{"id":832198,"date":"2026-07-29T22:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/832198\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T22:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:57:09","slug":"10-controllable-bullpen-trade-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/832198\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Controllable Bullpen Trade Candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019ve discussed for weeks at MLBTR (e.g. Luke Weaver<\/a>,\u00a0Brooks Raley<\/a>,\u00a0Antonio Senzatela<\/a>). Most of them are within a year or two of free agency.<\/p>\n

A typical deadline season also sees one or two relievers with an extended window of team control surprisingly dealt. Examples include Scott Effross<\/a>, Huascar Brazob\u00e1n<\/a>, Bryan Baker<\/a> and (in the most impactful instance) Louis Varland<\/a>. The Dodgers and Rockies made the Seth Halvorsen<\/a> 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 \u2014 as the Twins did last year with Varland, Jhoan Duran<\/a>,\u00a0Griffin Jax<\/a> and\u00a0Brock Stewart<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s try to identify a few players who might be this year\u2019s 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\u2019t end up being moved but are players whose affordability and performance this season should lead to conversations even if they\u2019re not the most prominent names who\u2019ll dominate the rumor mill.<\/p>\n

Hogan Harris<\/a>, LHP, Athletics (pre-arbitration, controllable through 2030)<\/p>\n

Harris is quietly putting together a third straight quality season out of Mark Kotsay\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t sustainable, Harris can be a solid second lefty in a contending bullpen even with fringe control.<\/p>\n

Harris is under club control for four and a half seasons but will turn 30 in December. He\u2019s not a core piece for an A\u2019s team that\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n


\n Unlock Subscriber-Exclusive Articles Like This One With a Trade Rumors Front Office Subscription<\/p>\n


\n Access weekly subscriber-only articles by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams, and Anthony Franco.
\n Join exclusive weekly live chats with Anthony.
\n Remove ads and support our writers.
\n Access GM-caliber tools like our MLB Contract Tracker <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost every contender will be involved in the bullpen market over the next five days. Trade prices for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,346970,591,85],"class_list":["post-832198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-hogan-harris","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}