This deadline deal suggests Rangers target power bats to address offensive struggles

What do you do with a team that is on the outside looking in at the playoff picture with a loaded pitchign staff but poor offense? Well, you trade that pitching for offense, of course!

This describes the current state of the 2025 Texas Rangers. The number one pitching staff in the American League, armed with a Cy Young frontrunner Jacob deGrom, but painfully supported by a bottom five offense in Major League Baseball.

To address that concern, The Athletic's Jim Bowden has a solution. Get rid of some of the pitching depth for one of these much-needed young, offensive weapons.

Rangers' pitching departs, these sluggers arrive

Now, Texas doesn't to depart with their top two arms in deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi so that leaves the currently injured Tyler Mahle, lefty Patrick Corbin, Vandy Boys Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker, or a bevvy of bullpen pieces and farm system arms.

Bowden tends to think that a pitching staff that is first in MLB in ERA, second in WHIP and third in batting average against, could land a bat like Arizona's Josh Naylor or Boston's Jarren Duran.

The big concern in that is exactly the question he addressed. While the Rangers have great pitching and defense and less than mediocre offense they put themselves in a weird playoff position. They could very well miss out on the postseason entirely or just barely sneak in and not get far into October. Would trading some of the future be worth it?

That in mind, it might be worth it for a player like Duran who has multiple more years of team control, under contract with Boston for with an $8 million club option for 2026 followed by two more years of arbitration. Naylor on the other hand signed a one-year, $10.9 million deal with the D-backs over the offseason and will be a free agent after the season.

Would the Red Sox or Diamondbacks even be interested?

Let's take a minute to also address the D-backs and Red Sox's potential wants or needs in return. Boston is currently 48-45 sitting in fourth place in the AL West and one game back of Wild Card spot. They do however, desperately need pitching. As a team, they are middle of the pack in ERA (3.92), 20th in WHIP (1.32) and have given up the eighth-most walks MLB-wide.

Arizona is in worse shape pitching wise with the fourth-worst ERA (4.64) thanks in part to bad years by Zac Gallen, Brandon Pfaadt and Eduardo Rodriguez. It also doesn't help that their newly-acquired ace went down with Tommy John Surgery. Texas has also been rumored to be interested in Naylor earlier this season so it's not far off.

All that said, both are still very much in a gray area of postseason contention and by addressing their needs could help get them there. It would just rely on whether Texas can find a way to acquire those guys at a fair price.