they’re chock full o’ 6 years of control of him. They’re out of contention. They ought not have been able to convince anyone with electrical activity in their brain that they actually need Capps. In any case, Capps’ strikeout rate is merely average for a reliever, to say nothing of ace-closer stuff (18% range). So they ought not have been able to convince anyone with electrical activity in their brain that Capps is actually a top-tier relief pitcher. I think I typed something about knowing the Twins organization and its beknighted traditional mindset overvalues closers, but hoping that wouldn’t result in anything ridiculous.

NEVER in my wildest fucking dreams did I imagine the Twins might even CONSIDER flushing Ramos down the toilet for a year and a half of a merely half-decent relief pitcher. I mean JESUS CHRIST wait until the off-season and get something truly tasty. This is just insane. All Ramos has to do is be a marginally decent MLB catcher for the years of team control for Washington and this is so wildly unbalanced it’s just sad.

I cannot express the level of my disbelief. I CAN express that I absolutely HATE the Twins F.O right now. I’ll do it like this: I absolutely HATE the Twins F.O. Also: Puke. Puke. Puke.

I am just not able to wrap my head around the fact that I’m gonna have to watch Matt Capps pitch again. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I really don’t have a problem with this deal it was obvious the goal was to move ramos this year he had 0 future with the twins and while he is highly touted by some he has also had a semi injury plagued poor season at AAA. They definatly sold low on him but its obvious other teams must not have been that interested if he didnt go for a starter. Our bullpen needed a shake up and shank has been a drama queen on the mound for a couple months now.

and a lot of people seem to confuse Wilson Ramos with Johnny Bench. Capps is a good pitcher and will help, and I hope Ramos develops into a major league player – he seems like a good kid.

All things considered. I would rather they traded for a starter.

But I still like it. Rauch has given it his all as closer and I’m happy he’ll be able to shift back to the setup role. Best of all (in my view), we didn’t have to surrender too much to get Capps. As was well established during the Cliff Lee bonanza (who we should have gone for…no, stop, let it go….), Ramos is completely expendable now and for a long time not only because of Baby J’s extension, but because we have Morales and Butera active anyway. It’s nice to have an All-Star at closer…hopefully we’re still looking for more before Saturday, especially a starter.

And we gots $500,000 in moneys. Whoo!!!!

Is a Capps strikeout popping a Capps in their ass?

What is Capps likely to receive in Arbitration this winter?

I recall being equally lukewarm about the Rauch deal and look where we are now. But don’t get me wrong, I really don’t like Capps and have seen him pitch in person enough to have some sort of quantifiable justification for this dislike. A blocked position player gets traded for an above-average closer; we could have done worse. Overrated (my opinion) or not, he went to the All-Star game and is probably going to be more reliable than the Shank. And honestly, the way people have been clamoring for the FO to do something, I feel the fans would have gone ballistic if we did nothing (I will always remember that Torii Hunter interview where he basically flipped out about never signing new talent).

I don’t think we had to do it and we gave up too much.

Yuck.

1. I like getting Capps. Gardy lost confidence in Rauch and Gardy must have a closer for the 9th inning only or else his brain will explode. This way he doesn’t have to think about the 9th. So that’s good for us if Capps is OK, which I think he will be.
2. I think the league overvalued Ramos, not us. Every trade discussed had Ramos as the centerpiece. I don’t like us trading him for a reliever, or trading him at all for that matter. Because that means that

3. Joe Mauer is stuck at Catcher for the foreseeable future. Because for him to be a $23M player for us for the next 8! years, he needs to be healthy, in the lineup every day, and hitting alot closer to last year than the way he is hitting this year. And he’s not gonna do that playing the next 8 years at Catcher. He’d be a $23M hometown hero who could play 160 games a season for 8 years at 3B, solving our perpetual problems there, if we’d have the sense to insist he switch. And he’s a good enough athlete to do it.

He’s a decent catcher, but he’s not awesome. Butera’s probaby a better C than he is. And Ramos was supposedly OK behind the plate. And having Ramos was our best chance to move Mauer and now that’s gone. I’m not gonna argue about it, I kjnow the arguments about him being most valuable at catcher, etc. You guys just remember the next time we put the C squad on the field, it’s because Mauer is a catcher by trade. And the next few times he goes on the DL, it’ll likely be because he’s a catcher by trade.

Anyway, i’m not gonna argue about Mauer moving away from catching. I know many disagree. You’re all just wrong. :)

4. Blackburn should definitely go down. He needs to pitch every 5 days and hopefully learn how to be an effective starter because he’s signed thru 2013! We should keep Mahay, he’s actually been OK. Keep Slama too and let him long relieve.

5. But the big thing now is what does Gardy do with Jesse Crain? Jesse’s been our best reliever for two months. It’ll be nice that maybe he can still be effective in lower leverage spots (6th-7th innings), but he’s been so good (and Rauch and Matty have been meh) that you don’t want to waste him in the Low Lev spots…..

I think Ramos is way over valued by our fan base. Here is what the opposing gm looking to get Ramos has to go on 1. 100% blocked by Mauer and not a backup meaning everyone knows this is the trade chip they will use this in front of all others such as hicks or gibson because really we lose nothing in losing a severely blocked prospect 2. Ramos is having very sub par year at AAA with low outputs in everything expected from him and hes had a few injuries. So they trade him now at what could be a lower value but just as much could be a higher value for a proven good maybe good + closer with 1.5 years of control for a cheap price not such a bad deal. In fact you see how little is trade value is to other teams due to the fact that we had to throw in another bag of balls prospect to get it done and the fact that we couldnt even come close to striking a deal for an ace with him as the centerpiece.

Slama? Blackburn? Mijares?

2006: 85 games
2007: 88
2008: 74
2009: 75
2010: 37

I’m glad to have another Quality Reliver in the pen.

I’m guessing Capps will get half duty as a closer if he blows a save.