The Texas Rangers might be selling their best trade chip after all. The Rangers were once 45-45 and had been reportedly telling teams that they would not get rid of Yu Darvish. However, Texas have lost five straight, including a sweep to the Baltimore Orioles to drop them to 45-50. The team is 4.5 games out of the second wild card spot, and their chances of making it has been fading.
According to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, the Texas Rangers have reached out to teams about Darvish. The Rangers ace is 30 and a free agent at the end of this season.
He sports a 3.45 earned run average with 131 strikeouts and 125 1/3 innings pitched.
Who would go after Darvish?
If the Athletics want two top 100 prospects in return for Sonny Gray, the Yankees could gauge interest. Darvish and Masahiro Tanaka have a connection as they are both pitchers that have come over from Japan. The Yankees were once interested in going after Darvish until Texas pulled him off the block. The price for Darvish will be less than Gray, given that Darvish is set to be a free agent at the end of the season.
The Yankees need pitching help after losing Michael Pineda for the season. Pineda suffered a season-ending torn UCL which required Tommy John surgery (TJS). The Yankees are 0.5 games up in the wild card rankings for the second wild card spot.
The Yankees recently gave up the No. 36 overall prospect in their trade with the Chicago White Sox for Todd Frazier, David Robertson, and Tommy Kahnle. The Yankees still have enough to make an offer. The team has five prospects in MLB.com's top 100 prospects. However, Gleyber Torress, the No. 2 overall prospect, is most likely off limits.
A week to find the market
Passan also writes that the Rangers have given themselves about 12 days to make a final decision. The Rangers could pull themselves back into the wild card race. By reaching out and talking to teams, the Rangers have given themselves enough time to see where their team stands. If the team continues to go on a downward spiral, the decision will appear easy.
However, if the Rangers are at .500, or over, Texas could chase the playoffs.
Rangers need to trade Darvish
The Rangers have an 11.2 percent chance to make the playoffs according to Fangraphs. No recent winning streak should sway the team's final decision to trade Darvish. The team is unlikely to re-sign Darvish at the end of the season, so the team needs to move him while his value is high.
