Colorado Rockies trade rumors: Packaging Mychal Givens with Trevor Story to Oakland could be intriguing for both sides

Earlier today, Eno Sarris of The Athletic (subscription required) looked at some acquisitions that some teams should make in the coming days before the trade deadline. We already looked at one of them earlier today in the Toronto Blue Jays being interested in Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Jon Gray but Sarris had another one in there: trading both shortstop Trevor Story and relief pitcher Mychal Givens to the Oakland Athletics.

Oakland’s need for a shortstop has long been known (and we discussed that fact in this article more than five weeks ago) and things still haven’t gotten better for Oakland. Overall, Oakland’s shortstops have a wRC+ of 58 on the season, which is 29th in baseball so the need is obvious.

However, if the Rockies don’t get the deal that they like with Story, they could package Mychal Givens in with him to get a better return.

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Colorado Rockies reliever Mychal Givens could be a huge get for the Oakland A’s

As Sarris notes in the article, Givens would be going from a hitter-friendly park in Coors Field (and previously, Oriole Park at Camden Yards) and going to an extreme pitchers park in the Oakland.

He also hasn’t faced the AL West a ton in his career since he has pitched in the AL East and NL West. As Sarris puts it, “[t]hat’s a good recipe for short-term success.”

Oakland’s bullpen has been in the top third of baseball for most of the season (10th in bullpen ERA on the year, 8th in bullpen ERA since June 1). However, the A’s acquired left-handed reliever Andrew Chafin today.

They still do have Burch Smith in their bullpen and he has an ERA of 5.47 on the season. The rest of the bullpen (including Chafin) has an ERA of 4.09 or below. Chafin, Lou Trivino, Yusmeiro Petit, Jake Diekman, and Deolis Guerra all have ERA’s of 3.26 or lower entering Tuesday so they definitely wanted to improve their bullpen but whether they will be in the market for Givens now remains to be seen.