Texas Rangers opt to stay quiet at MLB trade deadline

The MLB Trade Deadline has come and gone with the Texas Rangers opting to stay quiet on the final day and hold onto to their bigger assets.

In what has to go down as one of the stranger deadline periods in recent memory, the Texas Rangers opted to stay fairly quiet on the trade market. They made just one significant trade by dealing Chris Martin to the Braves last night but held onto ace Mike Minor and vet Hunter Pence among others.

We knew going into this deadline that the Rangers didn’t feel forced to be prototypical “buyers” or “sellers” especially when it came to Mike Minor. Minor, who was the most valuable of the players Texas seemed inclined to trade this month, is staying put after the Rangers were unable to find a deal that made sense for them long-term. In fact, the market for starting pitching never really seemed to get going, at least until the Astros decided to go and acquire Zack Greinke from Arizona.

Pence seemed the other logical trade candidate as the veteran is in the midst of an All-Star season and is a free agent to be at the end of the year. However, limited to a DH role, there was a select few teams that even had a hole for him and the Rangers were known to value his presence very highly. A north Texas native, the Rangers wanted something significant for the slugger and obviously never came to fruition.

Of the players on the Rangers likely to be traded, the only “lock” to be dealt was Martin and he was in fact the only one dealt. Clearly the club had some steadfast prices for their trade assets and decided it would be better to keep the core together for at least the remainder of the 2019 season. We’ll see what this winter holds but for now, you’re looking at your core for the Texas Rangers.