Ok, so I can understand people wanting some major return on a Carlos Lee deal. He appears to be a superstar hitter (he's not, he's closer to average than elite) and Doug Melvin has done it before, think what he turned Sexson into.
Two major, major problems exist though.
1.) Lee is not the hitter people think he is, in fact, he has already started his second half free fall (AND ... might have hurt his wrist).
2.) You just can't get top pitching prospects for a 2 month rental of an above average OF. That would be disastrous for a club.
So when you look at the results realistically, and realize that we got a ML closer, probably for 2007 too, an ML left fielder, probably for 2007 as well in exchange for losing two months of Lee, it's a slam dunk. The funnest (maybe saddest, i don't know yet) part about this is that the Brewers want to play for this year. When has that ever happened? Sad about losing Cruz? Strikeouts kept him off this team, and may end up getting Jenkins traded tomorrow too. They lead to inconsistency, Melvin has mentioned recently that he has been very concerned about the consistency of this offense. He knows that we've been pretty lucky so far, look at our record in 1 run games and our pythagorean record. Don't be surprised if another move or two are made this weekend. If we are going to compete for real in '07 we don't have time to let Cruz adjust to the majors. He's overhyped too, he's got an inflated batting average due to good luck, a .365 BABIP. We'll find out if he is for real or not though, sounds like he'll be starting in RF tonight for the Rangers.
Still not convinced that we could not have done much better. Bring me a trade? Who do you want, Jered Weaver, Erwin Santana? One of those two guys? No deal, ungettable. Unless you want to start talking Cappie.