3 Texas Rangers who have increased their potential trade value

Since May, the Texas Rangers have been playing a better brand of baseball. We’ve entered the month of the June and the team hovers around .500, which is more than could’ve been said about the Rangers at this point last season.

Can Texas keep playing at this level the rest of the way? They certainly can given their talent level. Playing roughly .500 ball isn’t going to make a postseason contender, though the American League hasn’t exactly been a juggernaut either, save for the New York Yankees. Still, counting on the Rangers to make a serious play at October baseball is a fool’s errand in all likelihood.

Should the Texas Rangers continue at their current pace, their best bet is to stand pat at the trade deadline this summer. But in the event things go south, here are a few veterans that could make for attractive bait in negotiations.

3 Texas Rangers who have increased their potential trade values

1. Kole Calhoun

It’s funny how quick things change, even during a season.

At one point, Kole Calhoun was struggling mightily and Rangers fans were calling for his release as the team struggled to get much of anything going. Now, though? He’s this team’s hottest hitter, with a .799 OPS and seven home runs in 143 at-bats this season as of this writing (Tuesday).

Considering where he was not long ago, we’ll happily take Calhoun’s production and hope that he can continue to hit at or near this clip come the rest of June and July. If he does and the Rangers fall off, that would make him a prime trade candidate on his cheap one-year deal for 2022.

3 Texas Rangers who have increased their potential trade values

3. Mitch Garver

Would the Texas Rangers trade away a backstop they just acquired this past February? One who is known for his bat?

There’s no reason why they couldn’t. While Mitch Garver has been heating up his last 15 games with five home runs and a .649 SLG percentage (.298 batting average in that span as well), the emergences of Jonah Heim and Sam Huff during the month of May have made it difficult to give Garver starts behind the dish.

Heim and Huff are younger than Garver and are also viewed as the future at catcher for the Texas Rangers, which makes it hard to believe the latter is here for much longer, even if that wasn’t a scenario that was obvious at the beginning of the season.

Garver is known for his offense as mentioned above, and a contending team in need of a bat-first backstop could find the 31-year-old appealing as a trade target come August 2. If he keeps hitting at his current rate, the Texas Rangers may not even have to fall out of the playoff race to deem Garver worthy of being traded this summer.