Texas Rangers rumors: Rangers are not selling, per report

Texas Rangers rumors: The Texas Rangers are two games below .500 at the All Star Break, and there has been speculation that the team might sell at the July 31 trade deadline. However, Jon Morosi says that the Rangers are telling teams that they will not be selling, and may in fact be buyers at the deadline.

Now, how much weight you want to put on that, and how much that can change, is up for debate. The Rangers start a 10 game road trip right out of the break, playing Tampa, Baltimore and Kansas City, and a poor trip could put the Rangers far enough out of the Wild Card chase that selling is an inevitability.

But as we have discussed before, the two pending free agents who would appear to have the most trade value — Yu Darvish and Carlos Gomez — are the two free agents the Rangers have the most interest in re-signing. Jonathan Lucroy is gone (and could be dealt even if the Rangers are “holding”), while Andrew Cashner and Tyson Ross have little trade value, as does Mike Napoli at this point.

As far as the Rangers possibly being buyers, my thought is that they aren’t going to look to give up significant talent for a rental. If the Rangers do “buy,” it would seem to be a situation where they locate a controllable bullpen or role piece they think is undervalued, as when they scooped up Sam Dyson for a pair of fringe prospects in Tomas Telis and Cody Ege, or where they are getting a player that the selling team just doesn’t want to pay the rest of the way, such as Mike Napoli in 2015.

With almost three weeks to go between now and the deadline, and a bunch of teams all bunched together, the situation is fluid, especially for a team like the Rangers that is built to win in 2017, and which has a weaker than normal farm system as well as a lot of guys in their walk years. As a result, Jon Daniels could be telling teams he’s not selling now, and in two weeks be shopping everyone if the road trip is a disaster.

So the Rangers aren’t in sell mode, yet. They may be in buy mode, or they may not. And we will know more in a couple of weeks.