Can we trade Kinsler...he is the clubhouse problem

After last nights trade, I'm beginning to wonder if the plan all along was to put out the perception, to the Rangers fanbase, that the front office/owners were trying to sign or trade for all of these big name players when in fact, they really weren't. Think about it; if the payroll right now is $105M, and the consensus iseems to be this will be an 80-82 win team, it makes us competitive enough to at least keep the attendance at or very close to 3 million, agreed? Unless there is a steep drop in attendance, why wouldn't the Ranger's owners simply keep the payroll where it is and buy time until the fat TV contract? At that point, they could let the payroll venture into the $150M range... but until then, and again, this hinges on the attendance remaining where it is or close to where it was in 2012, why spend money now?
Also, has any team in the AL West really improved much this off-season? The Angels could actually be worse after losing Greinke, Haren, abnd Santana (Joe Blanton sucks). The Mariners will be better by default...but not much better. To my knowledge the A's haven't made any HUGE improvement, in fact they lost a very good SP in FA,, and then there's the Astros, which is no doubt the worst team in baseball... which we will play what, 14 or 15 times ?
I am not at all suggesting JD and co. didn't make an honest effort to improve the ball club. Likewise, I'm not suggesting our owners are nothing but money hungry cheapskates... but this is a business and if a business can continue making money without spending more money, they are going to do it.
Again, I'm not saying this is some big conspiracy... but with all the Rangers related rumors we've heard over the last 2 weeks, many of which were probably inaccurate but nevertheless, not 1 materialized... and I'm beginning to question what's really going on here.
There is NO way JD and co. think this team, as currently constructed, isn't 10-15 wins worse than the 2012 team after losing so many players via FA (assuming of course Hamilton doesn't re-sign which I think is serious possibility as his price tag is going up with each FA bat flying off the board).
I believe JD is cooking up a blockbuster involving young players/prospects for an established, modestly paid superstar (i.e. Stanton). Somehow/someway he will make this team better than it is right now, but he's not going to be able to make it BETTER than last year's team if he's tied to keeping payroll in the $110M neighborhood.
We are perhaps seeing the 1st sign that this ownership group see's this baseball team as just another way to make money, and aside from Nolan, their real concern is about making MORE money.... and not winning a World Series..
If we keep filling the stadium regardless of if it's an 82 win team or a 92 win team, their profit margin obviously increases with a lower payroll.
It's a business gentleman and while its easy for us to sit back and say they should sign this guy or that guy, it's simply going to come down to money.

Being more stupid than another stupid team is not the way to go.

Sure it's a business, but it's predicated on the fanbase that supports the business publicly.
DFW can be very fickled, with a large support of new band wagon fans. You can't fool DFW
Fans for too long.

Ticket prices have gone up. There are a lot of choices for entertainment, during the warm months,
when baseball is played. Drawing cards, as Hamilton, are good PR. Public business' can take a
quick nose dive from a record 3.5mm paying fans, but for how long? They'll need to feed the fire.
Season ticket sales, has always been the barometer. How far have they dropped in the last week?

A majority of people on an internet thread are agreeing with me???

I think I can see the Matrix...

Anyway, yes, it would be fun to see Profar, Olt, Martin, and Perez to get their shots this season. Plausible? yes. Probable? No idea, I don't work in the FO. World Series Caliber? I guess if Profar comes in a rakes (not Trout level, but is very good) and he battles Perez for ROY honors and Martin and Olt contribute in meaningful ways, we have a shot. That's a lot of if's though. One prospect underperforming shoots us down most likely.

Leave KINSLER at second, and move PROFAR to the outfield, cf or rf, this has a long history of success, moving a SS to the of. Recall,he was a PITCHER who wanted to play every day, so he has plenty of game and would be a much easier convert than SORIANO, and may have even in time enough power to resemble ALFONSO in that one respect. BUT DO NOT OVERLOOK LEONYNS MARTIN. Sign HAMILTON 4/$100 and play him in left. Consider SWISHER at 4/$60 and PIERZYNSKI at 2/$20 for c/ib/of if viewed as needed. BUT a HAMILTON / PROFAR / CRUZ/MARTIN/SWISHER OF with GENTRY and MURPHY would still be one of the best in MLB, toss MORELAND in that picture and 5 positions are well covered. BELTRE/ANDRUSS/KINSLER infield is still well loaded with ALL-STARS at all three positions, irregardless of opinion,based on reality of ALL STAR ELECTION. Eliminating NAPOLI, DEMPSTER, and 37.5% of MY's salaries nearly covers those additions.

les, your posts are really hard to read. Also, Profar doesn't project as hitting with the kind of power Josh does, and we already have enough outfielders that don't do that.

I think we can all agree that les could use some formatting help to make his posts more readable. But not really that big of a deal, his points will just be less cogent.

Anyway, I don't think a Profar move to the OF will happen unless one of a couple scenarios happens.

Scenario 1:

1) We don't sign Hamilton
2) We don't trade for Upton

Scenario 2:

1) We sign Hamilton OR trade for Upton
2) We trade Murphy and/or Cruz

I think the reasons for these scenarios are pretty self-evident. Mostly it would free up an outfield position provided Cruz moves to a predominantly DH role unless he is traded then the DH would be whatever OF has the day off from the field.

It seems like moving Profar to the OF (unless it's CF) would be a waste of his athletic ability. He could profile really well in center though I haven't heard any rumblings about that and it seems like if the OF was a real possibility for him they would have asked him to play some there in the Winter League. I'm kind of excited about the prospects of seeing a bunch of our young guys play significant time this year and I actually think that's the kind of team that Wash is best suited to manage so maybe it would help him be a better manager as well. While I don't really agree with Pablo's conspiracy theory, if the FO was intent on seeing young guys get playing time I think the last few years have demonstrated that they can't risk giving Wash veterans to play so I doubt we see them signing anyone who wouldn't be a massive improvement over what we have (like the Swishers and LaRoches of the FA market). I still think they're going to make a move before the season starts to upgrade the rotation or catching position but even if they don't I'm still excited about what they can do this season and still think they have the ability to compete for at least one of the Wild Card spots (an extra 10 games against the Astros will help considering that the AL East and AL Central have both improved). As far as Kinsler at 1B though, which would seem to be the plan given his comments on the conversation he had with JD, I think that when given time in Spring Training, he has the range and glove to be well above average there defensively which will help compensate for being average or slightly below average offensively. How many outs did we have to watch the Rangers give up last year because MY or Napoli (and to a lesser extent Moreland) couldn't dig the ball or catch it off a hop properly...When Kinsler gets comfortable there I think we'll have one of the best defenses in the league which will make our pitching staff look that much better.