Brewers: 2020 Trade Deadline Targets The Brewers Should Consider

RHP Mychal Givens, Orioles

The Orioles have made a decent run here to start the 2020 season, but odds are their luck will run out and they will sell at the trade deadline. What valuable pieces do they have for trade?

Mychal Givens might be the one that makes the most sense. He’s under team control for one more season through arbitration and then he’ll become a free agent at the end of 2021. He’s been a solid reliever for the Orioles the past few years and he can serve as a quality setup man.

Givens can pack in the strikeouts out of the bullpen and has averaged more than 12.0 K/9 since 2019.

In 2020, Givens still has a pristine 0.00 ERA through eight appearances and eight innings of work with 11 strikeouts.

Through this small sample size, Givens hasn’t been getting quite as many ground balls as he’s used to and he’s normally closer to an even split between fly balls and ground balls.

Givens has a fastball-slider-changeup combo, sitting in the mid-90s with the heater, followed by a mid-80s slider and a low-80s changeup. He’s increased his changeup usage over the past few years and decreased his high fastball usage. His slider grades out as the best of his pitches.

The cost to acquire Givens, again, should be relatively low. He’s on a cheap contract, under control for one more season, which will boost the price tag a little bit over a pure rental, and he’s not seen as a closer.

A low level prospect or two should do it, but only guys on the 60 man player pool are eligible to be dealt. A guy like Justin Topa might be someone who would be included in a deal like this.

The Brewers still have a little bit of time to determine how they will approach this trade deadline. The main need for help looks to be on offense and finding someone to replace Lorenzo Cain in the outfield. However, pitching can never be ruled out either.