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July 28, 2006
Carlos Lee A Ranger, Mench and CoCo join Brew Crew
Texas has traded outfielder KEVIN MENCH, outfielder LAYNCE NIX, reliever FRANCISCO CORDERO, and minor-league pitcher JULIAN CORDERO to Milwaukee for outfielder CARLOS LEE and outfielder NELSON CRUZ.
In short, I like it. Yes, Lee will be a free agent and almost certainly will find himself in another uniform next season, but so will the players Texas relinquished. Now 28, Mench appears to have topped out as merely average outfielder. He does have two arbitration years remaining, but neither will be cheap since he makes $2.8 million already. Nix is three years younger but has stalled in AAA. Perhaps Texas wrecked his career in 2003 by calling him up from AA as a 22-year-old despite his unspectacular stats, but that’s a philosophical discussion for another time. Cordero had probably pitched himself out of next year’s team option.
The wildcard is Cruz, who is three months older than Nix and a bit old for a prospect. Still, he’s batted .302/.380/.525 for AAA Toledo with good patience and a terrible strikeout rate.
I’m revising the organization depth chart, so no update of that for a few days.
Posted by Lucas at July 28, 2006 02:03 PM