Trade Reaction: Texas Rangers Deal Pete Fairbanks to Rays for Nick Solak

The Texas Rangers have made their first big foray into the trade market dealing RHP Pete Fairbanks to the Tampa Bay Rays for 2B Nick Solak.

It’s July 13th and the Texas Rangers seem to have made their first notable move of this year’s trade deadline season. No, they didn’t sell off Mike Minor nor did they acquire Noah Syndergaard. Rather, they swapped highly touted prospects with the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Texas Rangers sent hard-throwing right-handed pitcher, Pete Fairbanks to the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for highly-ranked prospect, Nick Solak.

Trade Reaction

Fairbanks, who had worked his way up from High-A ball this season to make his Major League debut in June, had become a bit of a fan favorite in Arlington before being optioned back to Triple-A Nashville. The Rays, in the midst of the AL Wild Card race, much like the Rangers and currently occupy the top spot in the WC. Tampa Bay was looking to add to their bullpen this season and with their current organizational youth, it made sense to add a pitcher like Fairbanks who is talented and has plenty of team control. Fangraphs has Fairbanks as the #32 prospect in the Rays system post-trade.

For the Rangers, sending Fairbanks out made sense long-term. Texas has a number of young, hard-throwing righties in their minor league system and could afford to let a talented reliever like Fairbanks go. In exchange, they got Nick Solak who is fairly highly thought of and ranks highly in a variety of prospect rankings. MLB Prospect Watch has Solak as the 12th prospect in the Rays system and #9 2B prospect in all of baseball. Fangraphs has Solak as the #93 prospect in baseball and has already put him in the Rangers system at #3 behind Leody Taveras and ahead of Bubba Thompson.

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The jury is a bit out on the future ability of Solak on a Major League club, however. He’s a second baseman by nature but is below-average defensively. He’s worked in the outfield a little bit this season which opens up some possibilities but whether he can find a position and stick is unknown. He’s an advanced right-handed hitter who is hitting .266 in Triple-A right now with a .838 OPS and 17 homers. He profiles similarly to another Rangers Triple-A prospect, Eli White, who aren’t necessarily flashing star potential tools but all-around are effective players at a couple of positions.

At just 24-years old, Solak has plenty of time to continue developing defensively and at worst, looks like an effective utility guy with an MLB-ready bat. His future value according to Fangraphs is a 50 which predicts an average everyday player. If Texas gets an everyday player in Solak, I’m sure they’d mark this trade as a success. This looks like a good deal for Texas who parts way with an expendable piece in Fairbanks and brings in a guy who is really high on a few prospect radars. He’s also near the MLB-level meaning we could see him in Arlington at some point before the end of the season.

In addition to Solak, the Rangers opened up another 40-man roster spot by sending out Pete Fairbanks. Solak has been assigned to Triple-A Nashville.

The Texas Rangers have made their first big foray into the trade market dealing RHP Pete Fairbanks to the Tampa Bay Rays for 2B Nick Solak.

Trade Reaction

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