Trade speculation is running rampant this offseason with seemingly endless MLB players being rumored to be on the trade market. What current Rangers players should the Rangers be at least willing to offer in an offseason trade? What players should we absolutely not include in any trade talks? (I'll go ahead and say for everyone that MY is one of the players we want to trade/get rid of any way possible so putting MY in the tradeable list is not a valid answer)

Do not trade at all: Beltre, Profar, Darvish, Harrison, Nathan

Depending on what we're getting back I don't see anyone else untouchable.

The only untouchables should be Beltre and Darvish. I know most people think Profar should be untouchable, but if we value him that much...I would imagine there would be at least a team or two out there that would value him even higher than we do.

I don't view Joe Nathan as untouchable. The dude is 37 years old...

Nathan is untouchable because he is signed for just $7M next season and was rock solid last year. It's a pretty thin market for closers and their prices in free agency will be much higher than what we're paying Nathan. We'd also have to sign them to a multiple year deal which doesn't fit our model very well right now. If the cards fall in to place, Scheppers will be ready to close sooner than later and Feliz could possibly move back to that role in 2014.

I agree with JV that Beltre and Darvish are the only two you wouldn't consider moving. Martin really needs a shot here too. We've seen clubs overpay in prospects for guys like Harrison so I'd be willing to listen on him and Holland.

The real question is who would we want to move this offseason. The only guys who did much to increase their value in 2012 IMO were Gentry & Murphy. Cruz underperformed and is a year older (but he did stay healthy...), Kins had a bad year, Elvis now has one less year of controlability (is that a word?), and everyone else was just meh.

the easy answer Beltre and Darvish are NO trade but if the price is right everything is for sale.

Would it not make sense to trade Ian Kinsler? Profar obviously has the upside and can play 2nd and at times Kinslers defense is suspect when he gets lackadaisical, which in my opinion happens a lot. I would rather keep Andrus at short for the meantime because of his stellar defense and the fact Kinsler tries every time to lift the ball and hit a HR rather than get on base as a lead off should do; on the other side though a lead off who can hit HRs is never a bad thing to have. I'm sure some teams would bite at this. And I think Profar should be playing everyday next year in Arlington or else we're wasting his talent. Just a thought.

Gentry and Martin are two who come to mind but I want to see which of them grabs the bull by the horns in CF next year. The other may be moved midseason.

Murphy or Moreland, when packaged with a pitching prospect, could probably fetch a nice return. I would trade either one, plus a good prospect, for James Shields (Tampa desperately needs offense especially at 1B). Alternately, trade Murphy and a lower prospect for Wade Davis or Josh Willingham.

Nick Hundley (San Diego Padres) is a quality catcher who had trouble hitting in the spacious caverns of Petco Park. He has been passed up in the pecking order by Yasmani Grandal so is expendable. He's already been sent down to AAA so is imminently tradeable. He could probably be had for Julio Borbon and a lower MIF...

The Rangers could probably get Arencibia for around the same price and he is cheaper, younger, and hits more homeruns.

Outside of the the guys who we know will not be on the trade market (Beltre, Yu, Nathan, etc.) here are my non-tradeables:

Andrus
Profar
Harrison
Holland
Feliz
Murphy

And the guys who we should at least dangle out there:

Grimm
Perez
Kinsler
Olt
Cruz
Gentry
Martin

I definitely do not want to trade all of those guys but at least see what they are worth in the trade market.

Based on the market for short stops around the league and our 2 top quality short stops that are both cheap we will be trading either Andrus or Profar. And it's much more likely that we trade Elvis and keep Profar since he is so much cheaper and controllable or more years. I really see this more as inevitable than as a possibility, and I think the question is really, how can you maximize what you get for Andrus? I would say Price, but I also saw an interesting post on one of the other topics: would you trade price for a very high ML ready package of prospects that would fill multiple positions for us for years to come? If we could get a very good catcher, outfielder and DH/first baseman package I would listen to that too. It all comes down to the Rangers have an excess of what everyone wants. They need to use that excess to fill the holes that we have.

BTW I don't see the Rangers trading Kinsler since he is coming off a down year and just started a large contract. If they traded him now they would be selling him at a lower value than he is actually worth. But, if they managed to do this, that is the only way I see them keeping Andrus.

Apparently the DBacks ARE still dangling Juston Upton despite having traded C. Young too:

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/arizona-diamondbacks-considering-justin-upton-trade-110712

Upton is signed for 3 more years, Andrus - 2.

I wouldn't be upset if we did this, but Upton's a righty bat and we need a lefty one - otherwise our lineup is unbalanced with only 2 LH bats with power, plus we need a TORP more than a bat and including Andrus in a package could get us one.

It's a seller's market for SS's given how few good ones there are on the market, and Andrus' trade value will only get smaller from here on in the closer he gets to FA, ie. teams aren't going to be willing to pay as much next year for a 1-year rental as they would now when Andrus has 2 seasons left. Might be prudent to strike while the conditions are optimum.