On Tuesday night, the New York Yankees acquired Zach Britton from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for three pitching prospects. Britton had been a popular target on the trade market, with the Houston Astros, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers among the other contenders who were rumored to have interest in adding him to the mix.
With Britton officially elsewhere, it's fair to wonder who those contenders might turn to in order to satisfy their desire for left-handed relief help. Let's take a look at five of the top candidates.
Jake Diekman doesn't have the best statistics (4.00 ERA and 1.83 strikeout-to-walk ratio). Still, contenders figure to have interest in him because of his seeming upside. Diekman combines a deceptive delivery, complete with extreme crossfire action and a sidearm slot, with a mid-90s sinker and a swing-and-miss slider that has generated whiffs on 40 percent of the hacks taken against it. He's a free agent at season's end, so whomever acquires him will have to work quickly. But there's reason to think Diekman could pitch better moving forward.
Adam Conley is more of a long-term fit in that he has three years of team control remaining. He's done well to reinvent himself as a reliever, adding velocity (his fastball is up from 89.7 mph last year to 94.9 mph this year) and improving his effectiveness. As with Diekman, he creates tough angles on the opposition due to his long limbs and closed landing.
Relative to the others, Jose Alvarez doesn't have much name value. He has been a consistently effective reliever since 2015, and does offer two additional seasons of team control. The Angels could just as easily keep Alvarez with an eye on contending in 2019.
Jonny Venters is one of the best stories in baseball. He's also not going to finish the season with enough service time to qualify for free agency. Venters has held lefties to a .544 OPS and had his overall numbers wrecked by a poor "opener" assignment.
There's nothing exciting about Zach Duke, but he's turned himself into a reliable left-on-left option. He's on pace to hold left-handers below a .600 OPS for the second time in three years and the third time in five years. One of those other years saw him permit a .604 OPS. In so many words, Duke could be a quality addition as a specialist.
