Every Cole Hamels start is an audition for another team.

Six weeks until the trade deadline. Often, that is a time of optimism for bottom feeding teams like the Ranger.

But this has historically been fleecing time for Jon Daniels. Which means, it has been the fuel for the long slow decline of the Texas Rangers.

Daniels tends to have a hugely overvalued opinion of his players. Combine that with his being a historically horrible evaluator of talent, and Rangers fans should be cautiously pessimistic at the trade deadline.

He will act like he is sitting on spun gold and will say things in the media to suggest he has the best players this market has to offer and he doesn’t really need to make a trade and he can hang on to these players. But that is all GM-speak. He needs to move them.

He has Adrian Beltre. But if you are a team in the market for a third baseman, the Orioles have Manny Machado. The Blue Jays have Josh Donaldson. The Royals have Mike Moustakas. Meaning, the third base market has talent. Beltre, as wonderful as he is, isn’t the only game in town. A savvy trade partner has options.

In the market for a starting pitcher? J. A. Happ and Lance Lynn are two that come to mind. They are just as worthy as Cole Hamels. And much cheaper salary wise. The Mets are rumored to be willing to trade Jacob deGrom. He’s one of the top five pitchers in baseball. So the Rangers aren’t the prime sellers in the pitching market, either. If the Mets are really willing to deal deGrom, the Yankees have deep talent pockets to woo the Mets. They certainly don’t need what the Rangers have to offer.

Shin-Soo Choo is an on-base machine. But the Rangers will have to eat a lot of salary to get any significant return. Joey Gallo and Rougned Odor are a dime-a-dozen players. Anyone can hit a ton of home runs (other than Odor). So, their one skill set is table stakes in the league. The Orioles’ Chris Davis, for instance, in on pace to have the worst offensive season of any hitter ever in major league history. His line is:

BA: .150, HR: 4, RBI: 15, OBP: .227, OPS: .454.

Those numbers are pitiful. But are they much worse than?:

BA: .226, HR: 2, RBI: 16, OBP: .333, OPS: .638.

Or BA: .195, HR: 18, RBI: 42, OBP: .296, OPS: .739.

That’s Rougned Odor’s and Joey Gallo’s line, respectively.

Who would pay valuable prospects for either of them when you can shake a tree and get much juicier fruit?

So, basically, it comes down to, who do the Rangers get for Hamels and Beltre? How good is Daniels at the art of making trades? And how does Texas trade for a future that is brighter than its present?

For teams like the Rangers, this is what the next six weeks is all about.

*****
TODAY’S GAME:

Mike Minor (4-4, 5.35) vs. Fernando Romero (3-2, 4.17)
Game time: 7:10

The Rangers have never faced Romero.
How the Twins hit against Minor.