The Rangers are 37-48, and Elvis Andrus stuff

Scott Baker, Aaron Poreda, Ben Rowen and Shawn Tolleson pitched last night in a Major League Baseball game. The other team won the baseball game.  

It doesn't pain me as much as I thought it would that the Rangers aren't very good this year. I don't blame Ron Washington's managing or Jon Daniels for making offseason moves that didn't work out, and I don't blame the players for somehow arriving at the point they're at now... 11 games under .500. 

Because I still look at every negative situation for its silver lining(s), the romantic in me enjoys the idea of a minor rebuild. And when I say minor, I mean minor. Texas have been at the precipice of baseball's ultimate prize, given a little playoff fortune, for five years now. There's no harm with taking a year to regroup, to create another strong five-year stretch. That's the idea, at least.

Elvis Andrus's name has been brought up quite a bit around blogs and on social media, as a guy many would like to see traded. While I've yet to understand this sudden anti-infatuation with the club's franchise shortstop, I will say the idea reeks of panic for a team only a half-year removed from a 91-win season. Moving Elvis, if the Rangers were going to move him, would make more sense if it happened in the offseason. That's an offseason trade, not a deadline deal.

It would take ambition for the Rangers to hand second base to Rougned Odor (.263/.293/.298) in 2015, who to this point has all of 144 plate appearances above Double-A. It's also a fantastically blind assumption that Jurickson Profar could theoretically just slide back into being a shortstop after spending the last year learning second base, especially since he's going to be returning from missing an entire year with a torn shoulder muscle. 

I get that Andrus gets paid a decent amount of money, but as fans we have to be more mature than just wanting to ship guys away at the first sight of the team struggling. Elvis was given an extension covering through his age-34 season; were Texas really expected to be great for all of those years? The Rangers had the big picture in mind when they gave him that contract. 

Also Elvis Andrus is really good.

Happy 4th of July!