The 2025 MLB trade deadline has come and gone, and the Texas Rangers did some things, though not necessarily the things that they were expected to do.
And of course, AJM has some thoughts.
First of all, let’s recap the moves from yesterday.
The Texas Rangers added:
Starting pitcher Merrill Kelly
Relief pitcher Phil Maton
Relief pitcher Danny Coulombe
The Texas Rangers traded away the following pitchers, all in the minor leagues:
Codi Heuer
Kohl Drake
Mitch Bratt
Skylar Hales
David Hagaman
Garrett Horn
Mason Molina
The Texas Rangers created 40 man roster spots by designating for assignment:
Dustin Harris
Blaine Crim
The Rangers also traded away $250,000 in international slot money which, whatever.
The Heuer deal, like the Dane Dunning deal over the All Star Break, was a move to simply clear a roster spot. Heuer was traded to Detroit for cash considerations, which is presumably some amount that is a little more than the waiver price would have been. Had they not made that deal, Heuer would have been designated for assignment, we can reasonably conclude.
Similarly, we can reasonably conclude that there was no real trade market out there for Dustin Harris or Blaine Crim, because if there was, they would have been traded for cash considerations as well. It doesn’t mean that they won’t be claimed on waivers — Minnesota, for example, only has 35 players on its 40 man roster after shipping off almost 40% of their active roster, and only 17 players currently on their active roster, so they may put in claims just so they can have bodies to fill out the roster.
But it does indicate that, not surprisingly, teams didn’t appear to assign value to either of those two. Harris, as we discussed yesterday, is out of options after this season, and simply doesn’t hit well enough as a corner outfielder to warrant a 40 man roster spot under those circumstances. Crim does have two options after this season, but he’s also a 28 year old righthanded first base/DH with a .283/.374/.487 slash line over four seasons in the PCL. One or both may be grabbed by a team with spare 40 man space, but it wouldn’t be surprising if they cleared waivers and remained with Round Rock.
And regardless, Heuer, Harris and Crim were all going to be 40 man roster casualties this offseason anyway, and none of them were guys you’d want to be using in a major league game the rest of the way.
(As a side note, I said on BlueSky that I expected Harris and Michael Helman to be DFA’d to create the two necessary roster spots. I was wrong, but I also forgot Crim was still on the 40 man, and would have picked him instead of Helman had I remembered.)
Speaking of 40 man roster issues, four days ago we did a State of the 40 Man Roster post in advance of the trade deadline. In that post we noted that there were just two players who appeared to be locks to be protected this offseason — Kohl Drake and Mitch Bratt. That was probably a factor — not a major factor, necessarily, but a factor — in their willingness to part with them yesterday, as it provides for additional flexibility this offseason in terms of roster construction.
As for the other four pitchers the Rangers gave up, well, they fall in the category of guys you’re going to be willing to part with in order to get guys at the deadline. Three of them were 2024 draftees — Hagaman was the Rangers’ fourth round pick, Horn was the Rangers’ sixth round pick, while Molina was the Brewers’ seventh round pick. Hagaman and Horn were both selected when they were recuperating from elbow surgery, and got slightly below slot bonuses, while Molina was acquired for Grant Anderson over the winter, when Anderson was DFA’d because the Rangers needed a 40 man roster spot. Hales, meanwhile, was a fourth round pick in 2023, and a pure reliever who has had some issues in AA and AAA this year and is described by Scott Lucas as “flaky, even for a reliever.”
Those four pitchers have value, and Hagaman or Horn, in particular, could end up make the Rangers regret giving them up at some point down the road. But if you can turn recent mid-round picks into good major league rental relievers, as you did with Horn, Molina and Hales, or as part of a package for a good major league rental starter, as you did with Hagaman, well, you do that every time.
Further putting the deals in perspective is Baseball America’s rankings of the prospects dealt at the deadline. Drake was the 14th best prospect traded, according to BA, in the top 150-500 tier. Because we don’t want to get hung up on ordinal rankings when talking about prospects in this sort of group, we will note that the tier went from the 7th best prospect traded at the deadline (Jays outfielder Alan Roden) to the 20th best prospect traded at the deadline (Mets outfielder Drew Gilbert).
Bratt and Hagaman were in the 500-1000 tier, at #27 and #31, respectively, in a tier that ran from #21 (Padres shortstop Cobb Hightower) to #62 (Mets pitcher Frank Elissalt). Given that the Rangers used Drake, Bratt and Hagaman to land a quality mid-rotation starter, someone you feel very comfortable slotting as your #3 guy in a playoff rotation, this placement makes sense.
Garrett Horn, meanwhile, was in the “worth a flyer” category, players outside the top 1000 prospects, and Hales and Molina were not even among the 92 prospects included in the rankings. Getting Maton and Coulombe for the rest of the season for three guys who BA doesn’t have in the top 1000 prospects in the game, plus $250K of international slot money, is a no-brainer.
And the Rangers dealt from an area of depth in making these deals. We knew the Rangers’ minor league system was light on hitting prospects, deep in pitching prospects — particularly of the middling, low-ceiling starting pitcher prospect variety — and so the expectation was that deals to be struck were going to involve shipping out that variety of pitcher.
Evan Grant had previously indicated that Drake, Bratt, and David Davalillo were guys the Rangers were willing to part with to get an impact addition. Maybe more opportunities or matches could have been made if Emiliano Teodo and Winston Santos and Alejandro Rosario and Jose Corniell were healthy, but on the flip side, those guys being present in the organization are part of what made Bratt and Drake and Hagaman and the rest expendable.
There was talk about the pursuit of David Bednar, the Pirates’ reliever who went to the Yankees and who has another year of team control remaining beyond this year. I imagine that the package the Rangers offered for Bednar was likely similar to the package that they ultimately sent to the Diamondbacks for Merrill Kelly. As we discussed in the aftermath of the Bednar trade, the Pirates were known to be prioritizing position players in their trade discussions, and got as the lead piece in the deal Rafael Flores, a near-major-league ready catcher who was ranked #19 on BA’s list, as well as catcher Edgleen Perez, #32 on the BA list and right behind David Hagaman on their board.
If you just go by BA’s board, is a Drake/Bratt/Hagaman package better than what the Yankees gave up for Bednar? Yes, it is...but again, this is why you can’t get too hung up on ordinal rankings. Teams are going to have very different valuations of players, particularly minor leaguers or amateurs outside of the very top ranks. The Pirates may well have had Flores valued higher than any of the Rangers pitchers, and Perez not far behind him. They may well have had Brian Sanchez, the third player in the Yankees deal, much higher than BA (which didn’t include Sanchez on their rankings). They may have valued the package similarly but preferred the position player package because of organizational needs.
Or maybe the Rangers didn’t make as strong an offer for Bednar as they did for Kelly.
And really, how you feel about this deadline is going to depend on how you feel about the Merrill Kelly trade, as well as the decision not to add a bat. Maton and Coulombe are no-brainer deals, guys who will slot into the bullpen in place of Luis Curvelo and either Cole Winn or Caleb Boushley. They are veterans with a track record of success, and they could be awful or get hurt because relievers are unpredictable, but these are the sort of moves any competent front office is going to make.
So, first of all, adding Kelly. The Rangers didn’t NEED to add another starting pitcher, of course. That wasn’t a “must do” on the trade deadline list.
Which is not to say that the rotation, as it is currently constituted, is without flaw. Yes, the 1-2 combo of Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi is excellent, and you’re going to feel extremely confident about any short series with that pair heading things up.
After that, though? After that, things are less awesome.
Patrick Corbin has exceeded expectations, but you know, expectations were never all that high for him. He’s rocking a 3.78 ERA, and those of us who remember TBiA are going to process that as a great ERA, but in 2025 with the pitcher-friendly nature of the Shed, its a 98 ERA+. Fangraphs gives him a 94 ERA-, which is 6% better than league average, but either way, he’s a LAIE.
Which isn’t a bad thing! But which is not ideal for a #3 starter on a team with playoff aspirations.
Following him up are Jack Leiter (4.09 ERA) and Kumar Rocker (5.74), who have shown flashes of brilliance and much inconsistency, as one would expect from very talented but still flawed young pitchers in their rookie seasons. Asking the two of them to handle 40% of the Rangers’ starts the final two months in a playoff race is a big ask.
The Rangers have other internal starting pitching options, of course — Tyler Mahle is expected back before the end of the year, but exactly when is up in the air, and even though he has a tasty 2.34 ERA on the season, he is sporting a 4.24 xERA, which doesn’t make one terribly optimistic. There’s also Jon Gray, currently toiling in the bullpen, and had the Rangers ended up with Bednar instead of Kelly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Gray moved into the rotation in place of Rocker.
If everything went perfectly with the rotation going forward, Kelly will be a luxury, one that we can argue was an unneeded addition. But with deGrom in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery, Kumar Rocker in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery, Tyler Mahle injured with an unknown return date (oh, and in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery), Nathan Eovaldi not a picture of durability, Jon Gray someone who makes Eovaldi look like a workhorse, health-wise, Jack Leiter in his first full major league season, and Patrick Corbin, well Patrick Corbin, one can see how the Rangers would decide that adding a guy you can feel comfortable rolling out there twice in a seven game series would make sense.
And Kelly fits in well with the collection of geriatrics the Rangers have in their rotation — if the Rangers make it deep into the postseason he’ll turn 37 while the team is still playing, fitting in well with the 37 year old deGrom and the 35 year old Eovaldi and Corbin. He’s also, you know, good, with a 3.22 ERA, 3.54 FIP and 3.88 xERA on the year, right in line with what he did in 2022 and 2023, and what he didn’t do in a bad 2024 season that saw him miss time after being ridden hard in the D-Backs postseason run.
This is a veteran pitcher who is performing like he generally has historically when he is healthy, and who you can reasonably expect to keep performing like this the rest of the season. He’s definitely an upgrade over Kumar Rocker, and he ensures that the Rangers’ success doesn’t hinge entirely on their top two making every one of their starts the rest of the way.
So with Kelly, the Rangers signaled they were going for it — to the point that the team has gone past the Competitive Balance Tax threshold, that line where Ray Davis has spent the past 10 months standing like Gandalf, arm out, shouting, “You shall not pass!” Go big or go home, right?
But you can argue that the Rangers didn’t, really, go big. The Rangers’ offense has improved of late, but was bad the first two months, and is still struggling against lefthanded pitching. There have been issues at first base and DH. If you’re going for it, doesn’t it make sense to go get a big bat to plug into one of those positions as well — or at a minimum, a righthanded bat to platoon with Joc Pederson?
(And yes, I know that there are those of you who think the Rangers should have also traded Adolis Garcia, maybe traded Jake Burger as well, shot Joc Pederson into the season, and picked up a new right fielder and a new first baseman and a new DH. Trading Adolis never seemed realistic to me if you’re buying — you’d basically be giving him away to get his contract off the books and opening a hole where there is no viable internal option to replace him (and no, Alejandro Osuna is not a viable replacement) as well as getting rid of one of the key parts of the 2023 World Series run, which I think would be a bad message for the clubhouse. Maybe A.J. Preller would have made such moves, but A.J. Preller is not the Rangers’ general manager, and Chris Young’s track record looks better than A.J. Preller’s in that regard anyway.)
And yeah, I don’t really have an answer for you there. Chris Young said yesterday that the organization believes in the offense, believes in the bats they have here...but after not adding a bat at the deadline, what else is he going to say?
That said, the Rangers’ have been one of the highest scoring teams in baseball over the past two months, which has been much more in line with what we expected from this club heading into the season. Joc Pederson is a problem, but he’s also hit pretty much his entire career, and he’s under contract for next season, and I’m not sure what bat you’re going to be looking at out there who is going to represent a material enough upgrade versus what the team no doubt expects from Pederson the rest of the way to be worth going after.
As for first base? Well, I have a theory about that. I wouldn’t be surprised if, down the stretch, and in the playoffs (if the Rangers get that far), Josh Smith is getting the bulk of the playing time at first base. With everyone healthy, first base or DH are the only spots available for him to play every day. He’s going to get plenty of days off during the season, and will play other positions to give Corey Seager or Josh Jung a day off the final couple of months, but if the Rangers are in the playoffs, I tend to think Josh Smith will be in the lineup every day at first base.
In which case, the Rangers already have their righthanded DH to pair with Joc Pederson. His name is Jake Burger.
Its going to be fascinating to see how things play out. The Rangers made moves to make them better, but so did the Seattle Mariners, and the Houston Astros, and the New York Yankees, and even the Kansas City Royals, who are trailing them. And Tampa Bay, also trailing the Rangers in the playoff race, did some buying and selling, and are apparently not throwing in the towel. The one team that Texas is realistically fighting with who didn’t make a substantial improvement was the Boston Red Sox, whose big moves were Dustin May and Steven Matz, and who are two games ahead of Texas in the Wild Card race.
But I will say, I much more enjoy deadlines where the Rangers are buyers rather than sellers. And the front office has made moves that give this team an opportunity to get back into the playoffs this year.
