Chris Ray's birthday present: a contract with Cleveland

Former Ranger Chris Ray turns 30 today, and to celebrate, he's signed a minor league deal with the Cleveland Indians with an invite to spring training, where he will compete for a bullpen role.

Ray came over to Texas, along with a Rule 5 pick that was used on Ben Snyder, during the Winter Meetings in December, 2009, in exchange for Kevin Millwood, a deal that was largely motivated by a desire to move payroll so the Rangers could afford to sign Rich Harden as a free agent.

Ray was kind of terrible with Texas and ended up getting sent to San Francisco, along with Michael Main, to acquire Bengie Molina. Millwood and Harden were both bad in 2010, and Snyder is still in the system (after the Rangers worked out a deal to keep him in the organization without keeping him on the major league roster all of 2010), albeit as a fringe prospect.

So the Ray/Millwood swap was one of those deals that didn't really work out for anyone.