Josh Lowe, Gavin Lux dealt in three-team trade

The baseball offseason heated up in the span of a few minutes. 

First, Kyle Tucker came off the market, and then the Rays, Reds and Angels completed a three-team trade moments later. 

In the swap, outfielder Josh Lowe is heading to the Angels, infielder Gavin Lux and right-hander Chris Clark are going to Tampa Bay and left-handed reliever Brock Burke is going to Cincy, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported.

Lowe, who has played his whole career with the Rays, has a lot of upside for the Angels if he can stay healthy after two seasons of dealing with injury issues.

The Rays appeared to be a team looking for him to have a bounce-back season, according to what Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander said during the Winter Meetings. 

“It’s been a tough couple years. He knows that. We know that,” Neander said at the time, according to MLB.com. “We’ve got an assortment of guys that we believe in them more than what they provided last year. Josh is one of them. But we also have to kind of be real about it, and that’s why we brought in a couple of additional options out there to create stronger competition.”

Neander also said that Lowe had “gotten after it” during the offseason and expressed faith that he could be the player that he was in 2023. 

That season, he hit .292/.335/.500 for the Rays with 20 home runs and 32 stolen bases.

Now he’ll head to the Angels in hopes of returning to that form. 

Burke’s arrival in Cincinnati gives the Reds another lefty reliever. 

Burke went 7-1 with a 3.36 ERA and 52 strikeouts in 61 ⅓ innings last season for the Angels. 

Lux appeared in 140 games last season for the Reds while splitting time as a DH and playing both the infield and outfield, giving the Rays some flexibility. He hit .269 with five home runs and 53 RBIs. 

Clark pitched at three levels of the minors last season.