Trade details: The Los Angeles Dodgers RHP acquired Tyler Glasnow and SURNAME Manuel Margot of the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for OR Jonny Deluca and RHP Ryan Pepiot
On the same day they Shohei Ohtani introduced as a DodgerThe team swings a big trade, agree to a deal that would add right-hander Tyler Glasnow and outfielder Manuel Margot from the Rays in exchange for two young players, right-hander Ryan Pepiot and outfielder Jonny Deluca, who haven’t even reached arbitration and have five and six years of team control left, respectively. (The deal is contingent on Glasnow and the Dodgers working out a contract extension, but that’s not part of the trade itself, as the Dodgers only get one year of Glasnow’s service and the $25 million he’s owed through 2024.)
Glasnow is one of the best pitchers in baseball when he’s healthy, which he hasn’t been for a significant amount of time in his major league career. He struck out a third of the batters he faced in 2023 after returning from Tommy John surgery, and his 2.91 FIP would have ranked second in the AL had he qualified, among league-leading Sonny Grey and Kevin Gausman. Glasnow was even better in 2021 before the surgery, posting a 2.77 FIP and 2.66 ERA that both would have led the league had he been eligible — though he only threw 88 innings that year before the injury.
Glasnow is 6-foot-8 and makes incredible use of his length, with some of the best extension of any pitcher in baseball at 7.5 feet. He sits 96-97 mph with two plus breaking balls in his slider and curve. The slider has a lot more power — Statcast has him throwing several at 93 and changing up, which is illegal in several states — while the curveball has an above-average vertical break that plays because of that extension. He barely uses a changeup and hasn’t shown any platoon splits over the course of his career, but last season he had some trouble with lefties, something that needs to be watched in case anything changes materially post-surgery has.
The bigger issue, of course, is durability: His 120-inning total in 2023 was actually a career high in the majors, and the most he’s thrown in any season since 2016, when he had a career-best 140 innings and made his major has. -league debut. The Dodgers need quality in their rotation, but they also need quantity, with as many question marks as there are between inexperience and guys coming off injuries. Glasnow gives them quality, but I have no real idea how many innings they can count on him pitching.
Margot might be a platoon candidate along with Jason Heyward. (Orlando Ramirez/USA Today)
Manuel Margot is a high-contact hitter with very little power whose value has largely come from his plus defense anywhere in the outfield, but since a knee injury in 2022, that defensive value has not been on display. From 2017-21, he was 9-12 runs above average (per Statcast) in each full season, but dropped to minus-1 in 2022 and 1 this past season. He’s definitely lost a step or two, a decline that was already underway before the knee injury, so I’m not so crazy that he’s going to bounce all the way back on defense.
If the Dodgers want him to platoon Jason Heyward in right field, against left-handed pitching (against whom he hit .281/.341/.420 in his career, versus .244/.294/.370 against righties), he will have value. I’m not sure they can count on him to do more. He is under contract for one year at $10 million and has a $12 million mutual option for 2025.
I mentioned in my write-up of the Shohei Ohtani/Decoy contract that Ryan Pepiot “was excellent in five September starts, throwing more strikeouts than he ever had in pro ball, although four were against some of the lowest-scoring offenses in baseball.” That’s still true, of course, and he’s not going to face as many low-scoring offenses as he pitches in the AL East, which has had four teams above the league median for runs per game, and the fifth just added Juan Freaking Soto.
At least Pepiot has a 70-degree changeup, and after a disastrous debut in 2022 where he had no command and struggled to get to the changeup or finish it, he got it back last year, and his fastball played better because of it. The change has a lot of late movement, especially down, and hitters struggle to differentiate between it and his mid-90s four-seamer because he leaves the ball so far out across his front end. His slider improved to be a viable weapon against right-handed batters, though the story in 2022 was that using the slider threw off his delivery more and compromised his order and his change. None of this was evident in 2023 when he returned from a four-month layoff due to an oblique injury; he threw strikes in the minors and did so in the majors, with all three pitches being effective in his major league time.
There’s definitely risk here, as his history of even average control is largely limited to 2023, but the Rays like to take risks on guys with this kind of upside (eg, a 70-grade or better pitch) and also have ‘ a good track record in pitch development. He fits right into their rotation in the spot that Glasnow vacated.
Jonny Deluca, no relation to NWH manager Whitey, was a 2019 25th-round pick out of Oregon, debuted at age 24 last year and showed plus speed and reasonable pitch recognition for a rookie, albeit with less power than he had shown. the low minors. I wrote before last season that he was more of a 55 runner and might move to a corner, but the speed and defense he showed in his cup of coffee last summer makes midfield look more viable.
Deluca was a strong fastball hitter in the minors, and his issues with breaking stuff have carried over to the big leagues, which is not surprising, but is obviously his biggest risk factor. He also didn’t make much hard contact in the majors in a tiny sample, but that’s out of character with his time in the minors, where he at least made enough to project to average power. The Rays gave Jose Siri and his hideous .267 OBP the most playing time in center last year because he’s an elite defender with plus power, and he still managed to be worth 2.7 fWAR, which just pisses me off on a level I don’t even cannot explain. A .267 OBP is a crime against an offense. Either way, maybe Deluca can unseat him at some point, either this year or when Siri becomes arbitration-eligible in 2025.
If you feel like I have reservations about everyone in this deal, you’re right, and I think it carries a lot more risk for the Dodgers because the stakes are higher for them. It’s World Series or bust for Los Angeles this year, and they just added one of the best starters in baseball, who also happens to be one of the most unreliable (at least from an innings perspective). There’s a small but real chance that Pepiot gives the Rays more in 2023 than Glasnow gives the Dodgers, if Pepiot’s apparent strides last year last over a full season in the majors.
There’s also a chance it works out for everyone – Glasnow has his first full season as a starter, the Dodgers sprinkle their fairy dust on Margot and he and Heyward combine for 5 wins in right field, while Pepiot becomes a mid-rotation starter and Deluca developed into a regular. I just see a wide range of possible outcomes for three of the players, all but Margot, and that increases the risk for everyone involved.
(Top photo of Glasnow: Julio Aguilar/Getty Images)
