The Texas Rangers and Detroit Tigers pulled off one of the biggest trades in recent memory on Wednesday, agreeing to acquire Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler and some big bucks and now the team could be moving to another big free agent with Robinson Cano now that they have some extra money in their pockets.
Cano is the top free agent on the market this offseason and while some speculated that the Tigers or Rangers could get involved since they have the potential to spend big money, no one actually thought they would. Now that Kinsler is gone from Texas and with the Tigers, Detroit obviously will not be going after Cano, but that opens things up for the Rangers. General manager Jon Daniels said that he wanted to make some big moves this offseason and now that he has gotten Fielder, the team could continue down that road for someone like Cano, who would automatically upgrade the lineup even more than Fielder did.
The team got some terrible production from first base last season while mostly using Mitch Moreland and that's why the team went after Fielder. The team now could use Jurickson Profar at second base for the foreseeable future, but according to ESPN.com and the SweetSpot Blog, the team could be setting itself up to snag Cano. David Schoenfield writes that he thinks the Rangers were a sleeper team for Cano before the deal for Fielder and he says that now they are definitely in the mix after making the deal.
Nelson Cruz could be leaving in free agency and that would make it two seasons in a row that the team lost a slugger with Josh Hamilton also leaving last season and that could make the team go after Cano. Players like Carlos Beltran and Jacoby Ellsbury are also in the mix and Daniels could even look to deal Profar as well down the line. The blog writes that the Rangers could deal with the salary issues as well, as they will get money from their TV deal and while $300 million is a ton for Cano, it likely will be something like $200 million and they could do that.
Last season Cano was excellent while hitting .314 with 27 home runs and 107 RBIs and he now is firmly in the mix with the Texas Rangers, as their current payroll is now just over $100 million. News of the deal came down late Wednesday night and the two teams exchanged Fielder and Kinsler along with $30 million to offset the cost of the move and now Fielder still has over $160 million on his deal, while Kinsler has just over $60 million and this is the biggest trade in baseball since the big moves between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox.
The two sides upgraded positions of need and now the free agent market could get changed up a bit based on those needs. Fielder had a solid season and a terrible postseason, hitting .279 with 25 home runs and 106 RBIs and now the tigers likely will work on signing Max Scherzer to a contract extension after thinking about trading him, as they freed up money to do just that.
