Three years ago today, the Rangers officially traded Kevin Millwood to the Baltimore Orioles for Chris Ray and a Rule 5 pick that became Ben Snyder, and signed Rich Harden to a one year deal.

I wrote 1500 words on the topic (which technically was posted on 12/9 -- the deals weren't official until the 10th, though), and I probably could have saved my breath, since this is the very beginning of my post:

This was certainly an interesting flurry of events.

And the 2010 Rangers certainly are a different team today than they were yesterday. Are they better? Not necessarily. But they are different, and I think that the team as it stands today is more likely to make the playoffs than the team that the Rangers had yesterday.

So, yeah...the Rangers weren't better with Harden and Ray instead of Millwood. But Ray helped them land Bengie Molina, which helped them get to the playoffs, so there's that.

Remember when the Rangers were so broke they had to trade someone to sign a free agent?