The curious case of JJ Hardy

[Funketown]

Melvin gets a lot of flack about the Hardy move, but people seem to forget that he sucked pretty bad on the Twins too, and he again couldn't stay healthy. They got rid of him too...

 

He hit .268/.320/.394 with the Twins, along with playing solid defense at SS. That's in no way sucking. Hardy's 2010 was monumentally better than any Brewers' SS season since he left.

[trwi7]

Wait, where does Gagne rank?

 

#4- "OK, great we'll take Cordero and Mench for Carlos Lee, but I have to get Laynce Nix. You can pick another AAA guy from a list"

 

Cruz was on waivers the next season. Every single MLB team could've had him. I'm so sick of this being called a bad trade because of him.

 

It was a bad trade because we got crap for Lee. Seriously the best piece was a reliever. How is that a good trade?

[RockCoCougars]

To me, trading Hardy was only half the issue. By sending him down to Nashville, Melvin basically forced his own hand. There was no way that Hardy would be back in 2010 and other teams knew it. I'd say that this move torpedoed Hardy's trade value big time.... much more than the extra year of control helped it. It was a rash decision that should have never been made because you don't give up that quickly on a solid defensive SS (in his mid 20's) who hit 50 homers in the two previous seasons.

[The stache]

It was a rash decision that should have never been made because you don't give up that quickly on a solid defensive SS (in his mid 20's) who hit 50 homers in the two previous seasons.

 

Bingo, that's my feeling exactly.

 

Yes, Hardy had a bad season. But he'd had really good success the couple years prior, and it's not a stretch to think that after giving him some time to get healthy, and back on track, that he'd have success again. He was still young.

 

The you know what really hit the fan the moment that the Brewers ok'd a trade of Escobar after trading Hardy. You don't give up two starting shortstops. Now we have nothing.

[Ennder]

I stand by my contention that Mench was horrible both at the plate and in the field. Considering that he was the centerpiece of a deadline deal involving the team's best hitter, let's just say that Melvin was lucky that Cordero found himself in Milwaukee. If he hadn't, that deal would have made the Greg Vaughn to the Padres deal look like a steal for the Brewers.

 

He was never the centerpiece of anything. Cordero was the center of that trade.

 

Cruz took 4 years to get full time playing time in Texas, has never stayed health a full season and has a career .295 OBP and .726 OPS outside of the 2nd friendliest hitters park in baseball, he is a terrible fielder and cost them a World Series title with his defense (though obviously his bat did enough to offset it). Corey Hart has been a more valuable player than Cruz since the trade and Corey Hart isn't a player I want to keep long term from this point on. I just want to make sure people are being honest about just how good Nelson Cruz is here.

 

The Hardy trade was just horrible, I guess we figured his health made him too risky to keep but I still think the return we got for him was terrible.

[adamb100]

I think I remember hearing Melvin saying Kevin Mench was the centerpiece of the trade and Cordero was just an added bonus. The Brewers sought some of the offense lost by Lee and so they wanted Mench (which of course failed horribly).

[endaround]

I think I remember hearing Melvin saying Kevin Mench was the centerpiece of the trade and Cordero was just an added bonus. The Brewers sought some of the offense lost by Lee and so they wanted Mench (which of course failed horribly).

 

That isn't true at all. Cordero was the centerpiece. Mench was a guy to fill in with some chance of a bounce back.

 

And Cruz likely would have never had a chance to have his big year in Milwaukee to play since as noted he doesn't hit outside of Texas.

[Invader3K]

Talk about revisionism...clearly Cordero was the center piece. Turnbow was tanking and we needed a quality closer to stay in any sort of contention at that point.

 

People will always crucify Melvin for trading Nelson Cruz, but at the time no one really blinked an eye when he was included in the deal. Hindsight makes for some really good armchair GMs, though.

[trwi7]

He was never the centerpiece of anything. Cordero was the center of that trade.

 

Even if that is true, you don't see a major problem with that?

[RockCoCougars]

Talk about revisionism...clearly Cordero was the center piece. Turnbow was tanking and we needed a quality closer to stay in any sort of contention at that point.

 

People will always crucify Melvin for trading Nelson Cruz, but at the time no one really blinked an eye when he was included in the deal. Hindsight makes for some really good armchair GMs, though.

 

Unless my memory is shot, actually revisionism is claiming that Cordero was the main piece. I'm almost positive that Mench was sold to the fans as the key piece in that deal. Cordero had been brutal in Texas and lost his job as closer. His success in Milwaukee was pretty unexpected. It's also nonsense to claim that no one was upset about Cruz being included in the deal. I remember quite a few people posting on the boards about this. I wish that we could resurrect that thread from the dead. I'm going to do some checking later on articles from the time of the deal.

[lj854]

The ESPN story at the time painted Cordero and Mench relatively equally. Tone of the article suggests that Cruz wasn't a throwaway, however, a clear gaffe by Melvin in my view.

 

ESPN story

[RockCoCougars]

Here is a story from the jsonline the off-season after the deal. To quote from the article, "Considered at the time to be the key to the Carlos Lee trade with Texas at the end of July, Mench played horribly for the Brewers, batting .230 with one homer and 18 RBI in 40 games."

 

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/29180994.html

 

In hindsight, I can see how it would be easy to finger Cordero as the key to the trade, because he ended up being so good and Mench was so bad. However, some quick Googling also reminded me of the fact that Cordero had a hefty option for the next season that the Brewers probably wouldn't have even picked up had he not been gangbusters after the trade.

[trwi7]

It's just disappointing to rehash this trade again.

 

The Brewers traded Lee and promising outfield prospect Nelson Cruz to the Texas Rangers for reliever Francisco Cordero, outfielders Kevin Mench and Laynce Nix and Minor League left-hander Julian Cordero. Lee was on the way to another career year -- he led the Brewers this season with 28 home runs and 81 RBIs -- but faced with the likelihood of losing him after the season and getting only compensatory draft picks in return, Brewers general manager Doug Melvin went shopping.

 

Melvin tried to get Mench and Francisco Cordero straight-up for Lee. But because the Rangers are only guaranteed Lee's services for two months -- a point Texas GM Jon Daniels made repeatedly during negotiations -- Nix and Cruz were included to "balance out the deal," Melvin said. Cruz is an exceptional prospect who hit his 20th home run for Triple-A Nashville on Thursday night.

 

Houston became a serious player late Thursday, and the Cardinals had also shown some interest, but Melvin wasn't willing to deal Lee within the division.

 

"They were all for younger players, prospect-type players, that probably wouldn't have worn Brewers uniforms until the end of next year," Melvin said. "If you looked at what our other options were, this was the best deal that we could make."

 

Had the Brewers made one of the other deals, Melvin argued, critics' claims about waving the white flag on 2006 would have been warranted. But he made a case that the players involved could help the Brewers in the immediate and long-term future.

 

Long term future apparently meaning one and a half years.

 

http://milwaukee.brewers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060728&content_id=1579449&vkey=news_mil&fext=.jsp&c_id=mil

[RockCoCougars]

It's just disappointing to rehash this trade again.

 

 

Melvin tried to get Mench and Francisco Cordero straight-up for Lee. But because the Rangers are only guaranteed Lee's services for two months -- a point Texas GM Jon Daniels made repeatedly during negotiations -- Nix and Cruz were included to "balance out the deal," Melvin said. Cruz is an exceptional prospect who hit his 20th home run for Triple-A Nashville on Thursday night.

 

And this is the rub right here. Because Cordero turned things around, on the face of it, the main pieces of the deal look OK in hindsight. Unfortunately, this little transaction within a transaction makes this one of the worst trades in Brewer history. If you take Melvin for what he said, at the least, you have to believe that Texas thought Cruz was a much better prospect than Nix. Personally, I'm not buying what Melvin said, because I think that he was enamored with Nix (he drafted him, didn't he?). I remember reading somewhere at the time of the trade a source that was quoted as saying that Melvin insisted on Nix being included in the deal.

 

Thanks for the recap.

[trwi7]

And Lee for Mench and Cordero was "fair". Melvin should have stuck to his guns. Lee was netting them two picks. There was no guarantee Cordero would net us any picks and Mench wasn't good so he wasn't going to net us anything. My main problem though was still trying to win in 2006. We weren't going to win anything that year, so take the players with the highest upside. Not two older veteran types that aren't going to have a place on the team in a year or two.

[igor67]

While there have been some good criticisms made, it is worth pointing out that Cruz was also widely viewed as a player who could turn into a AAAA player in a heart beat. I wouldn't be surprised that had he been traded to a different organization that is exactly what happens to him. Let alone the legion of other high K, mediocre walk rate and BA late bloomers. One could view it as the inverse of the Sabbathia trade. For all the world LaPorta should have been at least a serviceable corner man, but has essentially washed out. Presumably the team should have a little more info on these guys than we do, but that is no guarantee every single time of how things will turn out.

[pete]

I remember Melvin doing radio interviews and talking about how he was offered 5th starter types when he asked for pitching. Given a choice between that and Gomez, I think he made the right choice.

 

Regarding Mench, c'mon didn't he hit a HR in one of his first games and get a curtain call? (kidding) Plus, Rock can go on about hat size.

[Ennder]

Here is a story from the jsonline the off-season after the deal. To quote from the article, "Considered at the time to be the key to the Carlos Lee trade with Texas at the end of July, Mench played horribly for the Brewers, batting .230 with one homer and 18 RBI in 40 games."

 

Yes because the jsonline is a bastion of truth, have you read any of their stuff? Mench was not a key part of that trade, it was never suggest that he was by anyone on the team and he wasn't slotted for full time play even right after the trade. This is the Jsonline making stuff up at random like they always do.

[RockCoCougars]

Here is a story from the jsonline the off-season after the deal. To quote from the article, "Considered at the time to be the key to the Carlos Lee trade with Texas at the end of July, Mench played horribly for the Brewers, batting .230 with one homer and 18 RBI in 40 games."

 

Yes because the jsonline is a bastion of truth, have you read any of their stuff? Mench was not a key part of that trade, it was never suggest that he was by anyone on the team and he wasn't slotted for full time play even right after the trade. This is the Jsonline making stuff up at random like they always do.

 

From what I remember, I have to disagree. The Brewers definitely tried to sell Mench as the key piece, from quoting his homer numbers in previous seasons to televising his 'arrival' at Miller Park. It may have been 1A and 1B, but they definitely tried to create some buzz around Mench.

[trwi7]

It's a shame google doesn't have the paper in the two days following the trade because I remember them trying to sell Mench as the key piece too.

[brettac1]

Mench was definitely considered a big part of the deal. Cordero had bombed out in Texas that year and lost the closer's job to Otsuka.