Don't get me wrong, I love Stanton, and I am sure he would put up video game numbers in Arlington, but I'm sure most of us would rather have 2 impact players over one. I'm sure there is a legit chance that Stanton could have some 8-10 WAR seasons but I'd rather have 4-6 WAR seasons from each Profar and Upton. Look the way I see it, I'd rather give up a decent amount for Upton and extend him for 135ish over 6 years than sell the farm for Profar and pay 200+ to keep Stanton. These are just my opinions. I started this thread because I wanted to know what yall prefer, trading for Upton or trading for Stanton.

not Upton. I do not view him as much of an upgrade. Stanton is a game changer.

And Upton isn't?

sell the farm for Profar and pay 200+ to keep Stanton.

I meant sell the farm for Stanton.

Playing Gentry 5 and Martin 4 full time with Murphy 3 will net the same WAR as platooning Martin/Gentry 5, playing Murphy 3 and trading for Upton 4, IMO (and save $135 M and prospects!).

I do, however like Gentry 5, Martin 4 and Stanton 6 or 8.

i was ruminating along the same lines. Assume in a perfect Ranger world (so by definition probably an unrealistic assumption), that the Rangers could convert Olt plus into Upton and Profar plus a lot into Stanton, would the team be better with a marginal SS . Or, as posited, would Profar and Upton minus Olt plus, be better?

To add to the confusion, would the Ranger farm assets be better spent on a TORP or Ace?

I see a better future with pitching upgrades rather than hitting improvements .

The Gentry being a 5 WAR player is a joke right? Craig Gentry isn't on the same level as Upton. And it's kinda hard to assume that Martin will develop into a 4 WAR player without watching him get consistent AB's at the big league level.
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@primi: Personally I never explored the possibility of getting both Upton and Stanton but I figure we would have to completely deplete our farm for that. Although now I am dreaming of an Upton - Hamilton - Stanton outfield and how ridiculously awesome that would have been. But I see where trading for a TORP is a nice asset to have. The thought of trading for someone like Price adds another element to this team (back to dreaming of a Price - Darvish - Greinke - Harrison - Holland rotation). Personally I feel like trading for a corner outfielder better suits the needs of this team at the current position, mostly because I am reluctant to part with Profar. I always feel like there is a top pitcher available on the trade market, for example Lee, Greinke, DIckey, Price, whereas top bats usually don't switch teams via trade as often. I just feel like we will have later oppurtunities to trade for TORPs but we may not have too many opportunities to trade for impact bats.

Primi, if a team had to just rank position, and had a choice of all star level, they would take up the middle nearly every time, so no it is not worth going with a marginal shortstop if your target is going all the way. When a team actually has two high level shortstops, a team must get equal value. For example, it is not the Diamondbacks that are holding up an Upton for Andrus, even after obtaining Gregorius, it is the Rangers. This may even explain why they have yet to move Upton or Kubel, for they are waiting for the Rangers to give in first. As good as Profar projects, he has yet to have an Andrus rookie year, and until proven is still just a prospect, a very good one, but a prospect. So the Rangers plan is very clear, hang on to both. With the signing of Berkman, a bat is not as much an absolute need. Therefore, the Rangers could wait for the Diamondbacks to blink, but they will likely go somewhere else to move an outfielder.

Well Rosenthal made it seem as if the Rangers just recently became open to the idea of including Perez/Buckel in the Olt deal with a lower high end prospect. If that's the case, and it will get Upton, then hopefully that happens this week. Our lineup would again be top 3 in the AL.

Kinsler-1B
Andrus-SS
Berkman-DH
Beltre-3B
Murphy-LF
Upton-RF
AJP-C
Gentry/Martin-CF
Profar-2B

Bench
Cruz
Moreland
Gentry/Martin
Soto
Utility-Rotate w/ Profar and Kinsler

That's pretty awesome on paper.

P1 Stephen: Let me ask you this. Now that we have Berkman, and if we got Upton, which Im cool with, then we have either Cruz or Murphy on the bench, both .800OPS type of guys. So, if we dont trade for Upton, then we have Cruz and Murphy both on the field. So, would you rather have Cruz for Free or Upton for Olt and more?

I do get that Cruz and Murph both only have 1 year left and Upton would have 3. It almost seems like we could do without Upton this year, but could use him in following 2 years with Berkman, Cruz, and Murph all leaving possibly.

I'd rather have Upton and trade Cruz for whatever to get his salary off the books. But as we've seen year after year, injuries happen all the time. Having Cruz as an insurance policy to Berkman, Upton and Murphy isn't necessarily a problem for the roster as much as it is a problem for the accountant.

You neglected to mention what you are giving up for Upton. If it's Andrus, then no. I'd rather have Andrus and Stanton, than Profar and Upton. Because I think we could put Olt at a CoF and he could end up putting up numbers that aren't much worse than what Upton can do if at all (I'm of the opinion he's not all that).

Stanton can be a genuine game changer. If Miami was willing, Id give up Profar for him in a heartbeat. Stanton is a guaranteed superstar, Profar for all the hype is not. His floor is high but his floor still remains something like a good solid but not outstanding everyday ball player. And his ceiling is not as high as Stanton's. It's a no brainer.

Profar (6 years) + Upton (3 years) > Elvis (2 years) + Stanton (4 years)

I can see Profar bagging between 24.0-30.0 WAR in 6 years. That's an average of between 4.0 and 5.0 WAR per season. Not terribly unrealistic. In fact, probable. Upton could be an MVP in Arlington. I could see him generating 14.0-20.0 WAR in three years here, given he has a 6.5+ WAR MVP season -- which is how highly I think of him.

Between the two, a safe assumption is 35.0 wins in the 9 combined years.

With Elvis, who's a pretty static 4.0-5.0 fWAR player at this point, because he's never going to pop even a meager 12-15 home runs. People want to talk about his "improving" bat. Well, we said that two years ago. We said that last year. Let's assume his offense marginally increases and he produces 10 wins over the last two years of his contract. Cool. Would you then expect Giancarlo Stanton to produce 25.0 wins by himself in 4 years? That's an average of 6+ wins/year. It's certainly doable, but is it something you're absolutely banking on?

Then, once Elvis is gone to the Yankees, who assumes the position of shortstop? Are we counting on Luis Sardinas to be as good as he's projected to be?

I'm assuming we'd have to give up Elvis to get Upton, and Profar to get Stanton. The problem with giving up Profar -- in any deal -- is the amount of wins we'll be losing two years from now when Elvis is gone. I, for one, am not comfortable giving up Jurickson Profar and paying Elvis Andrus between $150-$180 million.

Basically what Eric said. Not to mention the cost of extending Upton is cheaper than extending Stanton.
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I still don't see a way to make the roster work with both Upton and Cruz unless Moreland is traded and they move Cruz to first base.

The way the lineup will work is with the same scenario that the Diamondbacks face, and their solution would have been moving Upton to center. Then it becomes clear why the Diamondbacks want to move Upton, or hopefully for them a great deal involving Kubel. The reason, EATON is ready to take over center, and Parra is a solid centerfielder. The Rangers may even be targeting the wrong Arizona outfielder if that is the Diamondbacks plan with Upton. But so far trade discussions on Parra have not yet been their focus. I firmly believe MARTIN is ready to follow his first string x-teammate, and put up a near Cespedes season, with a tad less power and more defense. So, if somehow Upton does end up on the Rangers, and knowing WASH'S tendencies, the outfield will be : Murphy- Upton-Cruz from left to right. Even now, the Rangers have a plethora of #3 TO #6 hitters, that making out a lineup will slight somewhat when you slot them in the #8 or #9 hole, but that is a very good thing. The current outfield: Murphy-Martin-Cruz is okay. But there is a dark horse, whose tools may even approximate Upton's and is ready for breakout, actually now or never, and that is none other then ENGEL BELTRE.

I'm sorry, but through all of these posts, everybody assumes that Murphy is an everyday player. As much as I love his personality, and attitude, he's NOT an everyday player. At best, he's a fourth outfielder, who had a career year, in the last two-thirds of the season. If there's a deal for a CO, it will be to move Murphy to the bench, which is his best position. As an FA next year, he will be allowed to walk, as he's not worth a qualifying offer. The expected current OF alignment, with Murphy, Martin/Gentry, and Cruz, is relatively weak, defensively, especially on the corners. I expect that will be one area addressed during the season. It could be that Olt will be a super utility type, used at all 4 corners, and the middle infield will be a round robin of Andrus/Kinsler/Profar.

Gentry at 5 WAR is based on Baseball Reference.

Thank you, Yu4ik. I agree. If we're assuming Murphy is anything more than average as an everyday player, we've got a problem.

Yu, yes ideally Murphy is a 4th outfielder. He however has had pa of: 454, 495. 471, 440 and 521 the last 5 years. That high number removes him from that definition into semi-regular or even regular-rested facing top rated lefties. This was with Hamilton, now that he is gone guess who picks up some of those at bats. Thus, Wash will pencil Murphy into the lineup on a basis much greater than just a platoon and play, barring injury, at least his usual 130 games.

Craig Gentry put up 2.8 WAR last year in a platoon that made him look significantly better than he really is as an everyday player. Don't get me wrong, Craig is a great platoon player who quite possibly could put up 2 WAR playing solely against lefties but by no means is he remotely close to being a 5 WAR player.
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David Murphy posted a 860 OPS last year playing in basically 150 games. In the process he put up over 3 WAR. He also put up a 124 OPS+. David Murphy is an above average everyday player. STOP THE HATE.

Career wise, Gentry has faced RHP 50% of the time. His defense is good against RHP as well as LHP, of course. He is good for 5 WAR.

Career wise, Gentry has faced RHP 50% of the time. His defense is good against RHP as well as LHP, of course. He is good for 5 WAR.

Craig Gentry is not a 5 fWAR player, and I'm about as high on Craig Gentry as anyone out there. Like David Murphy, he is a platoon outfielder.

He's never accumulated north of 154 plate appearances in the Majors against right-handed pitching in an individual season; that was last year, and he produced a triple slash of .277/.325/.362 (83 wRC+). Even though that's not terrible for a burner/defensive specialist, it's still an insanely small sample, and would likely continue to dip the more he was exposed to righty pitching, extrapolated over an entire season.

To be fair, he sat at .343/.425/.434 (136 wRC+) against lefties, but even that was only 115 PA's.

David Murphy's production should dramatically decrease against lefties in 2013, at which case I'm hoping we utilize a guy like Mike Olt in a COF role.

Elvis will make a lot of money, but I don't see him getting anywhere near $180m. Even $150m seems like a pretty big stretch. There's no precedent for that kind of contract for a player who's more valuable for his defense than his offense. Not in recent history, anyway. Making a prediction like that is mostly conjecture.

That said, I do think Elvis will probably cost enough that the Rangers can't plan on him being a Ranger forever. And we know they aren't making that assumption; that would be naive.

Elvis will make a lot of money, but I don't see him getting anywhere near $180m. Even $150m seems like a pretty big stretch. There's no precedent for that kind of contract for a player who's more valuable for his defense than his offense. Not in recent history, anyway. Making a prediction like that is mostly conjecture.

It might be conjecture, but it's conjecture based in reality. You're right, there is no precedent of a player like Elvis receiving that type of sum. But we're talking about a different era of thinking. If you factor in inflation, new television revenue, and the fact that Elvis plays a premium, scarce position, I don't think $150 million is out of the question. I don't even think $180-$200 million is out of the question.

He's going to hit free agency at age-26, and he's already one of the three best at his position in the Major Leagues. That means, if he signed an 8-10 year deal, he'll still technically be in his prime for well over half that time. If you also factor in the fact that teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, and probably Dodgers, will all be in the market for shortstops, then yeah, I think that price can escalate rather quickly.

I understand where you're coming from, but if the price of WAR ascends into the $5.5-$6.0 million territory by 2015 -- which it will -- then Elvis will be due for at least $18-$20 million AAV, and deservingly so. Multiply that by an expected 7-10 year contract, and we're talking about a lot of money.

I bet if any front office people read this forum they are rolling on the floor laughing.