The Milwaukee Brewers are trading slugger Carlos Lee to the Texas Rangers as part of a multiplayer deal, ESPN.com learned Friday.

The Brewers are sending Lee, minor league outfield prospect Nelson Cruz and a player to be named later to the Rangers for relief pitcher Francisco Cordero and outfielders Kevin Mench and Laynce Nix.

Lee was the Brewers' team leader with 28 home runs and 81 RBI.

Cordero started the season as the Rangers' closer, but was replaced by Akinori Otsuka in late April after blowing three saves.

Both teams are checking for any medical issues before consummating the deal.

The Rangers are currently two games behind the Athletics in the American League West.

Good deal for Milwaukee IMO.

Mench is a cheaper (albeit not as productive) version of Lee, and Cordero might be their closer with Turnbow being demoted last week. I actually wouldn't be surprised if Nix sticks with the big club too.

That's 3 roster quality players in exchange for a guy you were going to lose anyways after the season. To be honest, I don't know Mench or Cordero's contract situations, though.

Does anybody know why the Rangers were so desperate to trade Mench? I've read that they were determined to do so, but couldn't glean why.

That's too bad... I was really hoping Lee was going to be the guy the Tigers got if they made a trade. I think he would have been a cheaper version of Soriano, obviously not as good.

Oh well, here's to hoping Dumbrowski doesn't give up too much in a trade.

Oh well, here's to hoping Dumbrowski doesn't give up too much in a trade.

Come on now, he's done nothing to deserve that moniker.

Wow. The headline is Lee to the Rangers. The story is the Brewers getting much better, IMO. Sure, Lee is the best player in the deal, but Lee was one of the most effective RP's in the league the last few years and one bad year this year shouldn't discount that too much. Mench has a decent average and 50 RBI in 87 games is pretty good. That's just shy of 100 RBI pace. Nix is horrible, but maybe they'll find a use for him on the bench or something. I have no clue about the minor leaguers.
So here's the deal. The Brewers were going to lose Lee at the end of the season. The got a poor man's Lee, a potnetially dominant RP, bench depth (or a cut) and a prospect out of it. Excellent deal for them that keeps them competition for .500 this season and keeps them from falling off so much next year. Consider Weeks and Fielder for years to come, Mark Rogers and Ryan Braun developing, and a healthy Ben Sheets and they go into next season looking decent.
Meanwhile, Lee will jack a bunch of homers in Texas and their pitching will still throw away most of the games, especially without Cordero who, while being bad this year, is still better than a number of other guys that they'll turn to.

To be honest I think this may be a good thing for Detroit considering what the Brewers got back, one of the earliest names to be associated with Detroit in trade rumors was Geoff Jenkins. I think with emergence of Tony Gwynn Jr., plus having Mench, Nix and Clark , Jenkins is likely to be moved. While he may not be a superstar his numbers are close to Abreu's but Jenkins will be a lot cheaper.

KKKK...K....KKKK....K.K.KK

No kidding. We already strike out too much. Adding some of the names being mentioned would take us back to the Cecil, Rob Derr, Mickey Tettleton, Pete Incavilia days when they would hit back-to-back-to-back HR's every 10 games or so but combine (between the 4) for 10 strikeouts every other game.

Wow. The headline is Lee to the Rangers. The story is the Brewers getting much better, IMO. Sure, Lee is the best player in the deal, but Lee was one of the most effective RP's in the league the last few years and one bad year this year shouldn't discount that too much. Mench has a decent average and 50 RBI in 87 games is pretty good. That's just shy of 100 RBI pace. Nix is horrible, but maybe they'll find a use for him on the bench or something. I have no clue about the minor leaguers.
So here's the deal. The Brewers were going to lose Lee at the end of the season. The got a poor man's Lee, a potnetially dominant RP, bench depth (or a cut) and a prospect out of it. Excellent deal for them that keeps them competition for .500 this season and keeps them from falling off so much next year. Consider Weeks and Fielder for years to come, Mark Rogers and Ryan Braun developing, and a healthy Ben Sheets and they go into next season looking decent.
Meanwhile, Lee will jack a bunch of homers in Texas and their pitching will still throw away most of the games, especially without Cordero who, while being bad this year, is still better than a number of other guys that they'll turn to.


That's what I thought.

The AL West race is tight this year (all four teams are in it) but I don't think this gives Texas an edge of any kind.