The Cincinnati Reds, Los Angeles Angels, and Tampa Bay Rays have completed a 3-team trade according to Jeff Passan of ESPN. Cincinnati is sending infielder Gavin Lux to Tampa Bay and acquiring left-handed reliever Brock Burke from the Angels. Josh Lowe is heading to the Angels and Chris Clark is on his way to join the Rays organization.
Brock Burke gives the Reds even more depth in their bullpen. That seems to have been a big focus for Cincinnati this offseason as they’ve brought back Emilio Pagan and added Caleb Ferguson and Pierce Johnson, not to mention picking up and then losing several relievers via the waiver process. Burke is entering his final year of team control and is under contract for $2,300,000 for the 2026 season.
Last year the left-handed reliever pitched in 69 games last year for the Angels and posted a 3.36 ERA. That was good for a well above-average ERA+ of 128. In his 61.2 innings he had 18 walks (four were intentional) and he struck out 52 batters while giving up eight home runs. Earlier in his big league career he was a slight fly ball pitcher, but over the last two seasons he’s become a well above-average ground ball pitcher, getting a career high 50.6% of his batted balls as grounders last season. For context the league average is just 42%.
After a very good season in 2022 where he had a 1.97 ERA in 82.1 innings he took some steps backwards in each of the next two seasons, but things turned around when he joined the Angels in August of 2024 after being claimed on waivers. Since he joined Los Angeles his ERA has been 3.40 in 82.0 innings.
While Burke did pitch better against left-handed hitters in 2025 he wasn’t that much better than he was against right-handed hitters. When it comes to average and on-base percentage the difference in the splits were three and four points. Righties did hit for more power, holding a 42 point advantage in slugging. His home and away splits were also very similar when it comes to OPS as the difference was just four points, but his ERA was 2.73 at home versus 3.94 on the road. You can see the career stats for Brock Burke here.
Gavin Lux is on his way out after his one and only season with the Reds. Acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers one year and one week ago in a trade for minor league outfielder Mike Sirota and a draft pick, Lux played in 140 games for Cincinnati in 2025. He was solid at the plate, hitting .269/.350/.374. He lacked power but he hit for a high average by today’s standards and he had a good on-base percentage. Where he struggled was in the field. An infielder for much of his career, the Reds had him spend a lot of time in the outfield and that along with his time spent as the team’s designated hitter (a combined 106 starts) really saw his value in whichever WAR statistic you prefer be cratered. Despite being roughly a league average hitter, Baseball Reference’s version of WAR had him at -0.2, while Fangraphs version had him at 0.3.
Lux and Cincinnati agreed to a new contract for 2026. Rather than go to arbitration they agreed to a 1-year contract for $5,525,000. Following the season Lux will become a free agent (unless he signs an extension).
This was the second trade of the night for Cincinnati. About an hour earlier the Reds announced a trade where they sent reliever Yosver Zulueta to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for pitching prospect Dusty Revis.
