Rangers GM Chris Young joined the GBag Nation to talk about how he's looking at his team ahead of the MLB Trade Deadline, how a good week of play like last week can change a team's outlook on contending, and more!
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00:00I wanted to ask you about this story Bob Nightingale did about you guys being sellers if there
00:20isn't a dramatic turnaround I don't know if you saw that story but and I know you've answered
00:24this question a couple of times with us but it's been a week so I wanted to ask you if
00:28you had a statement about that topic compared to last week well I think we're evaluating all paths
00:34I mean I think that the reality is that we have to be prepared that if this road trip or the month
00:39of July doesn't go well that we certainly have to at some point look to 2025 that said I think
00:45I've been very clear with our local media and Bob Bob did not reach out to me specifically he got
00:50his content from other executives which you can take that for what it is but nonetheless you know
00:56I've been very clear with our media locally that I believe in this team I believe that this team is
01:00capable of a very big run we saw that last year we have not played our best baseball by any means
01:06and and I want to stand pat as long as we possibly can to give this team every opportunity to to go
01:12prove what they're capable of doing see why how much does that predicate though on the division
01:18that you're currently playing right now and how that you know you have to look at the division
01:22and say hey wait a minute now we had a good series against Baltimore should have won more
01:26games against him you come back you know the Padres and stuff but then you sweep the you know
01:31with the race but your division nobody's going to run away from you is that something you think
01:36about when you're when you're thinking about buying or selling when you're going through all this
01:40yeah absolutely I am looking at our division and the fact is that we're very fortunate with
01:46our record right now that we're not further back had we been in a different division absolutely
01:51we could be so far back that it would make a decision very easy for us but that's not the
01:55case and I believe that this team is as good as the teams ahead of us and that we if we play our
02:01best baseball that we can catch those teams and but we can't wait we have to start playing better
02:06baseball I think we saw that this weekend I think the team understands the urgency the coaching
02:10staff certainly does we in the front office and we're trying to do everything we can to put our
02:14best foot forward to to have a good month here because we've played ourselves into a little bit
02:20of a hole but that said this team seems to do it to play its best when their backs up against the
02:25wall and I kind of think that this weekend you know with with some of the players coming back
02:31it is possible that you could trade some pitching depth even though you're not technically like
02:36sellers or raising the white flag right well you know it's not something that we're actively
02:42looking for right now I love the group we have and I think that we're going to need that pitching
02:46depth in the second half and we're going to make a run so you know we may need to reevaluate that
02:52in 25 days as we closer to the deadline but right now you know with guys coming back yes we do have
02:58a surplus of pitchers but I think that we can shift some of those guys in the rotation to the
03:03bullpen which is going to strengthen our bullpen and maybe give us a chance to win some of those
03:07games that maybe we haven't won in the first half where the bullpens kind of let the game get away
03:11so I think we're very good at the back end of the bullpen but there have been some games where
03:16we've been you know middle innings maybe down a run and we haven't gone to our leverage guys and
03:21we've let those games slip away from us and so it's going to be important to hold those games
03:25close and give our team a chance to come back later in the game in some of those games that
03:30we're down early.