The Athletics have been treating their 40-man roster like a revolving door all July, and Geoff Hartlieb is the guy who keeps getting spun out the exit. MLB Trade Rumors confirmed Monday that Oakland designated the right-hander for assignment, opening a roster spot after the club picked up pitcher Scott Blewett in a cash swap with the Cardinals.
MLB Trade Rumors broke the news of the DFA on July 27.
This isn't even Hartlieb's first trip through DFA purgatory with Oakland this season. He was designated once already earlier in July alongside Matt Krook, cleared waivers, and got sent outright to Triple-A Las Vegas. Now he's back on the chopping block days after that outright assignment, which tells you how thin the margin is for fringe bullpen arms on a rebuilding roster.
The numbers explain why he's the one getting squeezed. Hartlieb posted a 6.08 ERA across 13 1/3 innings with the A's this year, allowing 9 runs on 17 hits while walking 9 and striking out just 6, with 4 wild pitches mixed in. Zoom out to his career and it's uglier still: 96 total innings across parts of 7 big league seasons with a 7.69 ERA. He's been a legitimately good Triple-A arm, a 4.22 ERA over 316 innings with a 25.8% strikeout rate, but that success has never carried over once he gets the call.
That gap between Triple-A dominance and big league struggles is exactly the profile teams stash and cut over and over — reliable organizational depth, but not someone you can trust with high-leverage outs in the majors. Oakland's front office clearly agrees, prioritizing a roster spot for Blewett over another look at Hartlieb.
Now the clock starts again. Teams get 5 days to trade for, place on waivers, or release a DFA'd player, and if Hartlieb clears waivers a second time he'd have the option to reject another outright assignment and hit free agency instead of heading back to Vegas. For a bullpen this shaky, it's the kind of small move that barely registers nationally but says plenty about how the Athletics are triaging their roster with the deadline bearing down.