Almost every contender will be involved in the bullpen market over the next five days. Trade prices for relief pitching are accordingly high every deadline season. There are plenty of obvious trade candidates who we’ve discussed for weeks at MLBTR (e.g. Luke Weaver, Brooks Raley, Antonio Senzatela). Most of them are within a year or two of free agency.
A typical deadline season also sees one or two relievers with an extended window of team control surprisingly dealt. Examples include Scott Effross, Huascar Brazobán, Bryan Baker and (in the most impactful instance) Louis Varland. The Dodgers and Rockies made the Seth Halvorsen trade a few weeks ago. They can be sell-high moves on a late-career breakout or one team trying to capitalize on the high demand for relief pitching — as the Twins did last year with Varland, Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax and Brock Stewart.
Let’s try to identify a few players who might be this year’s surprise trade chip. This is a speculative exercise, to be clear, and none of these pitchers have featured prominently in trade rumors thus far. The majority of them won’t end up being moved but are players whose affordability and performance this season should lead to conversations even if they’re not the most prominent names who’ll dominate the rumor mill.
Note: Chase Silseth was traded to the Rangers after this post was published on Wednesday afternoon.
Hogan Harris, LHP, Athletics (pre-arbitration, controllable through 2030)
Harris is quietly putting together a third straight quality season out of Mark Kotsay’s bullpen. The 29-year-old southpaw has worked to a 3.38 earned run average while striking out 30% of opposing hitters in 48 innings. He has picked up a few save chances as part of a closer committee in West Sacramento. Harris is averaging a career-high 95.1 mph on his four-seam fastball and ranks among the top 20 lefty relievers in strikeout rate.
The former third-round pick has struggled to throw strikes consistently throughout his career. Harris has walked almost 13% of opponents this season, but he has dialed in the command over the past two months. Since the beginning of June, Harris has walked fewer than 7% of batters faced while running a massive 39% strikeout rate over 21 appearances. While that kind of command probably isn’t sustainable, Harris can be a solid second lefty in a contending bullpen even with fringe control.
Harris is under club control for four and a half seasons but will turn 30 in December. He’s not a core piece for an A’s team that’ll have an uphill path to building a competitive pitching staff before the move to Las Vegas in 2028. The Twins, Nationals, Rangers, Red Sox, Orioles and Guardians are among the teams that could use a lefty reliever.
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