Like most people who follow the Brewers, I had a difficult time swallowing the trade that sent Carlos Lee to the Rangers, regardless of the fiscal and organizational sense it may have made. Kevin Mench? Laynce Nix? Another demoted closer? And why did they throw in Nelson Cruz, to boot?
The unfortunate answer, of course, is that this is a business. And to stay in business, the Brewers have to periodically make unpleasant decisions. Regardless, the deals brought back lousy memories of deadline-peddling in the mid 1990s. Haven't the Brewers progressed beyond this stage of development?
Maybe and maybe not. The Lee deal hurt, but the trade that landed David Bell from the Phillies seemed to suggest Doug Melvin and Ned Yost were still fighting this season. In fact, the Bell acquisition seemed like the kind of move that a team battling for first place would make, not one trying to stay within shouting distance of .500.
But with the Phillies tanking, Bell was expendable. And the Brewers’ spate of infield injuries has left them with few options The Brewers needed a body to play third -- Jeff Cirillo isn't an everyday player anymore -- and Bell fit the bill. Maybe there's nothing more to it than that.Still, with guys like Mench, Bell and Tony Graffanino, the lineup is taking on that same mid-90s feel. Not too many people expected to see these guys in a Brewers uniform back in April, even if you guessed Lee was headed out of town.
But it is, as they say, what it is. So let’s take a closer look at the newest Brewers.
Kevin Mench: The first thing I thought about after the Lee deal was Mench’s string of seven consecutive games with a homer earlier this season. Unfortunately, he only had 12 homers overall at the time of the deal, and he socked his 13th in a winning effort Sunday at Miller Park.
Mench is a fairly solid player. He hit 26 homers with 30 doubles in 2004 and had 25 and 33, respectively, last year. His RBI totals (71 and 73) are a tad low for a power-hitting outfielder, but he only struck out 63 and 68 times in each season. His OPS (on-base plus slugging) in 2005 was .797, which was just behind Brady Clark's .798 on the '05 Brewers. Lee was at .811 and Geoff Jenkins was at .888 to lead the team (surprise!).
On the plus side, Mench is only 28, he's a pro hitter, and he makes good contact. On the negative side, he doesn't appear to be a great defender (though it'll be difficult to know until we see him in person every day) despite some respectable stats (four errors, eight assists last year in 148 OF appearances). If Jenkins is still a Brewer in 2007, Mench could share playing time with Corey Hart in left. If Jenkins is gone, Mench and Hart will likely start in left and right.
Francisco Cordero: By now, you've heard that Cordero -- like Dan Kolb and Derrick Turnbow -- is a former All-Star closer who has since been demoted. He earned his first save in relief of the highly flammable Turnbow Sunday, providing some hope for stability in the back end of the pen.
Cordero is just seve-for-16 in save chances this year, but a couple of things stand out in his stats. The first is that he's still striking out more than a batter an inning (54 Ks in 48.2 IP this year with Texas), something he’s done throughout his career (415 Ks in 418.1 IP). He's also got good control; he had just 16 walks this season, compared with Turnbow's 28 in 42 IP. As you no doubt recall, it seems as if every one of Turnbow's blown saves has involved at least one crucial base on balls.
If nothing else, Cordero provides some depth in the pen. Future performance will determine if he supplants Turnbow in the everyday closer role.
As for the other Cordero (Julian) picked up in the Rangers deal, it’s way too early to tell. He’s a Class A pitching prospect, so we’ll need another year or two to evaluate him.
Tony Graffanino: Graffanino was picked up for Jorge de la Rosa to help address some of the team’s infield injuries. The 34-year-old is a classic journeyman and Melvin find. He's been with Atlanta, Tampa Bay, the White Sox, Kansas City and Boston, hitting .268 for his career. He's not as accomplished as Cirillo, by any means, but he's the same type of role player that managers love to have available.
Graffanino has the reputation of being a good defensive player, but he made an untimely error in the playoffs last year that probably cost Boston an ALDS game in Chicago. Brewers manager Ned Yost was in Atlanta when Graffanino broke into the big leagues and bench coach Dale Sveum was the third base coach with the Red Sox last year.
Laynce Nix: Nix is a curious addition. The lefty centerfielder played in 115 games for the Rangers in 2004 (hitting .248 with 14 homers) but hasn't progressed much beyond that. Last year, he fought a shoulder injury and played in just 63 games. Nix then began this season in Texas before a three-for-32 start at the plate punched his ticket back to Class AAA.
Melvin was with Texas when the Rangers acquired him, so Nix must have some traits the Brewers like. He was also included to offset the Cruz loss, giving the Brewers another minor-league outfielder in Nashville. For now, he looks like a poor man's version of Gabe Gross, who is making the most out of his first season in Milwaukee.
David Bell: Personally, I've always liked Bell, or disliked him as the case may be. Whenever the Brewers played the Phillies, Bell seemed to come up with a big hit. He puts up only modest offensive numbers (.248, 10 and 61 last year), but he doesn't embarrass himself, either.
By picking up Bell, the Brewers must be worried that Corey Koskie's concussion will keep him out longer than they'd originally hoped. Bell is a professional player, but neither he nor Koskie is in the team's long-term plans at third with prospect Ryan Braun currently at AA Huntsville.
Sports shots columnist Tim Gutowski was born in a hospital in West Allis and his sporting heart never really left. He grew up in a tiny town 30 miles west of the city named Genesee and was in attendance at County Stadium the day the Brewers clinched the 1981 second-half AL East crown. I bet you can't say that.
Though Tim moved away from Wisconsin (to Iowa and eventually the suburbs of Chicago) as a 10-year-old, he eventually found his way back to Milwaukee. He remembers fondly the pre-Web days of listenting to static-filled Brewers games on AM 620 and crying after repeated Bears' victories over the Packers.
