The Rockies and Dodgers are slated for an intra-division trade that would see a hard-fought deal Seth Halvorsen move from Colorado to LA for a minor league righty Nick Frasso and a minor league pitcher Landyn Vidourek. The teams announced the exchange. Halvorsen is currently on the 15-day disabled list with shoulder inflammation, so he will head to Triple-A Oklahoma City to finish the rehab he just started. The Dodgers can then decide whether to officially option him out of the draft or bring him straight into the big league bullpen.
The 26-year-old Halvorsen brings great fastball speed, swing command and more than five seasons of club control to the Dodgers. Colorado’s seventh-round pick back in 2023, he made an appearance in the majors within a year of being drafted and has now totaled 71 innings over parts of three major league seasons. He posted a pedestrian 4.31 ERA during that span but did so with a high velocity (99.6 mph average in four-seamers), a sharp 12.4% swing-strike rate and a solid 48.8% groundball rate. Halvorsen has walked an inflated 12.1% of his opponents and is very prone to homers (1.52 HR/9), but there are many interesting parts to his profile.
Halvorsen sports an unimpressive 4.74 ERA in 19 major league innings this season, but has posted a 2.04 ERA, a 32.4% strikeout rate, a 9.5% walk rate and a 45.2% strikeout rate while averaging an absurd 99.9 mph on his heater in 17-1/3 innings. This is his first season in the minor leagues. He will have two more option years left after this one.
Halvorsen joins the Dodgers as something of a development project, but that’s an area where LA has excelled. They used very low acquisition costs to add players like them Evan Phillips, Is Klein, Alex Vesia, Anthony Banda and others in recent years, continuing to recruit strong bullpens throughout. That’s not a complete list of every Dodgers bullpen success story, and there are plenty of misses along the way, but the organization has a clear knack when it comes to turning out big performances from talented but unproven bullpen arms of this caliber.
Addressing the bullpen isn’t a pressing need for the Dodgers, but that’s to be expected from a team with Major League Baseball’s best 63-37 record. Los Angeles doesn’t really have many obvious flaws, but every contender is always looking for bullpen help. Bringing in an arm with this kind of power repertoire and remaining club control/minor league options is very appealing.
Halvorsen joins several key Dodgers on the league’s injured list. Edwin Díaz he has been out since late April after having a bone removed from his elbow. Blake Treinen hit the injured list in mid-June due to elbow inflammation. Brusdar Graterol he has not played this season and had back surgery on June 1st. Ben Caspariuskey arm for the ’25 Dodgers, has been out since mid-April with shoulder inflammation.
The current bullpen group remains strong. Tanner Scott enjoys a repeat season and more than fills the role of the injured Díaz. Klein, Vesia, Edgardo Henriquez again Jack Dreyer all had earned run averages below 3.00. Henriquez and Vesia are at 2.25 and 2.14, respectively. It’s a solid team that will be even deeper if Díaz can make a full recovery. That said, Henriquez is the only member of this group who can match – or, in his case, surpass – Halvorsen’s speed.
In exchange for a high-profile, versatile bullpen player in Halvorsen, the Rockies would get a former top-100 prospect (Frasso) and a player the Dodgers selected in the third round last summer (Vidourek). Colorado general manager Josh Byrnes — the team’s second-in-command in baseball behind president Paul DePodesta — is familiar with both players. Byrnes, who was hired this past season, spent more than a decade in the Dodger front office as senior vice president of baseball operations.
Frasso, 27, has yet to pitch in the majors (although he has two days of MLB service). He is a 2020 fourth-round pick (Blue Jays) acquired by the Dodgers in 2022 as a right-hander. Mitch White to Toronto. Two years later, Frasso cracked the back end of the top-100 lists from MLB.com (No. 80), Baseball America (No. 97) and Baseball Prospectus (No. 79).
Injuries often set Frasso back. Not long after breaking that top 100, he suffered an injury that required surgery to repair a labrum in his right shoulder. That spring injury naturally ended his entire 2024 campaign.
Frasso, who had started up to that point in his minor league career, returned in 2025 and pitched 77 innings with reduced results during the season split between starting and relieving. Going to late May’s bullpen didn’t do much to improve Frasso’s average ERA, but his strikeout and walk rates were much better in relief. He was sitting between 14-15% in both categories but jumped to 23.4% and 10.7% when he was brought into the ‘pen full time.
This year, Frasso worked exclusively as a reliever (except for a 1 2/3-inning “start” as an opener) and posted a 4.74 ERA with a great 35.1% strikeout rate against a terrible 14.9% walk rate. Continuing to distance himself from that 2024 surgery brought life back to his place. He averaged 94.6 mph in his four-seamer in 2025 but is at 96.2 mph so far in 2026. His swing-strike rate jumped from 9.3% to 12.7%. His opponent’s chasing rate increased from a poor 24.5% to a strong 33%; Opponents went from 78.1% to 72%. The ERA may not be much to look at, but beyond the indirect command, Frasso is held to a ceiling average of .407 on balls in play – despite holding opponents to an average exit velocity of 87.1 mph and a minuscule 32.1% strikeout rate.
Since Frasso has yet to make his big league debut, he still has his entire plan to manage the club. The Rockies could call him up to the majors and control him for six more seasons than the current one – until 2032. Frasso is already in his final minor league option year, however, so he will need to sign with the team in 2027 or be traded or granted waivers. With that in mind, Rox may need to really look at him in the last few months of the season.
The 22-year-old Vidourek is an active but contact-challenged outfielder when the Dodgers took him with the 104th overall pick last summer. He’s hitting just .170/.332/.311 in 256 Low-A plate appearances this season, thanks to a massive 38.7% swinging strikeout rate.
Vidourek touts above-average raw power, as well as speed and a combined arm in the outfield. The University of Cincinnati product also posted outstanding exit velocity, barrel rates and strikeout rates in his short major league career. When Vidourek makes contact, it usually has an impact, but he’ll need to significantly reduce his swings and misses to have any hope of becoming a regular.
The Dodgers have been playing Vidourek in center field this season. FanGraphs noted in December that he may end up in the right position as he continues to fill out an athletic 6’1″, 192-pound frame. Baseball America rated his throwing arm in the 70s as the best in the Dodgers’ entire system.
There’s a lot to like about Vidourek, but liking the whiffs is a bright, glaring red flag. Given his combined power, speed and defense, Vidourek doesn’t need to suddenly develop a hitter to become a regular player in the majors, but the current rate of hitting — especially in the minors — just won’t cut it.
Vidourek has the potential to improve his stock significantly (and quickly) if he can hone his hitting skills, but the Dodgers were willing to take that risk because of not only their desire to find a manageable high-octane shortstop but also the depth of the pitching system as a whole. A middle player Andy Pages controlled through the 2030 season, and the Dodgers have three outfielders ranked in the top 20 of Baseball America’s latest Top 100 list: Joshua De Paula (No. 4), Mike Sirota (No. 14) and Eduardo Quintero (No. 18). Zyhir Thembaranked No. 55 in BA, gives the Dodgers a fourth high-profile outfield opportunity. The Rockies aren’t nearly as deep in outfield prospects — or prospects in general — so they’ll buy a multi-tool prospect in hopes of snagging him before his stock rises.
Joel Sherman of the New York Post first reported that Halvorsen was being traded to the Dodgers for minor leaguers. His colleague, Jon Heyman, first reported the names of the two potential candidates.
