Various Relievers Get Traded To Various Clubs in Various Combinations

It’s a big deadline for relief pitchers, even for teams that aren’t operating in the Mason Miller or Jhoan Duran tier. The Orioles bullpen continues to get picked over like a charcuterie board: Andrew Kittredge is Chicago-bound, with the Cubs sending Wilfri De La Cruz the other way.

The Tigers beefed up their bullpen by picking up Paul Sewald from the Guardians in exchange for a player to be named later or cash. A few hours later, Detroit sent minor league pitchers Josh Randall and R.J. Sales to Washington for Kyle Finnegan and added Codi Heuer from Texas for minor league depth. Finally, the Dodgers are bringing Brock Stewart back from Minnesota, with James Outman going in the other direction.

Let’s take those in order.

Kittredge was a late bloomer, reaching the Rays bullpen for the first time in his age-27 season. He’s a sinker-slider guy with decent velo — 94.9 mph on average. Hitting against Kittredge is like riding the pirate ship pendulum ride at a theme park; first he’ll throw the sinker waaaaay over here, and then come aaaallll the way back across the plate with the slider. It’s simple, but it works. Kittredge routinely runs chase rates at or near 40%, and when he throws enough innings to qualify for rate stat leaderboards, he’s usually among the chasiest relievers in the league.

The Orioles, quite reasonably, saw him as a high-leverage piece worth $10 million this year. Kittredge immediately came down with a knee issue that required a debridement and two months on the IL, and if that isn’t a microcosm for Baltimore’s season I don’t know what is.

He’s not an elite closer and he’ll give up the odd home run, but Kittredge has playoff experience and doesn’t walk anyone. He’s a useful middle reliever in a postseason context.

Heading back to Baltimore is De La Cruz, a switch-hitting shortstop prospect who got the highest bonus in the Cubs’ international signing class last year: $2.3 million. He is also 17 years old and yet to make the move over from the DSL.

Eric put a 35+ grade on De La Cruz and placed him 55th on the Orioles prospect list after the trade. He might end up at third base, but he’s so far away the Orioles might not remember who Kittredge was by the time De La Cruz makes the majors.

The Tigers are just getting back on their feet after a disconcerting 1-12 spell on either side of the All-Star break. Over that 13-game span, Detroit’s relievers combined for a 7.69 ERA and converted only one out of four save chances.

Perhaps the Tigers were chastened by that experience, or perhaps their thoughts were more in line with: “We have Tarik Skubal, a lineup that goes nine deep, and a nine-game lead in the division; the bullpen seems as good a place as any to tinker.”

Either way, they’ve poured resources into their bullpen, first by trading for Rafael Montero on Tuesday, and then by adding the three other relievers on Wednesday. There’s more name recognition than impact here. Finnegan would’ve cost an arm and a leg 20 years ago, but he’s a prototypical reliever who became a name because he happened to close for a bad team.

He is so reliable you can set your watch to him; every year from 2021 to 2024 he made between 65 and 68 appearances, threw between 63 2/3 and 69 1/3 innings, struck out between 60 and 70 hitters, and posted an ERA between 3.51 and 3.76.

He’s been a little less effective in 2025, as the one thing that was exceptional about him before — fastball velocity — has started to wane. Finnegan still throws relatively hard, and his four-seamer up/splitter down combination gets a decent number of grounders, but in a postseason context he’s more of a guy you try to steal innings with than a high-leverage needle-mover.

Just a few years ago, Sewald was a top closer, with a four-seamer/sweeper combination that for some reason nobody could square up. He wasn’t a chase monster, but he got a lot of in-zone whiffs and allowed very little hard contact. The Sewald of 2022 and 2023 could just lob a 92-mph four-seamer at the letters and expect to get a whiff. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like it.

He’s been less effective this year. Or, I should say, he’s been less effective when healthy, as a shoulder injury kept him out of action for about two months earlier this year. I’m skeptical that we’ll see Sewald working his magic on another long playoff run, but if he can be had basically for free, well, what the heck? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Heuer is minor league depth; his inclusion here is mostly in case you were curious what happened to the other guy from the 2021 Craig Kimbrel trade. There were the makings of a nasty reliever here, with Heuer’s unusual combination of extension and velocity, but Tommy John surgery at the start of 2022 led to an absence of nearly three seasons after he broke his elbow on the way back. Heuer’s been fine at Triple-A Round Rock this year, and even made it back to the majors for one appearance, where his fastball averaged 95.5 mph, down from 97.6 as a rookie.

I’m not that big on any of these pitchers, but Detroit also gave up basically nothing to get them. Randall is a big, low-arm-slot righty who merited a 35+ grade in the midseason prospect board update. Sales is a short right-hander who went in the 10th round last year out of UNC-Wilmington; he’s performed well in Low-A so far this year, but didn’t get a mention on the Tigers prospect list.

So let’s get to Stewart, whom Dodger fans might remember from a pretty forgettable stint as a spot starter and low-leverage guy at the end of the 2010s. A lot has changed since then; Stewart has gone from a sinkerball guy to a power four-seamer/sweeper guy. That’s possible because he added (and no, this isn’t a typo) nearly six miles an hour of fastball velocity between 2019 and 2023.

That velocity has crept back down a little, to the 96 mph range, but Stewart is still have a superb season. In 39 appearances, he’s struck out 29.5% of opponents, while lowering his walk rate from 11.9% last year to 7.9% in 2025. He is hardly an all-purpose high-leverage reliever, however. He’s held right-handed opponents to a .104/.178/.149 line this year, but lefties have hit .333/.415/.526 against him.

So Dave Roberts will have to pick his spots with Stewart in the playoffs, but that sweeper is truly unhittable for right-handed hitters, who make up two-thirds of the major league population. And “unhittable” is literal in this case; righties have swung and missed against Stewart’s sweeper 57.9% of the time this year, and they’ve only put it in play twice, for a total of zero hits and an xBA of .003.

Stewart is also under team control through 2027, which is a nice bonus for the Dodgers. Not that they’re short on pitcher futures or anything; they have so many arms just lying around you’d be forgiven for thinking Dodger Stadium is Dr. Frankenstein’s workshop. The Dodgers have 11 pitchers on the IL at this moment, and 10 more in the minors but on the 40-man roster.

And speaking of the 40-man roster, moving Outman clears a spot there for Stewart. It’s an inauspicious end for a player who once looked like the Dodgers’ center fielder of the future; as a rookie in 2023, he hit 23 home runs, stole 16 bases, and posted 3.9 WAR and a 116 wRC+.

Unfortunately, the juice in Outman’s bat is no longer worth the squeeze of his strikeout rate. Even in that excellent rookie season, Outman struck out 31.9% of the time. Over the past two seasons in the majors, that number has increased to 36.5%, with an in-zone contact rate of 78.8%.

Some players can get away with, or even thrive with, a Z-Contact% in the 70s. Rafael Devers, Oneil Cruz, Kyle Stowers, Randy Arozarena, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Elly De La Cruz, Teoscar Hernández, Kyle Schwarber, Riley Greene, and Freddie Freeman are all in the bottom 13 among qualified hitters in Z-Contact%. They swing and miss at strikes just as much as Outman does.

But in order to be a productive hitter with those contact rates, you need to hit the frickin frick out of the ball. Not just hit it hard, crush it. And ideally walk a lot, too. Outman isn’t doing those things, so off to Minnesota he goes. Maybe the Twins can fix him.

I don’t know if I’d bet on that happening, but we know how high the upside is when Outman is only striking out a ludicrous amount. Probably higher than any prospect they would’ve gotten from the Dodgers, in any case.

And the Twins have other chances to bring in prospects; they got four from two trades with the Phillies, and Griffin Jax is still hanging out in the bullpen like the last puppy to get adopted at the animal shelter. Might as well take a flier on a reclamation project, if only for variety’s sake.