Texas Rangers reportedly gauging interest in Yu Darvish

The Texas Rangers have lost their last five games and while they sit just 4.5 games back of the second Wild Card spot in the American League, there are currently five teams between them and the Yankees, the keepers of that final playoff spot.

After numerous big trades that have depleted their farm system, the Texas Rangers could be looking to recoup some of the talent that they’ve given away in recent seasons. According to Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports, the club is sending out feelers as to what kind of a return they could expect should they look to trade Yu Darvish.

The soon-to-be 31 year old Darvish will hit free agency following this season, so for teams that are looking for a top flight rental instead of giving in to the cost of acquisition of someone like Sonny Gray who has a couple years of control left, Darvish would be the top arm on the market if he truly became available.

While Gray has been linked to numerous teams, including the Yankees and Astros apparently in hot pursuit on Thursday, or Ken Rosenthal making the case for a team like the Brewers to land him, there are other teams out there that don’t necessarily need to give up the haul that it would take to land Gray, and could instead focus on the short-term addition of Darvish with roughly the same benefit.

The Yankees could also fall into that category, while the Cubs, Mariners, Angels and Red Sox would also be in contention for Darvish’s services the rest of the way. Other teams could pop in like the Orioles, who are on a four game win streak, or the Royals who against better judgement likely won’t be selling this summer, so they may as well start buying. The Astros are more than likely looking for more of a long-term fix, but certainly wouldn’t rule out a couple of months of Darvish.

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This season with Texas, Darvish is 6-8 with a 3.45 ERA (3.72 FIP), a K/9 of 9.4, the lowest of his career, and a BB/9 of 3.0 which is slightly better than his career average.

His average exit velocity allowed this season is 86.1 miles per hour, the same as Danny Duffy and Zach Davies, but he has also allowed balls to leave the bat at 95 mph or more in 31.8% of batted balls. The highest percentage among qualified starters (150 batted ball events) is Robbie Ray‘s 43.1%, while the other end of the spectrum belongs to Brandon McCarthy (20.9%) and Alex Wood (24.6%) of the Dodgers. Rich Hill has the fourth-lowest rate here at 25.3%.

If Darvish were to be moved, the Cubs make a lot of sense as a landing spot. They’ll have some other free agents to worry about this winter, but adding Darvish adds to their depth in the rotation this season and would give them another option in the playoffs. Jose Quintana, Jon Lester, Yu Darvish and Jake Arrieta or Kyle Hendricks is a scary proposition in a seven game series.

It would be hard to imagine the Mariners or Angels winning a bidding war against the Red Sox, Yankees or Cubs, and add to that the fact that they’re in the same division as Texas and a potential deal may be a longshot. That said, they are the ones with the most need for starting rotation help of the teams that were mentioned and could be willing to give up the most for the upgrade.

Next: Midseason prospect rankings

Whether or not the Rangers actually pull the trigger on a deal here will likely depend on their play over the next week or so. If they can lop off a game or two and leap over a couple of teams, maybe they hold onto Darvish. If they keep dropping games and falling in the standings, he’s as good as gone.