The Dodgers made their first move of the 2026 trade season Monday, acquiring hard-throwing right-hander Seth Halvorsen from the Colorado Rockies, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Los Angeles sent right-hander Nick Frasso and Class-A outfielder Landyn Vidourek to Colorado in the three-player deal.
The appeal is obvious the moment you look at the radar readings. Halvorsen’s fastball has averaged 98.8 mph this season, which MLB.com notes puts him in the 98th percentile among big-league pitchers; a year ago he sat at 100 mph, dead last on nobody’s leaderboard and first on everybody’s. For a Los Angeles bullpen that has leaned heavily on soft-contact arms, that kind of raw velocity is exactly the profile they lacked.
This is not a plug-and-play addition, though. The 26-year-old has been on the injured list with right shoulder inflammation since July 4, and the results before the injury were uneven — a 4.74 ERA across 21 outings with 17 strikeouts and 15 walks in 19 innings. As Yahoo Sports framed it, the Dodgers essentially bought an injured reliever on the come. The encouraging sign: Halvorsen threw a scoreless inning in a rehab appearance Sunday for Triple-A Albuquerque, so the runway back to a big-league mound is short.
The cost fits the gamble. Frasso, 27, still hasn’t debuted and carries a 4.74 ERA at Triple-A Oklahoma City this year. Vidourek, a 2025 third-round pick out of Cincinnati, has hit just .170 with six homers at Class-A Ontario. Colorado gets two lottery tickets; Los Angeles gets upside without touching its top tier of prospects.
The timing tracks with where the Dodgers found themselves this morning. With Shohei Ohtani’s knee and Will Smith’s neck injuries thinning the roster and the August 3 deadline two weeks out, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman signaled he’d work the margins rather than swing big. Halvorsen is precisely that — a controllable, high-ceiling arm who costs almost nothing now and could matter a lot in October if the shoulder cooperates.
