Trade details: In a three-team deal, the Cincinnati Reds receive LHP Brock Burke, the Los Angeles Angels receive OF Josh Lowe and the Tampa Bay Rays receive IF/OF Gavin Lux and RHP Chris Clark.
The big move Thursday night was the three-team trade between the Reds, Rays and Angels … wait, I’m being told there was another move, and this is now the small one, but trades are more fun to write about than Great Team Signs Great Player For Large Money. The Rays sent Josh Lowe to Anaheim; the Angels sent Brock Burke to Cincinnati; and the Reds sent Gavin Lux and minor-leaguer Chris Clark to Tampa Bay. Two teams get a player coming off a bad year, and the third gets some salary relief and a reliever they need.
Lowe reportedly got himself in excellent shape this offseason. He’s coming off his worst performance as a mostly regular starter, hitting .220/.283/.366 and disappearing completely against lefties, with a .165/.224/.235 line that hurt me just to type. He’s really underperformed the last two years on both sides of the ball, at least some of which is probably a function of conditioning. He’s an above-average to plus runner and should be an average defender in a corner at the absolute worst.
Lowe’s overall approach at the plate has gone to pieces, with a 25 percent whiff rate on pitches in the zone and a chase rate that ranked in the bottom 10 percent of all MLB hitters. He’s not hitting the ball as hard either, with his hard-hit rate and his exit velocity numbers all below the median for an MLB regular. In 2023, he had a modest breakout and looked like, at worst, he’d be a fantastic option as the strong side of a platoon. Maybe the Angels think they can get him back to that point, and perhaps improved conditioning will at least help him play better defense and maybe get some of the bat speed he’s lost back, too. The Angels have one outfielder on their roster who played a full season in 2025, Jo Adell, so they have playing time to spare, and this is a smart buy-low move given their situation.
Gavin Lux is on his third organization. (Gary A. Vasquez / Imagn Images)
The Rays get two players in the deal, including Lux, who comes over after a replacement-level year with the Reds, where he hit .269/.350/.374 with just five homers despite playing half his games in an excellent park for power. He primarily played left field for the Reds and was surprisingly awful out there, worth — “worth” — five runs below average by Statcast’s Outs Above Average metric in just 392 2/3 innings. He’s not good anywhere defensively, but he’s probably best suited to second base, and the Rays could just stick him there as they traded away their incumbent, Brandon Lowe, earlier this offseason. They were willing to live with Brandon Lowe’s defense at the keystone last year, and Lux is better than that.
As a hitter, Lux’s main skill right now is his plate discipline; his .350 OBP was 37th best in the majors, 33 points above the overall OBP for the National League. It’s not pretty, but it’s real value. It’s not an exciting pickup for the Rays, but Lux fits their roster better than Josh Lowe and is more likely to deliver some positive value this year, even though Lowe probably has more upside in the bat. Assuming Lux heads back to the infield, the trade frees up some outfield playing time in Tampa, which could allow newly acquired Jacob Melton to grab the centerfield job, or at least part of it, as he’s the best defensive outfielder on their roster and has power, especially against righties.
The Rays also picked up right-hander Clark in the trade. He spent 2024 with High-A Tri-City, posting a 6.09 ERA and walking 12.2 percent of batters he faced, so the Angels sent him down to Low A to start 2025. His ERA wasn’t much better (5.50), but his underlying results were, and he kept it going through seven starts in High A and one in Double A to end the year. He comes from a low three-quarters slot, working with three pitches, nothing plus, with the changeup maybe a 55 (on the 20-80 scouting scale). His arm action isn’t great, with a fair amount of stress on the elbow, and a year ago I would have probably said that’s why he wasn’t throwing strikes — but he did throw strikes in 2025, with a 7.4 percent walk rate on the year, dropping it as the year went on. He’s probably an emergency middle reliever as currently constituted. Also, he went to Harvard.
The Reds shed Lux’s $5.525 million salary for this year, adding left-hander Burke and his $2.325 million salary instead. Moving Lux opens up some playing time in the outfield and/or DH, which could give Spencer Steer the latter spot with Sal Stewart maybe taking over at first. They picked up JJ Bleday this winter and could run him out in left, or give Will Benson another shot, or just go find anyone who can at least field the position better than Lux did.
Burke is a sinker/slider lefty who throws strikes and generated a 53.3 percent ground-ball rate in 2025, his best year in the majors, with an adequate changeup that has helped him avoid a platoon split. He’ll help their bullpen, as they had only Caleb Ferguson and Sam Moll as left-handed relievers on the 40-man roster, but I think the deal is just as much about saving $3 million on a player (Lux) who didn’t work out.