Dealing from strength

The baseball hot stove is heating up. In recent years, a lot of talk has been bubbling on the stove in Texas.
This winter's big issue is which middle infielder the Rangers will trade. Side issues are what can they get in return, how big the deal will be and how they might replace what they'll be giving up.
For my money, Texas would be giving up less by trading 2B Ian Kinsler than if they were to deal SS Elvis Andrus, swingman Jurickson Profar or Double-A 2B Rougned Odor. I'm leaving Double-A SS Luis Sardinas out of the mix because to me he seems the least advanced/talented of the group. But if a team would prefer him in a trade, I wouldn't hesitate to sell him high.
Kinsler is most expendable because he has virtually no upside, and all of the others have dynamic upsides.
I still think Andrus can hit for at least gap power, and his greatest value lies in his defense.
Profar didn't fare well in his spotty first pretty much whole season in the majors. He's not Mike Trout, but Profar will be an above-average fielder and a useful offensive player.
Odor is an overachieving scrapper. I'd say potentially a higher-end Jose Altuve.
Texas' No. 1 trade target seems to be Rays LHP David Price, the guy who kept the Rangers out of the playoffs in 2013.
The Rangers couldn't just trade Kinsler and call it a day. In order to trade him from an already shrunken offense, they'd have to make another deal to bring in a proven bat. It's quite likely that many of the scenarios Texas' front office has played out included Marlins OF Giancarlo aka Mike Stanton. Miami insists he is not on the market.
 Thus, the Rangers might be more likely to look to free agency for a bat, and they won't find one with Stanton's raw power or upside. They'd probably have to settle for OF Carlos Beltran or 1B Justin Morneau.
Another possibility would be resigning RF Nelson Cruz, but he's also on the downside of his career. Or Texas could try to pry OF Jose Bautista away from the Blue Jays. It's an intricate puzzle. Every move seems to require a counter move.
We could see the Rangers make a honeycomb or matrix of deals. They believe -- as do a number of other organizations -- that they have nearly sure-fire prospects at just about every position.
From what I've seen of their farm system, it's not as dynamically productive as it has been during the past several years. But other organizations are enamored of the prospects from an organization that has brought along way more prospects than their own system has.
Another scenario is that Texas could be shut out in the trade and free agency markets, as it was for the most part a year ago. That didn't work too well last winter, so expect the Rangers to make even somewhat less advantageous deals than they'd like to have at least a chance of moving forward.
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Just started reading a very interesting book that I've had for probably a decade. It's a SABR reprint of a 1925 book called "Batting," by F.C. Lane. I believe this was one of the bonus publications that SABR provides to its members along with its usual publications. As the editor of the old Baseball magazine, Lane interviewed many players during the first quarter of the 20th century. They're quoted with their opinions about batting.
One passage seems really relevant, given today's emphasis on defensive shifts. " ... In short, batting resolves to the brief but pointed epigram of Willie Keeler's when he said, 'Hit 'em where they ain't.' "'Where they ain't,' is something of a study in geography limited by the playing field and its immediate environs. There are certain zones of safety where the ball may be driven and allow the batter time to negotiate first, but these zones of safety can never be chartered, for they vary with the batter, with the opposing pitcher, with the ball field, even with the stage of the game."
That wasn't to say that teams hadn't developed shifts against certain hitters 90 or 100 years ago. Lane pointed out that opponents would overload the right side of their defense when lefty slugger Cy Williams came to bat. But clearly, today's computer capabilities weren't envisioned in 1925.
Even so, the idea of maximizing and customized defensive capabilities has been around for a century and it has taken most of that time to put the idea into effect.
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 Even before Monday night's game, I have won in one fantasy football league and lost in the other. I'm on a bit of a roll in the former, now 6-5 and I believe tied for fourth. The other league is going south, down to 4-7. Just 14 points from Peyton Manning, which just about equaled the total from the three RBs in my lineup. Bad day for Jordan Reed too.
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My fantasy hockey team is pretty much static, still fourth by a comfortable margin, half a point out of third and not likely to finish first unless the current leader collapses totally. With plenty of room to grow with my goalies, I have made a trade offer to the owner who leads in GAA and save percentage. We'll see what happens there. By the way, the goalie I already picked up on waivers was Jean-Sebastien Giguere.