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Ian Kinsler Contract Lacks No-Trade Clause

Tweets from Jon Heyman and Jim Bowden in the same day. Yuck.

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As Heyman says, Ian Kinsler will soon get the rights that come with 10 years of service, five with the same team: automatic no-trade calls.

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That comes in 2015, though, so there is a very interesting subplot here. By at least 2015, we should know if the Rangers can sign Elvis Andrus long term, and if Jurickson Profar is ready to start for the big club. Without saying goodbye to Andrus (or perhaps moving Adrian Beltre’s contract), room is going to have to be made for Profar if he is indeed ready.

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The idea of moving Kinsler to left field has been discussed, but we can’t entirely ignore the idea of trading him. It would depend on a lot, but without a no-trade, the Rangers could move him wherever they like. With a contract that looks fairly valuable, he could be attractive to a lot of teams, and the return value could be better than taking a hit in Kinsler’s value to the team by moving him to left.

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There’s a small window for those decisions, but that’s all it needs to be. I don’t like the idea of Kinsler going elsewhere, and the contract makes that less likely, but it still allows for the possibility.

Photographs by jamesbrandon, jdtornow, phlezk, flygraphix, mcdlttx, tomasland, and literalbarrage used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.