Jeff Passan dropped the Kyle Tucker-to-LA bomb on Twitter at 6:51 PM PST on Thursday night, and chaos ensued. Other insiders raced to be the first to post any additional pieces of information, and within minutes fans knew basically every detail of the deal. Four years, $240 million, two opt-outs, $64 million signing bonus, $30 million deferred.
But two minutes after Passan broke the news about Tucker, he also tweeted about a three-way trade between the Angels, Rays, and Reds that got lost in the shuffle. Barely anyone else made a peep about it as they all converged on Tucker.
The deal will send Josh Lowe to the Angels, Brock Burke to the Reds, and Chris Clark and former Dodgers infielder Gavin Lux to the Rays.
Three-way trade news: Tampa Bay, Cincinnati and the Los Angeles Angels are in agreement on a deal that will send outfielder Josh Lowe to the Angels, infielder Gavin Lux and right-hander Chris Clark to the Rays and left-handed reliever Brock Burke to the Reds, sources tell ESPN.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 16, 2026
It's a pretty good deal all around. Lowe has been injured on-and-off over the last two seasons but has All-Star potential if he gets back to his 2023 form with the Angels; Burke had a respectable season with Anaheim as a bullpen swingman; Clarke, a pitching prospect, put up decent numbers in High- and Double-A last year, and Lux hit decently enough while bouncing between second, third, and left field.
Former Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux traded to Rays in three-team deal right after Kyle Tucker news broke
The Dodgers have had no reason to regret trading Lux ahead of the 2025 season. He was being pushed off of the roster anyway, and the Dodgers got a prospect they had once drafted themselves in the return from Cincinnati. Mike Sirota, now baseball's No. 64 overall prospect and the Dodgers' No. 5, put up stellar numbers in Single-A Rancho Cucamonga and High-A Great Lakes after the deal.
But now we have decisive proof: the Dodgers won that deal. The Reds gave up a top 100 prospect for just one year of Gavin Lux. He improved his offensive numbers a bit, but his defense was worse than ever. He posted a -0.2 bWAR with the Cincinnati in 2025 after a 2.1 bWAR campaign with the Dodgers in 2024, due in large part to his shoddy defense.
Maybe the Rays will be able to fix Lux. They, just like the Dodgers, do have a knack for taking on other teams' scraps and turning them into respectable players. But with Tampa being almost as far away from LA as two teams can possibly get, and the Rays looking mightily uncompetitive next to the rest of the AL East, it's hard to feel anything but smugness about how his trade away from LA has worked out.
