Span and Ramos for Capps and Meyer

[DaveW]

Would you still do it?

[d-mac]

We all knew the Ranos for Capps trade was bad from day one. But that Span for Meyer trade is looking worse by the day. Span was a quality CF'er and we've had a revolving door in CF since we traded him.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I'd have never done Ramos for Capps.

 

I'd still do Meyer for Span. It was a smart move, even if Meyer doesn't turn out to the prospect we were hoping.  There's always risk with these types of deals, that's the reason you can get a guy with Meyer's ceiling for Denard Span. 

[Mike Sixel]

The concept of Span for Meyer was a good one, if you ignore that tall pitchers almost never work out......but the GM and scouts get paid to make the right decisions, not do what any fan would/could do.

 

If they keep calling up guys from the minors, and they keep not being good, something needs to change, doesn't it?

 

The Ramos / Capps trade was bad on every front.

[TheLeviathan]

I agreed with Span for Meyer at the time and still appreciate the logic behind it.

 

Where this team went wrong was betting on Aaron Hicks to take Span's place.  That mis-evaluation/mishandilng makes this seem even worse.

[SwainZag]

Pretty much with everyone else on the thread.  No one thought giving up Ramos to get Capps was a good decision at the time to begin with.  I'd still do Span for Meyer.  He's thrown 1.2 IP of major league ball and still has a lot of potential.  

[DaveW]

What's amazing to me is that the Twins probably have the worst CF production the last 3 years, meanwhile in those 3 years, Span has a wRC+ of 118 and is above average in CF defensively.  (8.4 WAR in 2.5 years). Gomez is just a stud all around with a wRC+ of 127 and amazing CF defensive and has an eye popping 14.1 WAR over the past 2.5 seasons.

 

 

I don't know what I am going for here, but it is clear to me that the Twins have greatly undervalued talented (Gomez) and productive (Span) CF's. Hopefully the lesson will be learned to have patience with Hicks and Rosario and to not trade them before they can reach their potential. They obviously will have patience with Buxton.

[nytwinsfan]

Well Ramos for Capps obviously not. Span for Meyer, jury is still out, but probably not.

[jorgenswest]

Teams are going to lose trading a regular in their prime for a top 10 starting pitching prospect more often then they will win. It is so hard to find top of the rotation pitchers that it is worth the risk.

 

The Twins will probably lost this trade but given the same circumstances I would do it again without hesitation.

[Mike Sixel]

Even though tall pitchers don't usually work out? That has no bearing on this at all?

[howieramone2]

The concept of Span for Meyer was a good one, if you ignore that tall pitchers almost never work out......but the GM and scouts get paid to make the right decisions, not do what any fan would/could do.

 

If they keep calling up guys from the minors, and they keep not being good, something needs to change, doesn't it?

 

The Ramos / Capps trade was bad on every front.

Mike, maybe the guys will hold you down and give you a dose of patience.

[Mike Sixel]

I'm not just talking about this year, or this year's players.......how about Arcia? Hicks? Pinto? all the RP lately but 1 or so?

[nicksaviking]

 

Mike, maybe the guys will hold you down and give you a dose of patience.

 

I don't think it's only the fans that need patience, the front office is calling these guys up and down all over the place and not letting them struggle at the MLB level.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Dave,

 

Gomez was a bit of a different scenario altogether.  He needed development time and the Twins had Span who had emerged.  Lest we forget, Gomez didn't exactly hit the ground running in Milwaukee.  He was completely redundant.  Swapping him for Hardy at a position of need, also up the middle, was a wise move.   Getting rid of hardy for hoey on the other hand...

[nicksaviking]

 

Dave,

 

Gomez was a bit of a different scenario altogether.  He needed development time and the Twins had Span who had emerged.  Lest we forget, Gomez didn't exactly hit the ground running in Milwaukee.  He was completely redundant.  Swapping him for Hardy at a position of need, also up the middle, was a wise move.   Getting rid of hardy for hoey on the other hand...

 

This is true, but the Twins probably could have instead chosen to keep Gomez and traded Delmon Young, who Gardy kept wanting to bench because of his defense anyway.  Young probably had more trade value at the time as well, due to his prospect hype not yet completly eroded.

[bird]

 

I'm not just talking about this year, or this year's players.......how about Arcia? Hicks? Pinto? all the RP lately but 1 or so?

 

Let's wait awhile longer before we stick a fork in any of those guys. Or, for that matter, in Santana, Vargas, Buxton, May, Meyer, Rosario, Tonkin, Graham, Pressly.....

 

And let's remember that people, perhaps even you, stuck a fork in Gibson, Plouffe, Dozier, Perkins, and recently Hunter (right Vodka Dave?). So when you are (prematurely?) critical of the team regarding Hicks, Arcia, and your former darling Pinto, are we praising them for Perkins, Dozier, Plouffe, and Gibson?

 

And let's remember it's a numbers game with these prospects, for every team. Every team has their Arcia's. And the prospect numbers are so very impressive for the Twins: Sano, Polanco, Berrios, Kepler and many many many other highly-regarded prospects are on the cusp. Because it's baseball, we should expect that, for every Arcia and Pinto, there will likely be a Rosario, and that, like we saw with Plouffe and Dozier, the Twins have exhibited admirable patience, which is something we can learn from them.

[Mike Sixel]

It is not unreasonable for at least some players to come up and succeed, not for a minor league system this highly rated, with so many top prospects.

 

Other teams do seem to be having more success with prospects lately.....I think year three of Hicks it might be reasonable to say he's not good yet........and I have never "stuck a fork" in Gibson. I have called for him to be called up and let him pitch for a year or two....same with May, frankly.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Teams are going to lose trading a regular in their prime for a top 10 starting pitching prospect more often then they will win. It is so hard to find top of the rotation pitchers that it is worth the risk.

The Twins will probably lost this trade but given the same circumstances I would do it again without hesitation.

Not sure where you get "top 10 starting pitching prospect" for Meyer.  At the time of the trade, he was the 27th ranked pitcher on BA's top 100 (#59 overall).  MLB.com had him as their #14 pitcher on what appears to be their midseason 2013 list (after Meyer moved up from #40 to #32 overall with a strong AA debut).

 

Meyer was a good prospect, no doubt, but I don't know that he was good enough to be traded straight-up for Span at that point.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

This is true, but the Twins probably could have instead chosen to keep Gomez and traded Delmon Young, who Gardy kept wanting to bench because of his defense anyway.  Young probably had more trade value at the time as well, due to his prospect hype not yet completly eroded.

I doubt it.  The prospect hype was pretty well eroded by the end of 2009.  Heck, much of the hype was gone after 2007, but I think the Twins were late to get the memo.  Young certainly wasn't fetching a MLB starting shortstop after two bad years with the Twins.  Probably wasn't fetching much of anything from any NL team.

 

Lest we forget, Young was traded only 84 games after his career year for a couple marginal minor league relievers.  (Hey, it sounds like our second Hardy trade too...)

[DaveW]

 

Dave,

 

Gomez was a bit of a different scenario altogether.  He needed development time and the Twins had Span who had emerged.  Lest we forget, Gomez didn't exactly hit the ground running in Milwaukee.  He was completely redundant.  Swapping him for Hardy at a position of need, also up the middle, was a wise move.   Getting rid of hardy for hoey on the other hand...

I agree Gomez was rushed by the Mets, and then the Twins, but anyone could see the talent was there. (Opening day cycle for instance) The Twins really screwed up with him though, instead of nurturing his 5 tool talent, Gardy and co tried to turn him into a slap single (heh) hitting type of guy. Yes, Span had come on, but Span was hitting enough to be a RF with Gomez in CF (giving the Twins a helluva an OF)

 

Sorry, I can't give the Twins a pass on giving up on a 5 tool prospect who was showing some flashes of brilliance in the majors (and was still not even 24 years old!!!) and had headlined the trade for the best pitcher in baseball only a couple years prior. The Twins gave up on him way too quickly because he wouldn't mold himself into Nick Punto version 2.0. No excuses for that.

 

Let's not pretend like Hardy was some major haul at the time either, he was a non tender candidate for the Brewers as they had already decided to move on from him and likely could have been had for next to nothing.

 

The same exact thing happened with David Ortiz, guy showed flashes of brilliance and talent and the Twins tried to change him to something he is not.

 

Two hall of fame caliber players and all we have to show for it is Nunez and Escobar at DH and 1 year of JJ Hardy at SS.

 

Sweet.

[Loosey]

Ramos for Capps, NO WAY.  Didn't like it when the trade was made.  Span for Meyer I would do again.  They had Hicks waiting and needed pitching so they took a double chance that Hicks would be good and Meyer would develop.  So far not ideal but Meyer could make it a good trade at some point.

[bird]

 

It is not unreasonable for at least some players to come up and succeed, not for a minor league system this highly rated, with so many top prospects.

 

Other teams do seem to be having more success with prospects lately.....I think year three of Hicks it might be reasonable to say he's not good yet........and I have never "stuck a fork" in Gibson. I have called for him to be called up and let him pitch for a year or two....same with May, frankly.

 

 

With all due respect, mike, I think you're selectively critical of the Twins and you ignore what's similarly happening with other teams. Moustakis, Hosnmer, and Cain all struggled until year 3 or so, much like MUCH lesser prospects on the Twins, Hicks, Dozier and Plouffe. Even second-year players that are excelling are more the exception than the rule. Marcus Semien has a billion errors for Oakland. Zunino and Ackley are batting under .200 for Seattle. In NYC, Gregorious is batting .226. For Houston, Valbuena's at .197 and Singleton is hitless. Lindor's struggling in Cleveland. I could name a dozen more first and second year prospects that are struggling, and every one of them were thought to be vastly superior prospects compared to Hicks, Pinto, Vargas, Santana, and Arcia.

 

And keep in mind that almost ALL of these guys from other teams I mentioned have had time to settle in. Our top prospects, position-wise, are Buxton, Sano, Polanco, Rosario, Gordon, Kepler, Walker, Minier, and Diaz, none of whom have 50 MLB games under their belt, if any. So, any criticism of the Twins in terms of comparative success is pretty lame based on three things. One, it doesn't make sense to compare our secondary prospects like Pinto, Arcia, Vargas, Santana, and even Hicks to these top tier guys on other teams. Second, let's do a comparison in a year or so, when some of these prospects of ours have 100 AB's or so under their belt. And third, let's paint an accurate picture regarding how few prospects come up and shine right from the start.

[Mike Sixel]

After this year it will be three years where the Twins have lost that trade involving Meyer and Span......so it is going to take work for Meyer to come back.

 

I don't get why they get a pass for trading for a 6 foot 9 guy. Any one of us could have traded Span for a SP, the good FO trades him for the right SP.

 

The Revere for May trade looks good right now, imo. It would look even better if they kept Worley.

[DaveW]

 

After this year it will be three years where the Twins have lost that trade involving Meyer and Span......so it is going to take work for Meyer to come back.

 

I don't get why they get a pass for trading for a 6 foot 9 guy. Any one of us could have traded Span for a SP, the good FO trades him for the right SP.

 

The Revere for May trade looks good right now, imo. It would look even better if they kept Worley.

Span is a top player (7th in WAR over the last 2.5 years) playing an elite position, anything less than Meyer becoming at least a very good #3 or an elite closer type pitcher will be a clear loss.  I still don't mind the trade, just wish they could have gotten Washington to toss in an extra guy or two at the time.

[Boom Boom]

I don't think the Twins see Meyer as a starting pitcher at this point. I don't believe they'd make him relieve in AAA if they thought otherwise.

 

There's a chance he becomes a decent, or maybe good, bullpen arm. IMO he'd have to be elite out of the bullpen to close the trade loss gap with the Nats.

 

If I was TR and I could go back in time, knowing what we know now, I would not have made the Span trade.

 

I was, at the time, willing to deal Span. I had no idea who Alex Meyer was until the Twins traded for him- I just don't follow minor league or college baseball. That's the kind of thing that is the Twins' scouts' business to know, not mine.

[dxpavelka]

It's easy to look back at our record and the production we've gotten in CF in 2013-2014 and say that trading Revere & Span was a terrible idea.  But if you look further back you'll remember that our record the previous 2 seasons WITH Span & Revere in the fold was no better than in the 2 years since we moved them.  If we are looking back 3-5 years from now and have got no production from May & Meyer then yes dumb moves.  We're still a long way from being able to judge either of these trades accurratly.

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

I'd have never done Ramos for Capps.

 

I'd still do Meyer for Span. It was a smart move, even if Meyer doesn't turn out to the prospect we were hoping. There's always risk with these types of deals, that's the reason you can get a guy with Meyer's ceiling for Denard Span.

Yeah, pretty much this.

[drjim]

 

After this year it will be three years where the Twins have lost that trade involving Meyer and Span......so it is going to take work for Meyer to come back.

 

I don't get why they get a pass for trading for a 6 foot 9 guy. Any one of us could have traded Span for a SP, the good FO trades him for the right SP.

 

The Revere for May trade looks good right now, imo. It would look even better if they kept Worley.

 

You've mentioned this often, what is your source for very few tall pitchers make it? Do they bust more than typical pitchers? Don't boatloads of pitchers of all types bust at really high rates?

[Mike Sixel]

 

You've mentioned this often, what is your source for very few tall pitchers make it? Do they bust more than typical pitchers? Don't boatloads of pitchers of all types bust at really high rates?

 

Bonnes posted on it a few weeks ago on this site....

[drjim]

 

Yeah, pretty much this.

 

Agreed. 

 

In those circumstances I didn't have a problem with trading Ramos, even for a reliever, but there was no better option than Capps? That is what I never understood about that trade, the dude was non-tendered the offseason before and wasn't even that good. Less than a month later they got an almost equally effective reliever for basically nothing.