Texas Rangers GM Chris Young Hopes Players Make Trade Deadline Decision For Him By Winning

Texas Rangers general manager Chris Young hopes a hot streak will "make it very clear that this is a team that can compete into August and September."

Stefan Stevenson/Texas Rangers on SI

ARLINGTON — Chris Young bristles at the thought.

In fact, he'd prefer it wasn't even a topic of conversation.

The Texas Rangers general manager was asked about the pending July 30 trade deadline and whether his club will be sellers, buyers, or something in between during his weekly appearance on the team's flagship station KRLD/105.3 The Fan on Monday.

"When people ask those questions, and I even have to think about us potentially being sellers, that's not fun for me," Young said before his club's 4-3 walk-off win in 10 innings over the Chicago White Sox Monday night. "That's something, very frankly, I'm not proud of, and the competitive aspect of my character comes out, and I don't like it."

Young, however, is keenly aware of the reality that the club has underperformed in the wake of their first World Series championship last November.

"It's my job to not only evaluate the present, but also evaluate the future and make decisions based upon what's best for this franchise this year, in 2025, and beyond," he added.

Young hopes the club makes the decision for him and his staff by putting a winning stretch of baseball together before the deadline. That means taking care of business against the White Sox, MLB's worst team, and the last-placed Toronto Blue Jays this weekend. The Rangers are four games behind the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners, who are tied atop the American League West.

"This is a very important series for us in determining where we stand and what we can become as a team," he said. "My hope is we really get hot and play really good baseball against the White Sox, and that carries into the road trip because the deadline is next Tuesday, and we're going to have to make some tough calls in this next week."

Young didn't see the struggles coming. Although it's hard to plan for the rash of injuries the club has been dealt, important players in the lineup have struggled to produce as they did a year ago and the offense, as a whole, has been unable to consistently produce.

"I'm competitive by nature. I came into this season with very high expectations, [with] a high conviction level in this roster, and really believed that we were going to be the team to beat in the West," Young said. "[The season] certainly hasn't gone according to plan in terms of some injuries, and we've had some underperformance, and we haven't been able to string together good stretches of baseball consistently the way we did last year and the way good teams do."

Even the teams calling recently to kick the tires on trade possibilities with Young have intimated to him that a Rangers run wouldn't surprise them.

"So other teams see what I see in terms of the talent on this roster, and they obviously envy some of our players; that's the reason they're calling," he said. "We have so many players who are coveted in terms of the trade market."

"What I'd like to see, really, is us get hot, win four or five in a row, and make the decision for us, make it very clear that this is a team that can compete into August and September," Young said. "I say this wholeheartedly: I believe we can, but I've been saying this for weeks to you guys, and every time we take a step forward, we seem to take a step backward, so I really want to see us start turning it on and progress to the level that I think we can. In that scenario, I'll gladly bet on this group of guys to go out and find a way to play really good baseball over the next two months and make a playoff push."

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