Trading for Ryan Helsley Would Transform the Red Sox's Bullpen

The MLB trade deadline is less than a month away as the Red Sox look to push themselves into the buyer’s market thanks in part to a six-game winning streak. The offense has come alive over the past few weeks, and the rotation is stepping up as they’ve delivered quality starts. One area of weakness for the team, however, appears to be their bullpen.

In the month of June, the relief corps was very middle of the pack, pitching 93 2/3 innings and allowing 36 earned runs on 73 hits, six of them home runs, and 52 walks for an ERA of 3.46. While the bullpen struggled in June with walks, leading the league in not only walks per nine innings (5.00) but also walk percentage (13.1%) the bullpen was constantly dealing with runners on base. Fortunately, hitters managed only a .213 batting average against them, and when it was put in play, they managed to keep most batted balls on the ground with a 45.6% ground ball rate. They also struck out 97 batters for a strikeout rate of 24.4%. Led by Aroldis Chapman, the bullpen saved 10 games while blowing three save opportunities.

Despite the subtraction of arms like Zack Kelly, Luis Guerrero and Liam Hendriks, the bullpen’s numbers have not improved that much as in 29 innings pitched in July, the bullpen has allowed 11 earned runs on 24 hits, three home runs, and nine walks. This month, they’ve struck out 21 batters for a strikeout rate of 17.1%. While their strikeout rate has dropped, so too has their walk rate (down to 7.3%), and their walks per nine dropped significantly to 2.79. The small improvement is questionable to last, as several arms in the bullpen have been overused and the results have shown as both Brennan Bernardino and Greg Weissert have not been as dominant as they were in their early season performances.

The loss of Justin Slaten to the injured list on June 1 has hurt the bullpen. Out with right shoulder inflammation, Slaten has been making slow progress and has yet to throw off a mound. Due to that, the team transferred him to the 60-day injured list at the end of June. In 24 games before going down, Slaten tossed 23 1/3 innings while allowing nine earned runs on 14 hits, one home run, and seven walks. He had also struck out 16 batters and earned three saves. Of those nine runs, four were allowed in his third appearance of the year. Since that blowup in Baltimore, Slaten had gone 21 1/3 innings while allowing just five earned runs.

To help provide relief to the bullpen and supply it with another flamethrower to compliment Chapman, Jordan Hicks and Garrett Whitlock in the back of the pen, the Red Sox could make a trade with a team they were linked to all offseason. Instead of trading for Nolan Arenado, however, it would be to acquire their soon-to-be-free-agent closer Ryan Helsley.

While the right-hander hasn’t been as dominant in his age-30 season when compared to the past three years, he’s still one of the top closers in baseball that would completely transform the current bullpen from being in the middle of the pack to potentially one of the strongest in all of baseball.

Armed with a fastball that averages 99.2 mph and a slider that breaks 3.9 inches away from a right-handed batter, Helsley could dominate for the Red Sox. He’s got one of the best chase percentages in all of baseball right now at 33.6%, and he’s getting batters to whiff at an impressive 30.1% rate. Numbers like that would put him near the top of relief pitchers in the Red Sox's bullpen.

In 31 games this season, Helsley has tossed 31 innings and allowed 11 earned runs on 30 hits, four home runs, and 13 walks. He’s also struck out 35 batters for a strikeout rate of 25.9%. A lot of Helsley’s struggles this season appear to be from his fastball being hit at a higher rate than any previous campaign. So far in 2025, it’s been thrown 238 times across 69 plate appearances, where batters have hit .414 against it. The fastball has seen a slight drop in velocity from 99.7 mph in 2023 to 99.6 mph in 2024 to now 99.2 mph this year. However, it might be the slight loss of movement that has hurt Helsley the most with it. In 2024, his fastball tailed at 3.4 inches in on right-handed batters; this season that movement has dropped to 2.2 inches.

If anyone could help fix his fastball, there’s a good chance it would be Red Sox pitching coach Andrew Bailey, as shown with the improvement of Brayan Bello’s fastball since the two started working together. In 2023, the last year Bello was throwing with Dave Bush as the pitching coach, his fastball was hit at a .310 rate. In 2024, he originally moved away from throwing it before bringing it back in the second half to which batters hit .120 against it. This season, the four-seamer has been a key piece to Bello’s arsenal where he’s thrown it 221 times and batters are hitting just .174 against it thanks in part to improvements with his sinker and slider under Bailey.

The Cardinals are also unlikely to re-sign Helsley this offseason as they enter a rebuilding phase. During this past offseason, they tried to unload Nolan Arenado’s contract off the books and seemed willing to listen on other players who were not viewed as pieces for the future. Currently, they are 49-44, just 5.5 games out of first place in the NL Central and just 1.5 games out of a Wild Card spot. However, should the Cardinals enter a slide as they get closer to the trade deadline, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them sell off key pieces.

Helsley would be one of their most valuable trade assets despite the season he’s having. He has playoff experience and still reaches 100 mph, something that as shown in the postseason every year, plays. If the Red Sox managed to make the playoffs with a bullpen consisting of three pitchers who could reach 100 mph in Chapman, Hicks and Helsley, it would be a nightmare for opposing lineups once you got past six innings.

Though what may tip the scale in the Red Sox favor for a Helsley trade is the fact that the former Chief Baseball Officer of the Red Sox, Chaim Bloom, now works for St. Louis and will succeed Mozeliak as the team’s president of baseball operations after this season. He has a great understanding of the prospects in the Red Sox's system, as many are guys he previously drafted. The Red Sox would hopefully not pay a premium price of prospects, but seeing how Craig Breslow hasn’t been afraid to toss prospects around in the past (trading four for Garrett Crochet plus the deals he made at the 2024 trade deadline), it wouldn’t be a surprise if Breslow traded two or three prospects that Bloom is interested in if it meant the Red Sox could get into the playoffs.

If the Red Sox acquired him, they could also work out an extension to keep the flamethrower around for multiple seasons, as following the Rafael Devers’ trade, they have quite a bit of money freed up. Not to mention how many other contracts like Buehler and Chapman will be expired by the end of year freeing up even more money for an extension.

For a team looking to make the playoffs for the first time since 2021, acquiring Helsley is just the boost to the bullpen the team needs. He would be a veteran presence that could provide both on field support and a mental boost to a team that lacks playoff experience. Jeff Passan of ESPN also sees this as the best match for the Red Sox bullpen.

If I were Breslow, I would at least call and see what the Cardinals would ask for as a starting point. If the price is too steep, pivot to a different relief option that, while not as impressive, could still provide quality innings for a bullpen that has been overworked so far in the season. The Cardinals are looking towards the future, and the Red Sox have a deep pool of prospects that are close to the majors they could trade from. It just feels like this is an obvious pairing just waiting to be made.