Victor Diaz DFA’d
The Texas Rangers have designated Victor Diaz for assignment.
Yeah, yeah, I know — he’s old baggage and there likely isn’t any room for him with the Mets. But for some reason he always had a special place in my heart; I think I really wanted him to be the next Kevin Mitchell. Diaz made me look ridiculously foolish when I suggested that he’d beat out Xavier Nady for the rightfield job back in March 2006. (That was a bad spring for me … I lambasted Willie for sticking with Jose Valentin, for giving a roster spot to Endy Chavez, for putting Aaron Heilman in the ‘pen, for letting Brian Bannister take a starting rotation spot … the list goes on and on …)
Interesting that the Rangers would give up so easily on Diaz, who is still only 25 years old and blasted 9 homeruns in just 104 big-league ABs last year. While in the PCL in ’07, he hit another 14 dingers and batted .321 in 271 at-bats. There’s little question the kid can flat-out hit, though he does do a lot of swinging and missing.
If it does turn out that Lastings Milledge or Carlos Gomez gets sent away in a deal for pitching, I wouldn’t mind seeing Diaz picked up on a minor league deal and offered an ST invite. But, it would seem that the Mets are more like “been there, done that, it’s all over” with him.
It’s interesting to see Diaz available…but I’m hoping Omar goes a different direction.
As has been noted several times before, here, there aren’t many RH reserve OF / 1B options out there — at least, few that are worth considering. The Craig Wilsons of the world have been exposed and are too expensive.