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The Indians have inquired about acquiring Orioles reliever Mychal Givens to help shore up their struggling bullpen, a source told Jon Morosi of MLB.com.
Source: #Indians and #Orioles have discussed Mychal Givens, among numerous players, in recent trade talks. Cleveland is prioritizing controllable relievers comfortable with appearances of 4+ outs, and that describes Givens. @MLB @MLBNetwork
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) July 14, 2018
As Morosi says, the Indians ideally want a reliever who has multiple years left on his contract and can work more than one inning, similar to their top reliever Andrew Miller, who they acquired from the Yankees in 2016. The 28-year-old Givens is under control through 2021 and has shown he record four or more outs, doing it 12 times this year out of his 41 appearances. Though he has 4.40 ERA and 1.40 WHIP in 47 innings pitched this year, Givens had success last year, posting a 2.75 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP in 78 2⁄3 innings pitched.
The Indians have also had interest in trading for Orioles closer Zach Britton. However, Britton is a free agent after the season and has had multiple injuries over the last season and a half, including a torn Achilles last December that forced him to miss the first two months of the season.
Either way, the Indians have to do something to improve their bullpen, which has gone from being the best in the majors over the last two seasons to being one of the worst in 2018. The Tribe’s bullpen ranks in the bottom three in the majors in ERA (30th at 5.39), slugging percentage (30th at .482) and OPS (29th at .805). A big part of their struggles is that they lost Bryan Shaw, one of their “Big Three” relievers along with Miller and Cody Allen, to the Rockies and another quality reliever in Joe Smith to the Astros in free agency.