Can Eduardo Tait End the Wilson Ramos Curse?

What if the highest-ranked prospect that the Minnesota Twins brought in at this year’s trade deadline ends up killing one of their longest-standing curses?

Okay, maybe calling it a curse is a little strong, but one can make the argument that the club has lacked true high-end talent at catcher since Joe Mauer switched off the position in 2014. Ryan Jeffers has been perfectly serviceable as a primary option behind the dish since debuting in 2020, and many teams would love to have him atop their catching depth chart. Even Mitch Garver was solid, hitting .273/.365/.630 with 31 home runs in 90 games for the Bomba Squad in 2019.

But beyond that, the catcher position has mostly been a revolving door of veterans trying to squeeze the last drops of toothpaste from the tube, minor league depth pieces who couldn’t be trusted with extended stays on the roster, and a beautiful tortuga-shaped supernova unicorn whose career burned bright and died young.

The Twins had a top prospect that would’ve fit this bill, but they traded him in a one-for-one deadline swap for proven closer Matt Capps in 2010. Wilson Ramos was indeed a global top prospect, cracking many lists at his peak right around the time Minnesota traded him.

What if Eduardo Tait, whom the Twins acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies last month as part of the Jhoan Duran trade, ends up fulfilling the prophecy of the buffalo?

The 19-year-old catcher is a consensus top-75 prospect in all of baseball (if not higher), much like Ramos was from 2009 to 2011. Tait has already made a strong impression with his new organization, belting four extra base hits in his first 14 games with the High-A Cedar Rapids Kernels.

He’s clearly still finding his footing, as any teenager would be after a major trade. But his raw tools and the fact that he’s competing against players more than four years older than them should give Twins fans plenty to be excited about.

It’s hard to find catchers with such prodigious raw power, but with that pop comes a lot of questions that Tait will need to iron out as he develops. Here’s what FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen had to say about the catcher heading into the 2025 season:

So there’s a lot to like with Minnesota's prospect pipeline, which MLB.com ranked No. 2, and a lot that will need to be tracked if he hopes to fulfill his promise as the centerpiece of a highly polarizing trade. And not only was the Duran trade polarizing, but it mirrored the swap that sent Ramos to the Washington Nationals almost exactly 15 years ago. The Twins sent one of the best catcher prospects away for a proven closer that was desperately needed.

This year, they shipped away a proven relief ace for a teenage catching phenom.

The hope is that Tait can have a career just as respectable as that of Ramos, who played for 12 seasons and made two All-Star games. If he can do that, maybe, just maybe, the Twins can put this semi-curse of the buffalo in the rearview mirror. Who knows? Perhaps that leads to further extinguishing of the other curses that seem to plague the professional men’s sports organizations in this market.