One of the big storylines to watch with the Rangers going forward this month is what happens with pitcher Yu Darvish and catcher Jonathan Lucroy. Both are pending free agents and Lucroy has already been involved in some trade rumors.

Here is a sample of what SportsDay analyst and the national guys are saying about both Darvish and Lucroy as the July 31 trade deadline approaches.

Yu Darvish

SportsDay analyst Evan Grant: "But I do think if you're Jon Daniels and you get to July and it does look hopeless - you have to have made a decision on whether you think Yu Darvish is the guy to front this rotation. ... There are some questions about just how elite he is. He is elite. The question is how elite. The only situation if you're the Rangers where you think you might get rid of Darvish and still be a good team next year is if you're convinced Shohei Otani is going to come to the big leagues next year and you're going to sign him. If you decide you're going to sell, be prepared it's going to be at least a full-year rebuild.

"There's not going to be a pitcher on the market who's going to be more attractive. You're going to end up with a lot of holes.

"I think he wants to stay here. He is comfortable here and for me, this is another real question you've got to ask yourself. This organization has spent 45 years trying to find an ace. You see Darvish's numbers here and they're as good as any pitcher who has come through here. ... If you are looking for that kind of ace-type pitcher, you haven't ever had a guy better than this. I think he's open to staying here, he likes it here. But if he gets the feeling "I'm not necessarily going to be wanted here" I think he'll quite easily make the adjustment and say, "OK I'll go somewhere else and sign my trade."

SportsDay columnist Tim Cowlishaw: "If the option to trade him resembled the Mark Teixeira situation a decade ago, I would more strongly recommend it. But Teixeira had another full season to go on his contract, allowing Daniels to clean up in that trade with Atlanta. No one is likely to give the Rangers a similar windfall for a two- or three-month rental of Darvish.

"But even as this Rangers' season heads towards the dumpster, the price for Darvish this winter is not falling. It is almost certainly rising as other potential free-agent pitchers struggle. The Cubs' Jake Arrieta, who might have ranked right alongside Darvish at one time, has seen his ERA go from 1.77 in 2015 to 3.10 last year to 4.46 this season.

"There is no good answer to this dilemma. The Rangers still perform under the weight of the Prince Fielder and Shin-Soo Choo contracts. As those wind down, taking on an even bigger one for a pitcher who seems to come up short of greatness when needed is unattractive.

"The club has had him at a bargain salary (not including the posting fee) since 2012. He won't be anything approaching a bargain beyond this fall."

SportsDay analyst Gerry Fraley: "It's all about the money. Do you remember a couple of years ago when the Yankees signed (Masahiro) Tanaka, the next spring Darvish made a - what the Rangers tried to paint as a flip comment that he thought that was too much money for Tanaka. They went into spin control. Oh, he's just trying to be funny. He wasn't. That contract of Tanaka burns at him. Look at the best game he pitched this year. It was against Tanaka in New York. He wanted to show people. He is driven to get a bigger contract than Tanaka. To show that he's the No. 1 cat out of Japan. It's going to be all about the money."

SportsDay contributor Matt Mosley: "That's a really hard thing to do if your team's in the middle of a playoff race. It's just not something that would inspire the team at all. I suppose if a team threw a huge offer at JD, he'd think about it. But you probably won't see that for a rental."

ESPN analyst Tim Kurkjian: "Well, he's got a lot options. That's the predicament the Rangers are in right now. Teams with a whole lot more money than they have -- and the Rangers have their share -- can say, 'Alright, we're gonna take a chance that any of these issues with Darvish -- and they're not major, significant issues -- but we're gonna take a chance because we can afford to pay him X amount when other teams can't afford to make that mistake,' and that's the predicament the Rangers are in. If he gets to the market, I don't think he gets back to Texas, which means they either have to trade him, or sign him, before he gets to free agency, and I don't think either of those things make sense because they still need to see exactly who he is, and then they have to try to win, and the bottom line is: They're not going to the playoffs, and they're certainly not doing anything in the playoffs, without Darvish and Cole Hamels, at their best, at the top of the rotation."

Yahoo! Sports analyst Jeff Passan: "One thing, sources said, is clear: He is very likely to end the season in a Rangers uniform, even if they do fall out of contention by the trade deadline, which, with the American League the postseason sardine can it is, seems unlikely. The Rangers want to re-sign Darvish, and even though it could wind up as a grass-is-always-greener situation if he were to spend August, September and October elsewhere, Texas wants to keep it that it's the only place he knows. The Rangers, similarly, know Darvish better than anyone, and their interest in bringing him back long-term isn't affected by his age, scar or innings. This year, they've seen a pretty classic Darvish season: plenty of strikeouts, too many walks and home runs, scant hits and a low ERA. The strikeout rate is also down and the walk and home run rates up, which is not the sort of thing one hopes to carry into his walk year."

Jonathan Lucroy

SportsDay analyst Evan Grant: "What the Rangers have right now, even though Lucroy has performed under expectations this year, with the play that [Robinson] Chirinos has given them, with the play that Brett Nicholas has provided at Triple-A, and with Lucroy even performing below expectations, he's been an adequate big-league catcher. ... And so what the Rangers are looking at is, 'OK, here we have a strength, and we can deal from a position of strength and we've got to address this weakness, which is the bullpen.' Now the tricky part is: Is there a contender out there that has a desperate need for catching and has a surplus of relief arms, or believes that it can trade a relief arm and still continue to contend? I think that's a difficult path for the Rangers to navigate."

SportsDay columnist Tim Cowlishaw: "If someone in need of a catcher inquires about Jonathan Lucroy, the Rangers have to listen. It shouldn't take much to move him and, frankly, the club won't be offered much. Lucroy's production at the moment (4 home runs, 25 RBIs, .256 batting) isn't close to what the Rangers were paying for in late July a year ago (13 home runs, 50 RBIs, .299)."

ESPN analyst Tim Kurkjian: "Well, certainly not anything close to the value he had this time last year, but it just goes to show you how fleeting baseball can be that he was so coveted a year ago this time, all sorts of teams -- Indians, Rangers, everyone else -- wanted him, and now a year later, he doesn't have the same value, so I don't think you can get a significant piece for Jonathan Lucroy at this point. I think you have to keep letting him play somewhere and hope that he finds whatever he has lost, but only in baseball can things change with a player as quickly as they do from good to bad, bad to good, over the course of a year."

Yahoo! Sports analyst Jeff Passan: "The Rangers gave up a haul for the year and a half of Lucroy's services: Lewis Brinson (who soon enough will start for Milwaukee in center field), Luis Ortiz (who is 21 years old and was pitching very well at Double-A before a hamstring injury landed him on the DL) and Ryan Cordell (who is crushing at Triple-A Colorado Springs). If (the Rangers) falter - currently they're only a half-game behind Minnesota for the second wild-card spot but in a tangle of nine teams within three games of one another chasing the Twins- Lucroy may go, if only to get something tangible back.

"Were Jonathan Lucroy the 2016 version of himself, there might be some chatter of the third nine-figure deal for a catcher, after Joe Mauer and Buster Posey. Instead, just a question: What happened to him? It's more than his framing numbers, for which so many executives loved him, cratering. Lucroy's bat is nowhere to be found, either. His .696 OPS is 21st among catchers with at least 150 plate appearances. Last season, of those with at least 350 plate appearances, Lucroy's .855 OPS ranked first."

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