The Major League Baseball trade deadline is 3 p.m. (Central) tomorrow. Your Texas Rangers have one of the four worst win-loss records in the game since the beginning of June. They’ve fallen to six games behind the first-place Oakland Athletics in the American League West and a game behind Baltimore for the second wild card spot. Due to a combination of injuries and poor performances from some of their regulars, things are not going according to plan.
And so there are quite a few reports circulating that the Rangers are trying hard to make a big, big deal to bolster their offense. Their need could become even more pressing this week as outfielder Nelson Cruz is among the players that MLB is expected soon to suspend for use of performance-enhancing drugs as result of its probe into the Biogenesis clinic in Miami.
Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports on what the Rangers might be after:
The Rangers are trying to acquire a hitter who is better than the top two known to be available, the Chicago White Sox’sAlex Rios and San Francisco Giants’ Hunter Pence, sources said.
The Miami Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton would fit that description. The Rangers have asked about him again in recent days, only to be told — again — that Stanton would not be moved, sources said.
Either the Toronto Blue Jays’ Edwin Encarnacion or Jose Bautista also would make sense for the Rangers. But the Jays, sources said, will not trade either unless they get comparable major-league talent in return.
One possibility, particularly with the Rangers willing to move closer Joe Nathan, would be a deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers for one of their outfielders, either Andre Ethier or Carl Crawford.
Rosenthal’s source believes it’s unlikely the Rangers will be able to put together a major transaction (which any of these possibilities would be), and that the team is “struggling to negotiate even smaller deals.”
(But, yes, trades are still possible after July 31. There are just a few more hoops to jump through, making moves less likely.)
