Oakland A's trade rumors: Indians reportedly interested in LHP Marc Rzepczynski

The Cleveland Indians are interested in the services of left-handed reliever Marc Rzepczynski, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. The A's are currently playing the Indians this weekend, so as Slusser notes there is the potential for one of those deals in which the player just has to walk across to the opposing clubhouse -- much like Ricardo Rincon did with these same two teams in 2002 (but in the other direction).

The 30-year-old Rzepczynski is the definition of a journeyman, having pitched for five teams so far during his eight-year career. In particular, he has been traded at the deadline three times since 2011 -- Jays to Cards in 2011, Cards to Indians in 2013, Indians to Padres in 2015. If a deal went down, it wouldn't even be the first time that the Indians themselves picked up Zep midseason to bolster their pen.

The fact that Zep moves around so much is not a knock on him. He's a solid, reliable reliever, and a lefty no less, and contending teams can always use another one of those as a long baseball season wears on. Meanwhile, non-contending teams rarely have a reason to keep around a quality middle reliever (esp one who earns seven figures) when they could instead add a prospect in exchange. The cycle will likely repeat a fourth time this summer, especially considering Zep is a free agent after the season so there isn't even value to Oakland in keeping him with the future in mind.

Rzepczynski, 2016: 47 games, 3.48 ERA, 31 ip, 32 Ks, 20 BB, 1 HR, 3.52 FIP, 5 holds, 1 blown save

It's unclear what the A's might be able to fetch for Zep. It won't be much (a low minors lotto ticket, perhaps?), but anything is better than nothing. Oakland has other quality lefty relievers (like Daniel Coulombe) to carry them through the rest of this losing season, and then Zep is gone after that anyway.

This is a developing story. We'll continue to refresh as new Zep rumors come up.

Previous Zep deadline deals

Copied from Baseball-Reference

2011: Traded by the Toronto Blue Jays with Octavio Dotel, Edwin Jackson and Corey Patterson to the St. Louis Cardinals for Trever Miller, Colby Rasmus, Brian Tallet and P.J. Walters.

2013: Traded by the St. Louis Cardinals to the Cleveland Indians for Juan Herrera (minors)

2015: Traded by the Cleveland Indians to the San Diego Padres for Abraham Almonte