The Trade

Usually, I like to rate trades by how excited I am to get rid of the player the Twins traded. This time, I thought I'd try something different. I wanted to see how the other team's fans reacted. So I perused a Washington Nationals blog. I have two new friends:

BSullivan:

Ramos has been an okay minor leaguer. It seems that most of the complements refer to his plus power (which is undeveloped yet) because of his body type. Body Type? That just means fat guy who can potentially swing a stick.

Wxguy:

I’m going to be optimistic, which is hard for me, given the way the Nats are managed,
and I’m going to agree that we must trust Mr. Rizzo. At first, I thought,“Wow interesting trade”.
But then I read the fine print on this trade, hinting that Capps might have asked 7-8mil over his present 3.5mil at arbitration for next year. Then I got pessimistic again. Does this mean that any player with the Nats, who makes the All-stars, is a league leader in saves, and is only 26 years old, will be traded for an untried, usually injured, having a bad minor league season 22 year old rookie catcher? Of course, not to mention that a left handed reliever, who was on his way down from AA to A league, was thrown in for some reason (Did the Nats need a new batting practice pitcher?) And on top of this we give the Twins 500K to boot.

In the spirit of fairness, I suppose I should include a rebuttal from Twins fans:

unicorn4711:

Ramos was the Twins best bargaining chip. He had to go, but really, for a second-rate Rauch? We'll keep this guy for one year, then Nathan will be back as the closer and the Twins will have given up a future all-star catcher for half a season for a new closer that isn't any better than what we've got. BS! Front office: FAIL.

ShanePaulson:

The Twins would have been better off waiting this time. Billy was WAY tooo caviler on this. Was he just trying to prevent Capps going to the ChiSox? Bad move long term for the Twins. Another Garza/Bartlett for Young.

I appreciate Shane's optimistic take on the deal, but I don't think it's that good. Nonetheless, as a rule of thumb, the team that trades a minor league catcher as its main piece of the deal comes out ahead.