Dodgers trade James Paxton to Red Sox days after designating him for assignment
Just as they expected, the Dodgers were able to find a trade partner for James Paxton after designating him for assignment this week.
On Friday, the team announced it had agreed to trade Paxton to his old team, the Boston Red Sox, in exchange for minor league infielder Moises Bolivar.
The move marked the first official trade the Dodgers have made in advance of next Tuesday’s trade deadline. It was far, however, from being any sort of blockbuster.
Instead, the Dodgers accomplished what they hoped when they DFA’d Paxton on Monday, acquiring a 17-year-old Venezuelan shortstop in Bolivar who is currently playing for the Red Sox’s Dominican Summer League team.
A 35-year-old left-hander who signed a one-year contract with the Dodgers, James Paxton had given the team’s short-handed rotation key innings over the first half of the year.
The news of Paxton’s DFA initially came as a surprise. Though the 35-year-old veteran had been inconsistent this season, with a 4.43 ERA and NL-most 48 walks, he had been durable, ranking third on the Dodgers’ banged-up pitching staff with 18 starts and 89 1/3 innings.
Nonetheless, the Dodgers anticipated an upcoming roster crunch in their starting rotation, with Walker Buehler, Bobby Miller and Yoshinobu Yamamoto eventually expected to return to a rotation that got Tyler Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw back from the IL this week.
Rather than hold onto Paxton, who signed a one-year contract with the Dodgers in the offseason, until he was potentially squeezed out of the rotation, the team decided to move him off the roster now and flip him for something before the deadline.
On Friday, the deal with the Red Sox materialized.
Five days out from the trade deadline, the Dodgers have officially made their first move.
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