Realistically, Here's How Profar Can Stay Up

Perhaps the single hottest talking point regarding the Rangers in the past week and a half has been what the Rangers will do with Jurickson Profar.

The question was partly answered on Saturday when Rougned Odor, who Profar was called up to exclusively replace, returned from a seven-game suspension and Profar was left on the big club.

That night, Profar started at designated hitter and hit first in the lineup, where he's hit since his promotion back on May 27. Then, on Sunday, he did the same thing. The victim on those two days was the struggling Prince Fielder, who's in the worst slump of his career and has been bad without exception through the first two months of the season.

So it's easy, right? Just sit Fielder and let Profar play at DH. Well, it's not that easy, as much as it might just make sense.

The Rangers desperately need Fielder to get going, considering they're paying him close to $20 million (with the Tigers picking up some of the cash), so just sitting him altogether wouldn't be a good idea.

Mitch Moreland hasn't been much better at the plate, and the two have the same defensive position, but Fielder is far inferior with the glove to Moreland.

Profar is set to be used at all four infield positions, and the Rangers made it clear when they decided to keep him up upon Odor's return that they wanted to get Profar at least four starts a week.

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You know Adrian Beltre isn't going to voluntarily sit, not even once a week. Same goes for Elvis Andrus, who's having a career year at the plate. Odor just missed seven games and has solidified himself as the team's second baseman and one of the core members of the team.

So that leaves first base.

Theoretically, Profar could get two starts a week at designated hitter while Fielder sits. Then, give him one more at first base while either Fielder or Moreland sits and the other is at DH. For that fourth start, put Odor, Andrus and Beltre on a weekly rotation, giving them one off-day every three weeks. That gives you four starts.

Then again, if Profar keeps hitting the ball like he has been, it's going to be impossible not to give him six or seven starts a week. That's when things will get tricky.

Oh, and Shin-Soo Choo is set to return soon.

Putting it simply, the Rangers have a lot of problems to figure out. But there are 29 other teams in the league who would love to have those problems.

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