Ahead of Trade Deadline, Rangers GM Jon Daniels Eyeing "What Makes Sense For Us Longer Term"

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers' season is in a tailspin. After roaring back from a 3-8 start to get to 10-9, the Rangers have lost eight straight games and find themselves falling further and further behind in the playoff race.

With only a week remaining until the August 31 trade deadline, Rangers President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Jon Daniels has confirmed what many have been thinking: the Rangers are leaning toward selling at the trade deadline.

An eight-game losing streak is a tough pill to swallow in a 162-game season, but it's not insurmountable. In a 60-game season? It's been nearly fatal.

"It definitely factors in," Daniels said. "We haven’t played well. Period. We have had stretches where we didn’t play well. Stretches where we did things well. Our pitching up until the last week or so had been pretty good, especially our starting pitching. But we haven’t put together a stretch of clean, quality baseball beyond a few games."

Heading into 2020, all talk of the Rangers' chances to compete started and ended with the starting rotation. However, there were many who were skeptical that the offense could produce enough or that the bullpen had enough arms to close out games.

Yes, the Rangers have had some bad luck (i.e. Corey Kluber). But there's a large enough sample size to see the offense has been even worse than even the skeptics could predict. Add in a dash of starting pitching getting blown up early in games and a pinch of the bullpen blowing leads, and you've got a recipe for a 10-17 team.

"You are not going to win that way," Daniels said. "I think this week highlighted some of those things, they weren’t the first time we had seen them. We saw it for an extended stretch. I think we are better than we played the last week."

Now, Daniels doesn't have much of a choice but to field offers for some of their best players.

"The conversations we’ve had going into next Monday’s deadline are probably more reflective of being open conversations what makes sense for us longer term," said Daniels.

Daniels said the Rangers will consider trading some of their big names, but aren't locked into any one thing. The hottest commodity this week will surely be starter Lance Lynn, who has emerged as one of the frontrunners for the American League's Cy Young award. He's under control through 2021 and comes at very cheap cost of $9.3 million next year.

As the Rangers decide if and when they deal some of their top players, they intend to let some of the younger players get an opportunity to play. They wasted no time in implementing this mindset by recalling outfield prospect Leody Taveras, who's batting leadoff and playing centerfield on Monday night.

"I think it helps the club in the short term but also uses opportunity to get him some needed development time," Daniels said. "It also provide us with some more information to make decisions this winter. We’ll see how much this opportunity will ultimately affect our decision on centerfield next year, but it can only help in providing some more information.”

The Rangers kick off a seven-game homestand on Monday, starting with a four-game series against the Oakland A's. They will welcome the Los Angeles Dodgers to Globe Life Field this weekend for a three-game series.

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