Trade targets for the Rangers

Ten days remain before the trade deadline – baseball’s annual swapping frenzy. The past few trade deadlines have seen some pretty big names get moved, including Mark Teixeira twice over the past two seasons. Out there this year? The great Roy Halladay of Toronto.

Philadelphia has been the team most commonly linked with the Jays, although it seems that a trade makes too much sense for them. Whenever that happens, it never ends up happening. Maybe it does, but it sure seems like it doesn’t.

But the Rangers have been mentioned as a player in the Halladay sweepstakes (although I think the chances of the Rangers landing him are 5% at their absolute peak) along with a couple of other players.

So what do the Rangers really need? A couple of things. Just like everyone else.

The bullpen has been solid, especially of late, so I don’t think the Rangers really need to go out and trade for a late-inning bullpen arm. There aren’t that many great guys out there and I don’t really think any of them would be any better than what the Rangers have right now.

So, again, what do the Rangers need? One more consistent starter would be nice, and a right-hander that could be slotted in the middle of the order that crushes left-handed pitching.

Let’s tackle that first issue first.

Starting Pitching targets:

Ian Snell, Pittsburgh Pirates

Snell has been dominating his competition at Triple-A Indianapolis after struggling in the majors this year. One earned run in 26.1 innings and 34 strikeouts versus eight walks. In the majors, however, Snell nearly walked as many guys as he struck out while posting a 5.36 ERA. However, he has come out in the media and said that he has no desire to pitch for the Pirates. He also comes cheap, only costing $1.5 million for the rest of the season and $4.2 million in 2010. He probably wouldn’t cost that much in terms of prospects and could probably benefit a lot from a change of scenery. How will his stuff translate to the American League? That’s the biggest question.

Cliff Lee, Cleveland Indians

Last year’s AL Cy Young winner isn’t going to repeat this year, but that is not to say Lee has pitched poorly. His ERA is still at a very nice 3.31 with a K/9 ratio just .3 off his pace from a year ago. His BABIP is also a very high .334, proof that he could be in for a nice second half of the season. He has a pretty manageable contract as well, making only $5.75 million the rest of the season, with a $9 million option for next season. However, the Indians have constantly said they have no desire to trade Cliff Lee, so the package for him would have to be pretty significant.

Zach Duke, Pittsburgh Pirates

There aren’t a lot of negatives to acquiring Zach Duke: he’s very cheap (only making $2.2 million) and is under team control through 2012. He’s from Waco, he’s lefthanded, and is 26. However, he doesn’t strike out a ton of guys (less than 5 per 9 IP) and his BABIP is a little low at .274. Still, his ERA is 3.38, backed up by a respectable FIP of 3.98. A solid lefty, but how much better is he really going to get? And, how would he translate from the NL to the AL? It would take a couple of nice pieces to get him, although probably not of the Neftali-Holland-Perez-Smoak class. Maybe from the next tier down.

Quite frankly, other than those three guys, there aren’t that many stellar candidates. Brad Penny’s been mentioned as a potential target, but believe it or not, I’d rather have Hank Blalock right now. The Rangers could do a lot worse at the first base position, so I expect Hank to be entrenched at first base for the rest of the year unless someone comes around with a deal that simply blows the Rangers away (like one of the Giants’ young pitchers).

Middle of the order targets:

Victor Martinez, Cleveland Indians

Martinez had a very forgettable 2008, but 2009 has been a nice bounce back year. He’s still not quite the guy he was in 2007 when the Indians almost made the World Series, but he’s still a guy that would really help the Rangers’ lineup as an improvement over Andruw Jones. Martinez would get a bit of a salary jump with a trade, but would still be owed less than $3 million this year with a club option of $7 million for next year.

And…that’s about it. Unless you really want the Rangers to go after a guy like Josh Willingham (which I don’t), it looks like the Rangers are just going to have to get better internally. The guy who really should be in this spot is Max Ramirez, who looked like was on the cusp last season, but has taken a step back this year, mostly due to an injured wrist. Willingham does have fine numbers against left-handers, but that’s another OF in an already crowded situation. For that to happen, the Rangers would have to just cut Andruw Jones outright, which I don’t really see the Rangers doing.

So will the Rangers make a move? Probably not. Unless the right offer comes around, the Rangers are probably going to finish up the season with what they have and hope that’s good enough.

Lee pic: http://blueworkhorse.com/mlb/early-season-fantasy-all-value-team/