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Texas Rangers trade rumors: Jarred Cosart, the 24 year old starting pitcher for the Houston Astros, is apparently on the Rangers' radar, according to Ken Rosenthal:
Among teams checking in with #Astros on Jarred Cosart, per sources: #Orioles, #Marlins, #Rangers.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 31, 2014
We need to get the usual caveats out of the way...the Rangers have an active front office, they are probably checking in on a lot of players, this doesn't mean anything with Cosart is going to happen.
However, it makes sense that Cosart is someone who would be of interest to them. As T.R. Sullivan tweeted:
A great day for the Rangers would be landing another starting pitcher.... If Rangers trade Rios...it would be a big day for Jim Adduci
— TR Sullivan (@Sullivan_Ranger) July 31, 2014
As we've talked about before, the Rangers' focus is fixing the 2015 rotation. Right now, the 2015 rotation is Yu Darvish, Derek Holland, and a bunch of question marks. The Rangers have young starting pitching in the minors, in guys like Luke Jackson, Chi Chi Gonzalez, Alec Asher and Jake Thompson, but those guys are probably not good options for being part of the Opening Day, 2015, rotation. Nick Martinez probably needs to start 2015 in the minors, Miles Mikolas is a long-shot, and while Nick Tepesch is showing he might be an option, there are still holes to be filled.
Cosart isn't anything great, but he's young, cheap and controllable, someone you'd feel okay about plugging in the back of your rotation for 2015, with a 4.41 ERA and 4.02 FIP for the Astros this year in 116.1 IP. He's not someone you're going to give up a bunch to get, I don't think, but if the Astros are willing to sell on him, he's someone who could be a good fit to help patch over the holes created when Matt Harrison and Martin Perez disappeared from the 2015 rotation picture.
And while the Rangers more likely than not won't land Cosart, I do think that Cosart is the type of pitcher that the Rangers are going to be inquiring on over the next five months or so, and the type of pitcher they'll be willing to part with some of their less-than-premium minor league talent to try to acquire.
