The Texas Rangers are sitting a half-game behind the Seattle Mariners in the AL West. That’s nothing. A good weekend, a bad Mariners series, and suddenly you’re in first. But the Rangers know the problem isn’t the gap today. It’s the roster.
If you want to be honest, Texas has a decent team. They’ve got star power. Jacob deGrom is still Jacob deGrom when he’s on the mound. Nathan Eovaldi gives you innings. The lineup can score runs. But the bullpen? It’s been a problem all year. And the rotation gets thin fast after the top two guys.
The trade deadline is August 3. Chris Young, the Rangers GM, has been around long enough to know that half a game can disappear quickly. The Mariners aren’t just lucky, they’re legit. Best run differential in the AL. Top seven in hitting and pitching by park-adjusted numbers. So passive waiting won’t work. Texas needs to be aggressive. Here are two trades that make sense.
Go Get Aroldis Chapman. Again.
It sounds weird to type that. Chapman is 38. But he’s having a ridiculous season in Boston. Fourteen saves in fourteen chances. A 0.44 ERA through 21 appearances. He’s still throwing 100 and he’s still doing the thing where hitters look lost. The Red Sox, by the way, have a 10.7 percent playoff probability. They’re sellers. And Chapman’s contract has a mutual option for 2027 that nobody expects to be picked up, so it’s a rental with no long-term headache for Texas.
This isn’t hypothetical, either. The Rangers won a World Series in 2023 with Chapman after trading for him that same season. He was part of the Cubs’ title in 2016 too. The guy knows how to handle August and September high leverage. Texas’s bullpen blew 29 saves last year. That’s not a typo. And while they’ve added Chris Martin and Carter Baumler, there’s no real closer. Chapman would fix that.
Joe Ryan Makes Too Much Sense
Kumar Rocker had a 5.74 ERA in 14 starts last season before getting sent down. Jack Leiter got better in 2025 (3.86 ERA, 10-10) but the depth behind him is shaky. In a playoff race against Seattle’s rotation, which is built around Kirby and Castillo and Miller, you can’t afford to hand starts to guys you’re not sure about.
Joe Ryan, Minnesota Twins right-hander, is having a career year. 3.17 ERA in 15 starts. Ninety-sixth percentile in walk rate. Eighty-fifth in strikeout rate. He’s only making $6.2 million this season and has one more year of control after that. The Twins are going to move him, everyone knows it. He’s exactly the kind of mid-rotation arm who can eat innings and let you skip the bullpen for a day.
Texas doesn’t need a superstar in this trade. They need a reliable No. 3 or No. 4 guy who doesn’t panic in September. Ryan is that. He’d slot in behind deGrom and Eovaldi and immediately make the rotation feel less like a tightrope.
The AL West is wide open. Half a game in July is nothing. The Rangers have the money and the motivation. Now it’s just about making the calls.
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