Rodriguez, Mulvey are players to be named later

Lots of "players to be named later" have been swapped recently and this afternoon two of them have actually been ... well, named later.

* Sean Rodriguez joins Matt Sweeney and Alex Torres as the third prospect heading from the Angels to the Rays for Scott Kazmir. Rodriguez has split time between second base and shortstop in the minors while hitting .301/.398/.626 with 50 homers in 170 games at Triple-A.

Those numbers are inflated by a hitter-friendly environment and at 24 years old Rodriguez doesn't project as a star, but he's an MLB-ready infielder with good power and represents a nice pickup for Tampa Bay. He seemed destined to never get a great opportunity with the Angels, so the deal works out well for Rodriguez too.

* Kevin Mulvey was part of the big trade that sent Johan Santana from the Twins to the Mets, but now he's headed to the Diamondbacks as the PTBNL for reliever Jon Rauch. Mulvey's stock has dropped since the Santana deal, but at worst he's an MLB-ready fifth starter and was one of the Twins' top dozen prospects coming into the season.

Philip Humber has been dropped from the 40-man roster twice without being claimed off waivers and Mulvey is in Arizona, so Minnesota's return for Santana basically now boils down to Carlos Gomez, Deolis Guerra, and 1.25 seasons of Rauch. Not quite the haul Twins fans had in mind when all the juicy rumors were swirling two offseasons ago.