NEWSLETTER
When your favorite team is an obvious seller in mid-July, and your favorite team has the most valuable trade chip presently acknowledged to be on the market, as a fan, you have to prepare yourself to be deluged by information, rumors, updates, etc. in the Internet age. To that end, allow me to do some dumping …
If you’re within 50 feet of Twitter this evening, you’re seeing two names in same-sentences that are making you uncomfortably overjoyed: Matt Garza and Jurickson Profar.
Arguably the top prospect in all of baseball coming into the season, Profar is the kind of uberstud that a team like the Texas Rangers simply would not trade (short of maybe a Giancarlo Stanton type deal), and would obviously never trade in a rental move for Matt Garza.
So, why are folks talking about those two names?
Well, Dave Kaplan says he just taped an interview with national reporter Bob Nightengale, who said that he believes Profar is in play for Garza. Before you lose yourself in the deepest, teen-agiest squeal since October 2011, we don’t yet know the precise contours of what Nightengale was saying (though I believe the interview will be up momentarily). It could be simply that he was saying Profar could enter into the discussions if the deal was expanded dramatically. Even then, I have a hard time seeing it, and Kaplan made sure to distance himself slightly from Nightengale’s comments. For now, I’d temper – if not just downright shut off – any Profar-related enthusiasm.
For now, you’ll probably want to tune in to Sports Talk Live on CSN, which starts at 5:30pm CT.
(And no, I’m not saying either Nightengale or Kaplan are “trolling for hits” – I just wanted you to know straight away when you saw Profar’s name that I definitely wasn’t.)
UPDATE: I was not able to see the interview, but I’m told that Nightengale said he thinks Profar’s stock has fallen such that he could be included in a Garza deal. It’s hard to know whether that’s based on a source or merely informed speculation, but I’ll stick with my initial reaction: it’s nice to hear, but I strongly doubt it. If the Rangers aren’t making Martin Perez available for Garza, then they definitely aren’t making Profar available.
UPDATE 2: Nightengale took to Twitter to downplay his comments, and this sounds much more like where we all were before this all came up: “Not sure how this got spun out of control from Show. The #Rangers would like Garza, and Profar is best trade chip, but no idea if any talks.” So, there you go. Things are as they were before: Garza ain’t netting Profar, and the Rangers probably aren’t dealing Profar in any deal this month.
