Brock Burke's breakout makes the Rays-Angels-Reds three-team trade a clear Cincinnati win

What happened

The three-team winter trade that sent Josh Lowe to Los Angeles, Gavin Lux to Tampa Bay, and Brock Burke to Cincinnati looked, at the time, like a tidy piece of offseason housekeeping rather than a franchise-shaping transaction. Per Charlie Wright at MLB Trade Rumors, reviewing the deal now, the verdict is considerably less ambiguous: Cincinnati got the best of it, and it wasn't particularly close.

The Reds' side of the ledger was straightforward enough when the deal was struck. They shed the $5.525MM owed to Lux in his final year of arbitration and received Burke, a left-handed reliever who had spent the previous season with the Angels after being designated for assignment by Texas midway through 2024. A reliever arriving via a DFA pickup, with one year of team control remaining, landing in the "Specialists/Middle Relief" tier of MLB Trade Rumors' own Lefty Relief Class preview — this was not the kind of move that generates offseason buzz. It generated results instead.

Why it matters

Burke's 2025 with the Angels — a 3.36 ERA across 69 games — was solid enough to suggest he had found his footing after a rough stretch. What he did in Cincinnati was something else. Per Wright's review, Burke posted a 2.30 ERA across 74 1/3 innings and made 77 appearances, a figure that led the National League. When Caleb Ferguson opened the year on the injured list, manager Terry Francona leaned on Burke as the club's primary left-handed option early and often, and Burke held up under that workload.

The operational context matters here. A bullpen that loses its top left-handed option to the injured list at the start of a season is immediately exposed, and the degree to which a replacement can absorb that role without the whole arrangement unraveling is not something any front office can plan for with confidence. Burke didn't just fill the gap — per Wright's review, he was tremendous, a word deployed without apparent hesitation.

The irony, as Wright notes, is that Burke's season will likely matter more for Burke than it did for Cincinnati. He is headed to free agency, and a 2.30 ERA over 74 1/3 innings and 77 appearances is a meaningful calling card. That outcome was not guaranteed entering the year. The "Specialists/Middle Relief" tier is not where you find the relievers who command significant free-agent attention. Burke has apparently moved himself out of that tier.

The numbers

Burke's season line, per Wright's review: a 2.30 ERA across 74 1/3 innings and 77 appearances, leading the National League in games pitched. His prior season with the Angels produced a 3.36 ERA across 69 games. The progression is notable, and 77 appearances is the kind of number that tells you a manager trusted what he was seeing — and kept trusting it, deep into the calendar.

On the other side of the trade, Josh Lowe's numbers in Los Angeles tell a different story. Per Wright, Lowe hit .209 with a dozen home runs and 10 steals, finishing with a career-worst 76 wRC+ and a .546 OPS through the first two months of the season — a stretch that sent him back to the minors. He performed somewhat better after rejoining the club at the end of June, per the review. His strikeout rate climbed back over 30% after he had trimmed it to 25.1% in 2025. The Angels reportedly shielded Lowe from left-handed pitching.

Lowe remains under team control for two more years, which is the part of the ledger that keeps the Angels' side of this from being a complete loss. The club moved on from a pending free-agent reliever to bring in a former 20-homer, 30-steal outfielder. The power-and-speed combination showed up in outline — a dozen home runs and 10 steals is the skeleton of that profile — but not much else did, per the review.

Gavin Lux's contribution to Tampa Bay is framed by Wright as the hardest piece to evaluate among the three receiving teams. The Rays brought in Lux as a Brandon Lowe replacement after sending the second baseman to Pittsburgh. The review does not render a verdict on Lux's Tampa Bay season in the portion available, leaving that thread open for now.

Where the club stands

The Reds finished 75-87 (.463), fifth in the NL Central and 28 games back in the division. They have been eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race, sitting ninth in Wild Card positioning at 13.0 relative to the cut line, with a one-game losing streak to close things out.

A 75-87 record is not an outcome Burke's season was going to prevent on its own — bullpen performance and team record are related but not synonymous, and a 2.30 ERA from a reliever does not paper over the gaps that produce a fifth-place finish. What Burke's season does represent is a front office finding real, usable value in a transaction that most observers would have filed under "salary management." The Reds cleared $5.525MM in Lux obligations and received a reliever who led the National League in appearances. That is a reasonable return on a move that was not expected to produce one.

What we don't know yet

Wright's review does not detail what Lux actually delivered for Tampa Bay, leaving the Rays' side of the ledger incomplete. Whether the Rays received meaningful production from their Brandon Lowe replacement is a question the available material does not answer.

Burke's free-agent market is also unresolved. Wright notes he has a solid chance to earn another big-league deal, but the shape of that market — term, dollars, suitors — is not addressed. A left-handed reliever with a 2.30 ERA and 77 appearances will attract attention; how much, and from whom, remains to be seen.

Lowe's trajectory in Los Angeles is similarly open. Two years of team control remain, per the review, and the Angels' calculus on whether to keep him in the outfield mix, adjust his role further, or move him elsewhere is not addressed. A career-worst 76 wRC+ is not a number that closes doors permanently, but it does not open them either.

What to watch

Burke's free-agent process is the most immediate thread to follow out of this review. If he lands a meaningful contract — multi-year or otherwise — it will retroactively make the Reds' side of this trade look even better than it already does. The club shed a salary obligation, received a reliever who was not expected to be a difference-maker, and watched him post a 2.30 ERA while leading the National League in appearances. That is the kind of transaction that looks obvious in hindsight and wasn't at all when it was made.

For the Angels, the question is what Lowe looks like in year two of his tenure. The strikeout rate climbing back over 30% after he had brought it down to 25.1% the prior season is the number worth monitoring. Whether that regression holds, corrects, or deepens will go a long way toward determining whether the Angels' end of this deal eventually justifies itself. Two years of control on a former 20-homer, 30-steal outfielder is not nothing. A career-worst 76 wRC+ is not nothing either.

The Rays' evaluation of Lux, whenever it surfaces, will complete the picture on a trade that Wright's review frames as a clear Cincinnati win — with the other two teams competing, somewhat grimly, for second place.