Twins get Matt Capps for Ramos

[PierBridge]

It doesn't matter if he blows every save which he won't of course when you pick up a live arm like Capps your team is immediately or immensely better which is the case.

Does anybody have the Twins starting staff stats over the last 14 games by any chance?

[mrklean]

more then anything Baker last night pitching holy cow thats the guy we have missed most of the year

[jwmiller33]

Does anybody have the Twins starting staff stats over the last 14 games by any chance?

oh you mean in the stretch where we played the 4 worst teams in the league (w/ the exception of the games against the rays)? i sure hope our pitchers would be able to pad their stats a little bit when we have a stretch where we play the 4 worst teams in the league.

[HookEmHard84]

Alright Debbie Downer, I mean JW, if you are so discusted with the Twins, maybe you should get behind a different team. Seems as if you have only bad things to say about the squad. OR maybe you are really a SOX fan just trying to get under everyone's skin, if so, its working.

Another solid performance by a starter today, and Capps came in for the bailout when no one else could. Like I said a while back, we will just have to hope our starters heat up...LIKE EVERY YEAR. Baseball is a long season, and people lose thier minds when players are slumping. The Twins seem to find a way to make a run at the playoffs every year, and usually it is due to our pitchers going on a run. Just have some faith.

[mrklean]

well said they split with one of the best teams in baseball im pretty happy, we just need the sux to start losing a few like the tigers

[jwmiller33]

Alright Debbie Downer, I mean JW, if you are so discusted with the Twins, maybe you should get behind a different team. Seems as if you have only bad things to say about the squad. OR maybe you are really a SOX fan just trying to get under everyone's skin, if so, its working.

Another solid performance by a starter today, and Capps came in for the bailout when no one else could. Like I said a while back, we will just have to hope our starters heat up...LIKE EVERY YEAR. Baseball is a long season, and people lose thier minds when players are slumping. The Twins seem to find a way to make a run at the playoffs every year, and usually it is due to our pitchers going on a run. Just have some faith.

i am not disgusted with the twins. i am a huge twins fan.. i just laugh at how people are so fickle on these boards... cuddyer lovers one minute, then come a slump they are practically begging to release him.... people hated delmon every second he was in a twins uniform, begging to get rid of him.. all of a sudden he has a good year and everyone complains about where delmon is in the batting order and complain about everything possible surrounding delmon... people (rightfully so) knock on our pitchers for basically playing like minor leaguers for a couple months (except for pavano and liriano) and then they pitch well for a start or two and everybody is starting to praise them (nothing wrong with that) and then focus their frustrations on our bullpen. im never the one being the debbie downer on the twins, im always the one defending the person/part of the team that 95% of the people on this HSOforum bash. joe mauer for example again.. has the best offensive year for a catcher in history last year and then all of a sudden he is only batting 317/388/470 (this year) and everyone is practically burning him at the stakes and saying how overpaid he is. people fault him and any night he doesnt go 3 for 5 with a HR, people complain about paying him too much money, when those same people would be putting the "lebron james hate" on joe if he wouldn't have signed that contract with us and ended up playing in NY. its like nothing can ever be done to please some twins fans... if we have a good player, he isnt playing good enough.. if we trade for someone and he doesnt perform well, it was the worst trade ever and we should get rid of that guy. if we sign a player to a big contract, it was too big of a contract and the player is getting paid too much money. if we get a new stadium, well dam mit they should have put a roof on it. we trade for a closer and replace rauch with a guy who has identical numbers (both this season and career) and all of a sudden our bullpen was needing this big arm and its the best thing to ever happen. ill be the first to admit that selling as low as we did on ramos was a huge mistake, and although you can always use another good arm in the bullpen, we didnt address our needs for a SP. the twins bullpen has the 2nd lowest ERA in the league, and you guys go and burn them at the stakes after they have a poor outing or two. while at the same time our starting rotation ERA is near the bottom of the league, and our starters manage to put together 1 or 2 good games in a row against the worst 4 teams in the league and holy [PoorWordUsage], our starters have really turned things around and are back on track...

its just funny how short of a memory some twins fans can have

[Coach1310]

JW.... if Twins fans weren't fickle and didn't have short memories and didn't panic all the time and rant about this or that......

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE TO WRITE ABOUT ALL DAY????

[jwmiller33]

JW.... if Twins fans weren't fickle and didn't have short memories and didn't panic all the time and rant about this or that......

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE TO WRITE ABOUT ALL DAY????

i guess thats a good thing we will never have to worry about... eh coach? i'll always be happy to correct you and other twins fan's misguided/uninformed ways of jumping to ridiculous conclusions based on subjective theory and irrelevant ideas

[Born2Fish]

I think I am more surprised about how much people that are typing on a fishing HSOforum know about the Twins then the Twins themselves. Give them [PoorWordUsage] about winning 8 in a row(while it was against inferior teams)...So what? A win is a win in MLB. You discredit them dominating on the road like they did, then turn around and jump down peoples throats for praising the team? The Twins are 15-6 since the All-Star break...That is pretty darn good in my eyes. I could care less where the wins came from, they are racking them up and only behind the Sux by 1.5 games. They have one of the better records in baseball. They are near 13 games over .500(61-48). I could care less what anyone says about this team, I love em! GO TWINS!

[jwmiller33]

I think I am more surprised about how much people that are typing on a fishing HSOforum know about the Twins then the Twins themselves. Give them [PoorWordUsage] about winning 8 in a row(while it was against inferior teams)...So what? A win is a win in MLB. You discredit them dominating on the road like they did, then turn around and jump down peoples throats for praising the team? The Twins are 15-6 since the All-Star break...That is pretty darn good in my eyes. I could care less where the wins came from, they are racking them up and only behind the Sux by 1.5 games. They have one of the better records in baseball. They are near 13 games over .500(61-48). I could care less what anyone says about this team, I love em! GO TWINS!

[HookEmHard84]

"I think I am more surprised about how much people that are typing on a fishing HSOforum know about the Twins then the Twins themselves."

I know, isn't it funny how we all think we are ESPN anaylists or something. There must be a lot of other guys out there that having boring jobs like me and spend way too much time checking thier Twins/fantasy baseball stats! At least I'm not the only one!

I'll give it to ya JW, you do the research and support your talk with some good stats. And I'm also with you on the fact that I would have REALLY liked to see us add another starter. I truly think adding a rent-a-player like Lee/Oswalt would be the key to going deep in the playoffs for this team. No offense, but I don’t think adding another guy like Lilly/Meyers is goona get it done. Going up against the rotations of Tampa (I realize we just had our guys beat two of their studs) or the Yanks, we need a superstar that can get it done in the clutch. We had it with Radke/Santana, but at that time we couldn’t score any dang runs! I love the fact that we are in the playoff hunt every year, but I would gladly give that up for one good year where we take it to the house. Just like the Vikes the window of opportunity wont stay open forever, we need a title here!

[Born2Fish]

Could, couldn't....I am not here for a grammar lesson either.

[Big Tom]

Based on Capp's performance so far, I'm not seeing him as a huge upgrade over Rauch. I sure ure am glad to have him here though especially with Mijares out for a few weeks.

[DonBo]

I'm pretty sure Mijaris will not be back this season. I just has surgery on a torn miniscus and it took almost a year to fully heal, it's still not near 100%.

[jwmiller33]

Based on Capp's performance so far, I'm not seeing him as a huge upgrade over Rauch. I sure ure am glad to have him here though especially with Mijares out for a few weeks.

thats exactly what i have been saying ever since the trade happened... it is nice to add a good arm to our bullpen, but he isn't very much better than rauch, if at all

[Canon Guy]

thats exactly what i have been saying ever since the trade happened... it is nice to add a good arm to our bullpen, but he isn't very much better than rauch, if at all

It's early yet but the stats do tell you Capps is an improvement.

Capps era is 1.13,Rauch is 2.98

Batting average against Capps .233 ,Rauch .281

Capps strikes out just over 1 per inning and and allows hits just under 1 per inning.

Rauch strikes out less than 1 per inning and allows more than 1 hit per inning.

Like I said,it's early but IMO Capps is an upgrade. Besides Rauch has had some health problems that would have forced more changes in the bullpen had they not made this move.

[jwmiller33]

you can't directly compare their numbers after the trade and only use that as your basis for comparison....

from earlier in the thread....

Capps was available for nothing this past offseason. Non-tendered by the pirates after posting a 5.80 ERA and a .324 opponents batting average (keep in mind this was in the NL). The Nats signed him for $3.5 mil because they were the only team that would let him remain a closer. Capps reputation as a "experienced closer" basically comes from him mopping up saves on bad teams. Its not like Rauch has done horrible for us, he has converted 21/25 saves with a 3.05 ERA and 27/9 strikeout to walk ratio in 38.1 innings. If he had been given the whole season, he probably would have turned into/been considered an "establish closer" much like Capps. These are some excerpts from Aaron Gleeman's take on this trade.

Take a look at their career numbers as relievers :

IP ERA FIP SO/9 BB/9 AVG OBP SLG OPS

Capps 317 3.50 3.80 7.0 1.7 .263 .302 .415 .717

Rauch 402 3.54 3.90 7.5 2.7 .242 .297 .390 .687

Their overall effectiveness is nearly identical across the board. The biggest difference between them is Capps has accumlated saves for 4 seasons while Rauch has been given that role for just 1 season, while Rauch's one season are pretty much in par with Capps career numbers.

I'd hardly suggest the Twins trading Ramos for a reliever who is "slightly better" than Rauch is a sound idea, yet by focusing on the save statistic, the Twins have done just that and many fans will instinctively be on board with the move for an "established closer". What Capps is not is an elite reliever or enough of an upgrade to part with Ramos.

Capps is arbitration eligible next year and the Twins essentially traded Ramos and Vesta for 1.5 seasons of Capps. Unfortunately part of his inflated perceived value includes his likely price-tag in arbitration, which is sure to rise from this year's $3.5 million salary to over $5 million (and perhaps well over $5 million) thanks to those same shiny-looking save totals. Next season the Twins will pay a premium for a quality setup man they perceive as something more because of a reliance on a flawed statistic and they gave up a good catching prospect for the right do that.

In fairness, Ramos' value is at an all time low right now. His historic debut caused the Twins fans who don't know any better to assume that he was destined for stardom and his subsequent struggles at Triple-A have exposed him as a good but not great prospect. However, he still projects as a good defender behind the plate and a 22-year-old being overmatched in his first experience at Triple-A is far from disastrous.

I'm not convinced that Ramos will become a star, but the possibility certainly exists and at the very least he looks capable of developing into a starting-caliber catcher for many years. Joe Mauer's presence meant Ramos had little shot to be that starting-caliber catcher in Minnesota, but that doesn't mean the Twins needed to deal him immediately or when his value was at an all-time low or for an underwhelming return like Capps.

In the Twins' minds they just traded him for an "All-Star closer." In reality they traded Ramos for a setup-caliber reliever who accumulated saves on bad teams and is thus overrated and soon overpaid. Among the 93 pitchers who've logged 150-plus relief innings in the past three calendar years, Capps ranks 38th in xFIP, 49th in FIP, 50th in ERA, 61st in strikeout rate, and 85th in opponents' average.

The Twins just paid a premium for a guy whose perceived value and ability are much higher than his actual value and ability solely because of his role and save total. Capps is a good reliever, but the Twins paid for a great reliever and did so for all the wrong reasons.

[Canon Guy]

you can't directly compare their numbers after the trade and only use that as your basis for comparison....

The only thing that matters is how they perform for this team.

[jwmiller33]

The only thing that matters is how they perform for this team.

true that.

but in a macro level baseball analysis, aggregate performance is taken into consideration

[Big Tom]

The book on Capps is early. Thanks for the stats Canon

I'm still pleased on the two year value equation vs. Ramos, who has put up some hot numbers since the trade, (.295 BA, .829 OPS at Syracuse in 11 games).

Perkins, Slama, Swarzak and Neshek gives us what the White Sox have: a messed up bullpen.

I hope Rauch is done being offended and skin rashed. Gonna need him.

[Canon Guy]

I like Rauch. He was solid last year and no slouch this year. What I like so far about Capps is that he attacks the hitters.

[harvey lee]

There is a place for both and we will need them both down the home stretch.

[Canon Guy]

oops!

[Jmeyers]

brutal.

[CRAZYEYES]

If our bullpen is one of the best in the league I'd hate to be a fan of some of theese othere teams. The twins are gonna put me on blood pressure meds as it is.