8 trade candidates to upgrade Dodgers' bullpen

Aroldis Chapman

It seems like Aroldis Chapman is just in a perennial state of being available on the trade market even though he hasn’t moved around all that much. However, despite being around as long as he has, he's still putting up results both for those that look at the back of his baseball card as well as for those that track the advanced metrics. He still throws absolute gas, everyone knows it's coming, and guys still can’t hit it.

Chapman has some additional benefits going for him. One, he's a pending free agent which will presumably push his trade price down. Secondly, the Royals are bad yet again so they should be motivated to sell. He does have a past suspension for a domestic violence incident (in addition to his numerous other questionable situations with the Yankees that could give teams a pause) and there's expected to be a bidding war for him, but the Dodgers have the spare prospect capital to get a deal done and not mess up their luxury tax math too much.

Scott Barlow

Another Royals player, Scott Barlow is an intriguing option if LA is looking to get a guy who is more than a rental as he is under team control through the 2024 season. While some of the counting stats haven’t been good in 2023, he has a track record of performance and he's still been missing bats this season, which bodes well for him over the long-term.

The primary issue with Barlow isn’t availability or performance, but potential cost. It's probably a fair assumption that the Royals are going to be very popular at the trade deadline, and while they will have less leverage when it comes to the rental types, that won’t necessarily be the case for guys with team control left. It all comes down to how much LA feels comfortable giving up for a reliever, but he should remain an option.