MLB trade grades: Taking stock of the Dodgers-Rays Tyler Glasnow deal

By Andy McCullough, Stephen J. Nesbitt and Eno Sarris

The trade

Dodgers get: Tyler Glasnow, RHP; Manuel Margot, OF

Rays get: Ryan Pepiot, RHP; Jonny DeLuca, OF

The trade is contingent upon the Dodgers signing Glasnow to an extension, per The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya and Ken Rosenthal.

Andy McCullough: There are two things you need to know about Tyler Glasnow.

He is quite good.

Since the Rays acquired him in the summer of 2018, Glasnow has posted a 130 ERA+ with a 3.10 fielding-independent ERA while striking out 12.2 batters per nine innings. His fastball usually registers between 96-97 mph, but his 90-mph slider is his best weapon. He generates groundballs and misses bats. He stands 6-foot-8 and resembles a more chiseled Cillian Murphy. He is everything a team would want in a pitcher.

Except . . .

He is quite fragile.

After injuring his oblique this past spring training, he made 21 starts in 2023 for Tampa Bay — a career-high. Before that, he had never started more than 14 games in a big-league season. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2021 and missed most of 2022. A forearm strain cost him a significant portion of 2019, too.

His $25 million salary for 2024 placed him on the Rays’ Must Move shelf. The Dodgers have the financial resources to gamble on Glasnow staying healthy as he gets further down the road from Tommy John. He offers their patchwork rotation certainty in terms of performance (he’s going to be good) but significant uncertainty in terms of availability (he will likely get injured). So the Dodgers still need to bring in some more outside arms to fill the void, especially with Walker Buehler returning from his second Tommy John surgery and Clayton Kershaw still unsigned (and unlikely to pitch before the middle of the summer, if at all in 2024).

Margot is a fourth outfielder who was making too much money ($10 million in 2024) for Tampa Bay. He can aid the Dodgers’ outfield defense.

Pepiot, a 2019 third-round pick who was part of the team’s pitching prospect stockpile, showed flashes of promise during an injury-shortened campaign in 2023. The Dodgers still preferred to use openers in front of him and did not trust him to start a postseason game, opting for Lance Lynn, who served up homers in four consecutive at-bats as Arizona completed an NLDS sweep. Anyway, Pepiot has good stuff and is used to being messed around with. He’ll fit in nicely with the Rays.

DeLuca has crushed minor-league pitching during the past few seasons. Knowing the Rays, we will probably look up in the middle of the summer and wonder why DeLuca and Luke Raley, another Dodgers castoff, are each on pace for 20 homers.

Dodgers grade: B (A if Glasnow can make 20 starts per season during the length of his stay in Los Angeles)
Rays grade: B

Ryan Pepiot is a former top-100 prospect with a 2.76 ERA in 78 1/3 innings in the majors. (Brandon Sloter / Image Of Sport/Getty Images)

Eno Sarris: This is the kind of risk you take when you’re the Dodgers.

Yes, Glasnow averages around 80 innings pitched in his healthy seasons and is one of the biggest injury risks in baseball. Yes, Los Angeles is on the hook for $25 million for this season of Glasnow plus the $10 million or so due to Manny Margot, plus whatever the extension ends up being. Yes, Pepiot won’t be a free agent for another five seasons and won’t be in arbitration even until 2026 — and he isn’t even the only piece going back to the Rays.

But Glasnow is an ace when he’s on the mound, and that’s all that matters. Last year, only Spencer Strider threw 100 innings and had a bigger disparity between his strikeout and walk rates. He’s in a virtual tie with Kevin Gausman and Gerrit Cole in ERA over the last three seasons. The stuff is ace-quality, as a 96.5 mph fastball with cut, a 90 mph two-plane slider, and an 84 mph hammer of a curve combined to give him the seventh-best Stuff+ in baseball last year among starters with 100+ innings.

The Dodgers’ heralded player development system has produced depth in the starting rotation. They have Bobby Miller, Emmet Sheehan, Gavin Stone, Kyle Hurt, Michael Grove and Landon Knack all ready to contribute in the big leagues. Even if they are of varying quality, they’ve done all they can in the minors and look to be — at the very least — capable of spot-starting and providing insurance behind the front five.

Before this trade, though, Miller was the ace, all 124 major-league innings of him. Adding something to the top of the rotation was paramount.

This is the kind of trade you make when you’re the Rays, too.

One year of a $25 million pitcher is worrisome when you’ve been carrying sub-$100 million payrolls for so long. You’re not likely to extend a pitcher with that sort of budget, either. An oft-injured expensive starter on a one-year deal, when you’ve led the league in pitcher injuries over, like, forever is even scarier.

And so the Chris Archer trade tree continues to bear fruit. Or should we call it the Matt Garza and Fernando Perez trade tree? Or maybe the Delmon Young trade tree, as he was traded for Garza, who was traded for Archer, who was traded for Glasnow, who was traded for Pepiot. This is the Rays’ way, to keep on churning, to keep trying to get the best years of a player when they are also at their most affordable.

Will Pepiot turn into another Glasnow? The question is about his command, because he has a 94 mph fastball with good ride, a crazy movement changeup, and what looks to be a decent third pitch in a hard breaking ball that worked for him in 2023. The command was good last year, but command comes and goes (it isn’t as “sticky” year to year as stuff is) and isn’t as believable in small samples. Without that command, Pepiot will have trouble turning the lineup over and may yet join the bullpen.

With it, the Rays do what the Rays do, and keep on humming along.

Dodgers grade: A-
Rays grade: B+

Stephen J. Nesbitt: This trade is two of the best and most-respected front offices in baseball using opposite strategies to try to win the same game. The Dodgers, having built a top-five farm system, are pulling from their stash of promising young players to fill an alarming need in their rotation for 2024. And the Rays swap two players, Glasnow and Margot, entering the final guaranteed year of their backloaded extensions for five seasons of Pepiot and six of DeLuca.

It’s easy to see how the Dodgers and Rays lined up for this trade, and it’s easy to see both sides walking away feeling like a winner.

The Dodgers’ rotation is now nicely furnished, led by Buehler, Glasnow and Miller, and they don’t appear to be done in the pitching market. They met with Japanese star Yoshinobu Yamamoto Tuesday at Dodger Stadium, rolling out the red carpet and bringing in Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. If Yamamoto lands with Los Angeles, he’d anchor the rotation through the rest of the 2020s. Glasnow carries a massively high ceiling and equally high risk, which — as it appeared throughout this week as the trade was rumored — made him an awfully compelling one-year bet. The Dodgers could fiddle with a few knobs then run Glasnow out there knowing that even if he is gone next offseason, Ohtani is on schedule to step into that spot in the rotation in 2025. But now that the Dodgers plan to extend Glasnow, they’re giving themselves even more time for this trade to tip their direction. He may not deliver 30 starts every year, but the innings he does cover will likely be extremely valuable.

Margot is an outfielder with plus range who the Dodgers will plug into the lineup against lefties. He also has a $12 million club option for 2025.

For Tampa, this trade plays right into their plans. It was clear when Glasnow signed a two-year, $30.35 million extension in 2022 — shortly before he returned from Tommy John — that, if healthy, he’d be traded before the contract was up. The Rays paid Glasnow $5.35 million for 120 innings last season, and now, sure enough, they’re not on the hook for the rest.

The return is a Raysian special. Pepiot, 26, is a former top-100 prospect with a 2.76 ERA in 78 1/3 innings in the majors. He is not nearly as explosive as Glasnow, but he has three above-average pitches and showed vastly improved command last season. Did the Dodgers just sell high on him? We’ll see. Pepiot joins a Rays rotation that — even with Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs all rehabbing from elbow surgeries — already has Zach Eflin, Aaron Civale, Shane Baz and Zack Littell.

DeLuca, meanwhile, gives the Rays a fourth outfielder or, while they’re wheeling and dealing, more flexibility to move Randy Arozarena, who is under club control for three more seasons.

I’m grading this as a win-win, with some risk on both sides.

Dodgers grade: A-
Rays grade: A-

(Top photo of Glasnow: Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)