Doug Melvin Trade Analysis Part 7

This is part 7 of an analysis of the trades Doug Melvin made while he was Rangers GM. This week I will cover 2001, his last year as GM. Each trade will be scored a win, loss, or tie. The score is based on how each player contributed to the Rangers at the major league level.

41. 5/8/01 The Montreal Expos traded Mike Johnson to the Texas Rangers for Darwin Cubillan.

Tie – After the trade Darwin Cubillan only pitched 26 and a third innings for the Expos and Mike Johnson never played for us.

Record: 13-13-15

42. 6/12/01 The Boston Red Sox traded Justin Duchscherer to the Texas Rangers for Doug Mirabelli.

Win – Justin only pitched 14 and two thirds innings for the Rangers before John Hart made the awful decision of trading him to the A’s, but 4 out of the last 5 years he has had an ERA under 3.35, including a 2.21 ERA an a 2.91 ERA. Doug Mirabelli is a good back-up catcher, averaging about 55 games a year since the trade. Doug is great defensively but he doesn’t hit very well, only hitting .250 two of the six years after the trade. This was a steal by Melvin. It’s not his fault that Hart messed it up.

Record: 14-13-15

43. 6/15/01 The Cincinnati Reds traded Rob Bell to the Texas Rangers for Ruben Mateo and Edwin Encarnacion.

Loss – Rob Bell only played 1 and a half years for us, with ERA’s of 7.18 and 6.22. Ruben Mateo has been a big disappointment, never hitting .260 in a year and never hitting 5 home runs in a year, but Edwin Encarnacion is very good. He has only played in the majors for 3 years, but this year, he hit .289 with 16 HR and 76 RBI, 25 doubles and 8 stolen bases. He also has a lot of potential.

Record: 14-14-15

44. 7/24/01 The San Francisco Giants traded Chris Magruder, Erasmo Ramirez, and Todd Ozias (minors) to the Texas Rangers for Andres Galarraga.

Win - Chris Magruder only had 29 at-bats for us and Todd Ozias never made it to the majors, but Erasmo Ramirez had three good years for us. After the trade Andres Galarraga had one more good year and one more decent year. In ’01 for the Giants he hit .288 with 7 HR and 35 RBI’s. In ’02 with the Expos he hit .260 with 9 HR and 40 RBI’s, but in ’03 as the 5th oldest player in all of baseball at the age of 43 he hit .301 with 12 HR and 42 RBI’s, playing in 110 games. But he was only here on a one-year deal and we wouldn’t have had him for those last two years anyway. So to get three good years from Ramirez instead of half a year of Galarraga is a good trade.

Record: 15-14-15

45. 8/31/01 The Texas Rangers traded Randy Velarde to the New York Yankees for players to be named later. The New York Yankees sent Randy Flores (October 12, 2001) and Rosman Garcia (October 11, 2001) to the Texas Rangers to complete the trade.

Tie - This was Doug Melvin’s last trade as Rangers GM. After the trade Randy Velarde only played in 71 more games over two years, hitting .152 and .226. Randy Flores only pitched 12 innings for the Rangers with a 4.50 ERA and Rosman Garcia only pitched 53 innings for the Rangers with a 5.94 ERA.

Record: 15-14-16

Results of last week’s poll:
Who do you think is the best player the Rangers got in 2000?
Michael Young – 95%
Brant Brown – 5%
All others – 0%

Come back next week for an updated analysis of Jon Daniels’ trades and a comparison between the records of Melvin, Hart, and Daniels.