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Angels strike surprise three-team trade for outfield help amidst Kyle Tucker chaos

Eric Cole
Eric Cole

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Tampa Bay Rays v Baltimore Orioles / Mitchell Layton/GettyImages

The entire baseball world essentially stopped on Thursday evening when word broke that the Dodgers had signed Kyle Tucker. For Los Angeles Angels fans, it is yet another example of the cross-town team that spends money as quickly as they make it to win championships while the Angels are stuck wallowing in mediocrity. However, in this particular case, the Angels had a trick up their sleeve that flew under the radar at the same time.

The Angels outfield has been a source of concern all offseason. LA traded Taylor Ward away, Mike Trout's injury history is a glaring red flag at this point, and Jo Adell's strong 2025 can't completely erase his frustrating inconsistency in the past. There was some hope that top prospect Nelson Rada could be of help, but the Angels had other plans.

On Thursday night, literally as the Tucker news was breaking, the Angels struck a three-team trade involving the Reds and Rays that saw them land outfielder Josh Lowe while Gavin Lux and Chris Clark ended up with the Rays and Brock Burke landed with the Reds.

Angels land Josh Lowe in truly weird trade while everyone was talking about Kyle Tucker

In Lowe, the Angels are getting a guy who has struggled mightily with consistency the last couple of years, but who showed so much promise a couple of years ago. In 2023, Lowe posted an .835 OPS across 135 games and ended up with a 3.7 rWAR 20/30 season. Recurring oblique injuries (among others) robbed Lowe of his explosiveness, but he seemed very hopeful about bouncing back in 2026 before getting traded.

In exchange, the Angels were the ones that made it a true three-team trade as they sent one pitcher to each of Cincinnati and Tampa Bay. Chris Clark has yet to make his major league debut and just posted a 5.29 ERA in 144.2 innings last year, although he did pile up a bunch of strikeouts. As for Burke, he was just a waiver claim by the Angels to fill a need last season and while he pitched pretty well, getting the chance to take on a true lottery ticket like Lowe was too good to pass up.

Ultimately, this is a gamble. If the Angels are right and Lowe rebounds, their lineup looks very reasonable all of a sudden especially if Trout and Zach Neto can stay on the field. It may not be a Kyle Tucker-level move, but that doesn't mean adding Lowe couldn't make a big difference.

Eric Cole

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.