Minnesota Sports teams making bad trades? Yeah, you’ve probably heard of that happening. If on paper it looks like we are winning the trade, just know whoever we traded away is a future star. In honor of the MLB trade deadline, we will be looking at the 5 worst trades in Minnesota Sports History.
#5- Twins Trade Jason Bartlett, Eddie Morlan, Matt Garza To Rays for Delmon Young, Brenden Harris, and Jason Pridie (2007)
To start this article off we have a trade which many people say is the worst trade in Twins History. The Twins thought they were building their future by bringing in three highly ranked prospects including the former #1 pick Delmon Young. The Rays with their new players ended up going to the 2008 world series. Bartlett became an All-Star with the Rays and Matt Garza was awarded the 2008 ALCS MVP. Although Young ended up having a couple decent years, nothing compared to the production we expected. Harris and Pridie never turned out to be anything which results in this being on the list for worse trades in Minnesota History.
#4- Twins trade Johan Santana to Mets for Carlos Gomez, Deolis Guerra, Phillip Humber, and (not like it really matters) Kevin Mulvey. (2006)
If you are normal and don’t recognize any of the names except for Gomez (more on him in a bit) don’t second guess yourself. Guerra, Humber and Mulvey only ended up playing a total of 15 games combined… Santana ended up having a couple good years with the Mets before injuries slowed down his insane career.
#4 Part 2- Twins trade Carlos Gomez to Brewers for JJ Hardy (2009)
To make this trade even worse here is a quote by then Twins GM after the trade for JJ Hardy
“To give up Carlos Gomez, and four years of control with the player, it’s important to get somebody that we’re going to have for more than a year”
Carlos Gomez would go on to win a gold glove award. Be a two time all-star and receive MVP votes while he was with the Brewers… Hardy went on to only play one year in Minnesota, doing the exact opposite of what we hoped for.
As shown below in the final part, we would then go on to trade JJ to Baltimore. JJ would end up winning three gold gloves, a silver slugger award, and be a all-star.. Pure definition of Minnesota Sports right there.
#4 Final Part- Twins Trade JJ Hardy and Brenden Harris for Brett Jacobson and Jim Hoey (2010)
I told you this was confusing but yeah the Twins end up trading JJ Hardy after ONE SEASON for two relievers who ended up being worth a can of tuna (No literally they both were outta the league within 8 months of the trade) but this trade had one more key to it that is really what made us trade JJ Hardy and his name was Tsuyoshi Nishioka.
When we landed Nishioka I remember thinking he was the next Ichiro. Instead, he was out of the league two years later, making the backfire of the JJ trade even harder. The Gomez for JJ Hardy trade is rarely talked about since both players ended up producing multiple good years after leaving the Twins. The only problem is neither player ever did anything for us and every person we traded for turned into a bust.Final Trade Summary– 4 Gold Gloves, 3 All Star Games and a Silver Slugger award combined for Gomez and Hardy while we got a combined 20 games outta the players we traded for and 2 years of huge disappointment outta Nishioka. One of if not the worst set of trades in Minnesota History.
#3- 1996 Draft- Timberwolves trade Ray Allen (#5 Overall) To Bucks for Stephon Marbury (#4 Overall)
A rarely talked about trade, but a trade that has a lot of “what if’s” behind it. at the time this seemed like a good trade for the future of the Timberwolves since Marbury was a friend of KG’s. However Marbury only made it into his third season before deciding he wanted to be the lone star and play in a larger market.
Ray Allen went on to be a Hall Of Famer, with 10 All-Star selections, 2 All-NBA teams and became the best three point shooter until Steph Curry broke it this past season. 11 years after the ’96 draft everyone got to see what the Wolves should’ve had. The Celtics won the 2008 NBA Championship, they also fell short in 2010 losing in Game 7. What if they decided to never make that trade? How many banners would be hanging in Target Center right now? Questions that will never be answered..
#2- Timberwolves trade KG to Celtics for Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Al Jefferson, Theo Ratliff, Sebastian Telfair, and 2 conditional 2009 first round picks.
When the Timberwolves traded KG they received the then biggest trade haul in NBA history. Al Jefferson was the center of the trade but ended up being mediocre at best. All five players never panned out to anything which made the trade that much worse. The 2009 draft probably rings a bell, we went on to use the Celtics two first round picks to take Jonny Flynn at #6 and Wayne Ellington at #28. Curry was sitting there waiting for us to pick him but instead we decided on Rubio and Flynn. An already bad trade combined with not selecting Steph Curry easily makes this the worst trade in T-Wolves history.
#1- Vikings Trade Five Players And SIX Draft Picks for Herschel Walker… (1989)
This is widely considered to be the greatest trade of all time for one team… spoiler alert: we aren’t that team. The Vikings traded a grand total of EIGHTEEN!!!!!!!!!!!! Players/Draft Picks in exchange for Herschel Walker. The Vikings traded for him thinking he was the missing piece to a Super Bowl. In two seasons with the Vikings, he wasn’t able to break the 1,000 yard rushing mark. The two most notable players the Cowboys went on to draft were Emmitt Smith and Darren Woodson. Emmitt Smith is currently in the Hall of Fame and still holds the record for career rushing yards/rushing TDs. Darren Woodson is still fighting to get his name into Canton. The trade now known as “The Great Trade Robbery” led the Cowboys to 3 Super Bowls during their domination in the 90s.
Minnesota Sports have a long history of bad trades that go well beyond this list. Eventually the tide has to change. Rudy Gobert currently has the chance to prove that the Minnesota Sports trade curse is all just a hoax. If this trade backfires it will be finding itself on a list similar to this one in no time.
Some people call me MarTy and some people call me Ryan. Wildcard when it comes to my writing. #FadeMe if I ever tweet out “locks”.