Rangers make last-minute Opening Day trade with long suffering franchise

Normally, Opening Day is when Texas Rangers fans can relax from the whirlwind of the offseason and settle in for a long season of baseball. Rosters are set, the die is cast, and all that is left is for the games to be played and enjoyed by all.

Every once in a while, though, Opening Day still has some transactional surprises.

Case in point is Thursday. As of this moment, the Rangers have yet to release the Opening Day roster although most of their decisions are pretty self-explanatory.

However, Texas did decide to add a wrinkle to the Opening Day festivities as they made a minor trade with the Guardians to beef up their international bonus pool.

Rangers News: Texas trades Zak Kent to the Guardians on Opening Day

This is not an earth-shattering move by any stretch of the imagination, and it's likely to just be a way for the Rangers to trim their 40-man roster a bit while getting some IFA money to play with. Kent is a former ninth-round pick from the 2019 draft who has posted a 4.07 ERA in the minors. After getting shelled in his three starts this spring and with multiple starters ahead of him on the depth chart, the writing was on the wall for him in Texas.

For Texas, this is a low-risk move that gives them the ability to go out and add some more international free agent lottery tickets to the low minors. As for the Guardians, they are just hoping to get lucky and find value in Kent who at least does miss bats with his stuff. Cleveland appears to be in a really rough spot from a revenue and payroll perspective, so they are being forced to take some chances like this even if the timing of the move is a bit wonky.

After that bit of last-minute excitement on Opening Day, the Rangers now find themselves with an open 40-man spot and will be taking on the Cubs on Opening Night with Wyatt Langford expected to make his major league debut. Rangers baseball is back and we absolutely love to see it.

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