Report: Rangers shopping Yu Darvish in trade talks

The Texas Rangers have now lost five straight games since they won their first two coming out of the All-Star break, and it sounds like they are planning to be sellers at the MLB trade deadline.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports is reporting that the Rangers have begun calling other teams to gauge their interest in starting pitcher Yu Darvish. Passan notes that the Rangers has chosen to start shopping Darvish well before the July 31 trade deadline so they will be prepared in the event that they cannot climb back into the playoff race.

Texas currently totes a record of 45-50, and they have virtually no chance of catching the MLB-leading Houston Astros, who currently have a 16-game lead over the next-best team in the AL West and an 18-game lead over the Rangers. The Rangers are 4.5 games back in the wild card race.

Darvish has bounced back nicely since missing the entire 2015 season following Tommy John surgery. The 30-year-old is just 6-8 in 20 starts this year, but he has a respectable 3.45 ERA and has struck out 131 batters in 125 1/3 innings. He’s in the final year of his contract, and the Rangers said back in March that they were open to negotiating an extension with the right-hander during the season.

While Oakland A’s starting pitcher Sonny Gray still has two years of team control remaining on his contract after 2017, Passan reports that almost all teams who are looking to make a run this year would prefer to trade for Darvish if the price is right.

If the Rangers decide they have no chance of making the playoffs this season, they could trade both Darvis and another front-end starting pitcher.