Looking for left-handed relief? Here's a look at the projected trade market.
- Aaron Laffey is doing a nice job against southpaws for the Indians, and he's under team control for the foreseeable future. Rafael Perez should also be available, but he hasn't been effective in a while.
- The Pirates could move Jack Taschner and Javier Lopez. Taschner has strong peripherals against lefties, aside from hits allowed.
- Matt Thornton has been dominant and is capable of closing, but the White Sox might want him around for next year. He has a reasonable $3MM club option.
- The Orioles can offer a pair of veteran southpaws in Will Ohman and Mark Hendrickson. Ohman sports a 0.00 ERA, but he's walked 5.4 per nine.
- The Dodgers' George Sherrill is a non-tender candidate after the season, as he's earning $4.5MM this year. He's had a rough year so far, with 12 walks and 15 hits in 13 innings. The Dodgers have a more appealing lefty in Hong-Chih Kuo, who is superb when healthy.
- Teams would probably line up for the Brewers' Manny Parra, but he's currently in the rotation while Doug Davis is on the DL.
If Braves aren’t contenders, I believe Wagner will be available.
Scott Downs?
The Jays shouldn’t go after anyone. They should make Scott Downs available and continue with their plans to re-build. They shouldn’t be giving anything away in a misguided effort to compete for the playoffs this year
Sherrill isn’t going anywhere. His stuff & mechanics are coming around, and Kuo’s medical reliability is best summed up with “I know every pitch I throw could be my last”.
I wouldn’t really label Manny Parra as a reliever. Sure he has played that role for most of this year already, but he projects more as a starter in the long run if he can keep his head in the game.
You might want to knock the Dodgers’ players off that list, considering they’re only 1 game back after a 9 game winning streak. They Dodgers really don’t have much depth in LHP in the minors (Leach and Elbert are about it, and both are struggling), either, which makes them even less likely to move those two.
Kuo is far too valuable to the Dodgers to move. He’s easily one of the top relievers in baseball when healthy. He is also a huge star in Taiwan, which the Dodgers have been trying to capitalize on to bring over other Taiwanese players.
Sherrill probably couldn’t bring back anything of value considering his salary and they way his season has started. No point in trying to move him unless he regains form.
I wonder if the Twins would dangle Mahay as they have three lefties in the pen, this is assuming Mijares comes back like he could. But I suppose teams won’t offer up enough to entice the Twins to trade Mahay anyway.
I would like to see another lefty added to the list.. Scott Schoenweiss, just released would be fine and Joe nelson added to the roster as a R/H replacement. Having a LH reliever on the roster is nice, but they are supposed to be able to somebody.. ANYBODY out and Schoenweiss is unable to do that, much like previous discard Javier lopez that the Pirates seem to may want to dump onto some unsuspecting team, whose L/R splits switched sometimes from year to year as recall.
At least Joe nelson now gets a chance at least… Just called up with Beckett to the 15 day DL due to his back problems…
Aaron Laffey is projected to be on the trade market why exactly?
As you said, he’s under team control for the foreseeable future. With Raffy Perez struggling the way he is, Laffey may be nearly untouchable.
Indians have Sipp, Laffey, and Raffy Perez at the ML leve that are lefties. They currently don’t have a single left-handed reliever at AAA or AA. Sowers could be moved to the pen in AAA (was pitching there some) but he’s back in the rotation again.
Indians will be trading for a lefty before they trade one. Unless they find a partner for Perez that is….but not really holding my breath there.