Texas Rangers: Wheeling and Dealing to a Successful Winter

What a week it was for the Texas Rangers. One that started with a move at the Winter Meetings and ended with a big trade.

The first move from earlier this week was that the Texas Rangers traded Nomar Mazara to the Chicago White Sox for their outfield prospect Steele Walker. The trade was just a one for one deal, that did not involve any other parts along with it, as the Rangers worked to clear up their logjam of players that can play corner outfield and DH, and opened up a spot on the 40 man roster.

Mazara has all the potential in the world, but seemingly never got better throughout his Rangers career. He would have one month where we could all see his massive potential, then he would have a month that would have us questioning why he was never sent down to the minors.

Walker flashes good pitch recognition and hit tools, and put up decent numbers in high-A for the White Sox in 2019, hitting .269 in 100 games for them.

The day after the Mazara trade, things began to head south for the Texas Rangers, as they missed out on Anthony Rendon, on a deal that they probably would’ve gladly matched, had Rendon presented them the opportunity.

Jon Daniels finally had enough of the bad news, and pulled off perhaps one of the greatest trades he has ever done

Then to make matters worse, the roof of the under construction Globe Life Field caught on fire over the weekend, which has started to raise questions about if the stadium would be open in time for the 2020 season (if not, the team would likely play in Frisco until the stadium is ready).

Apparently Jon Daniels finally had enough of the bad news, and pulled off perhaps one of the greatest trades he has ever done (at least at the time of the trade), by acquiring Corey Kluber from the Cleveland Indians. Upon first seeing the deal, all of social media thought it was too good to be true, and expected to see the Texas Rangers be forced to give up a massive haul for Kluber.

Now that the dust has settled, Jon Daniels is looking brilliant, as he only gave up outfielder Delino DeShields and relief prospect Emmanuel Clase for Kluber and $500k in cash. Now that the deal is official, it is incredible that that was the cost for Kluber. Honestly, I was preparing to see a name like Brock Burke, Hans Crouse, Leody Taveras, or Joe Palumbo to come up, and was shocked it only cost one big prospect.

After the acquisition of Corey Kluber, Daniels has set the Texas Rangers up in an excellent position for the rest of the off-season. The team now has a top 5 rotation in all of baseball, and they can play both the free agent market and the trade market to their advantage and see which one provides them with the best opportunity to improve the team.

The Rangers can play the waiting game and see if they can snag any bargain free agents, or any other Klubers via trades, or they can swing for the fences for a big trade as they kept their ammunition in place to do so.

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There are many ways that they can go, and many players that they have been connected to, ranging from Josh Donaldson, Nicholas Castellanos, and Robinson Chirinos for free agents to Kris Bryant, Nolan Arenado, and Miguel Andujar on the trade market, there are so many ways that they could go.

One way that I think they should consider would be a trade with the San Francisco Giants to acquire Evan Longoria. He wouldn’t cost as much as the third basemen that the club has been connected to, and he would be a great backup scenario if the team were to miss out on Josh Donaldson.

The only possible issue with Longoria would be his contract as he still has three years left, and a $5 million buyout for the fourth season. Over the next three seasons, he is owed around $45.5 million (after taking out the money that Tampa Bay is paying San Francisco), so maybe the Giants could eat away part of his contract to ease the burden for the Rangers, and the Rangers could possibly include another prospect, or up their offer to make happen.

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Regardless of what Jon Daniels plans to do for the rest of the off-season, he has gotten his haters off of his back for a little while with the Kluber trade, and now has the opportunity to shut them up for good if he can put together some big moves to put the Rangers back in title contention.

Published on 12/16/2019 at 13:01 PM
Last updated at 12/16/2019 at 12:04 PM

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