On Wednesday, the Tampa Bay Rays traded right my starter Nathan Eovaldi to the Boston Red Sox for prospect lefty Jalen Beeks. The Rays have been a crazy team for the last few years. They’ve established themselves as sellers by trading Evan Longoria to the Giants and Brad Boxberger to the Diamondbacks for example. The weird thing is is that they’ve still been able to maintain an above-.500 record, even with the fact that the MLB has played over 100 games. This trade helps their team try to get worse and gets them a nice prospect lefty. In this article, I’ll breakdown how this trade will impact Tampa Bay and Boston, and whether it will help Boston’s World Series push or not.

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Photo by AP Photo/Jim Mone

First, I’ll get into how this trade impacts the Rays. In the long term, it probably won’t affect them very much, as Eovaldi was already not a big part of their team. Beeks has been doing very well on Boston so far this season, posting a 5-5 record, 2.89 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 117 strikeouts, 25 walks, and a .215 BAA in 87.1 innings pitched. If he pans out, he could be a solid starter for the Rays for a little while, but they should probably bring him up quick as he’s already played a year in the majors. If they decide to trade Archer, Beeks could be a good piece for their rotation.

Now, I’ll get into how this trade impacts the Red Sox. Since Eovaldi will likely only be there in the short term, as his contract ends at the end of the season, this isn’t a very huge addition for the Red Sox. So far this season, Eovaldi has been solid, posting a 3-4 record, 4.26 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, 53 strikeouts, 8 walks, and a .225 BAA in 57 innings pitched. He’s probably gonna stay a starter in their rotation unless Pomeranz ends up doing very bad by the end of the season.

Now, the big question is whether he’ll help their World Series run. Even though Eovaldi is another righty, which doesn’t help Boston because they only have 3 lefties in their entire pitching staff. Now, Eovaldi is already likely in their rotation, but in the playoffs he likely will be there then. Their rotation for the playoffs is probably gonna look something like Chris Sale, David Price, Eduardo Rodriguez/Drew Pomeranz, and Eovaldi. That’s a pretty solid rotation, and since they’re likely playing the Yankees, it’ll help them take them on.

The biggest problem for them is probably taking on the Astros, as the Astros have a dominant rotation consisting of Cy Young candidates Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole with guys like Lance McCullers Jr and Charlie Morton. The only pitchers in the Red Sox rotation with ERAs under 4 are Sale and Rodriguez. The Red Sox have phenominal hitters, but Eovaldi has to get that ERA lower otherwise Boston, in my opinion, could fall short of going to the World Series.

So, who won this trade? I’d say probably both are winners, because Tampa gave Boston a good starter to help their injured and underperforming rotation, while Boston gave them a good young lefty to help anchor a future Tampa Bay rotation. It’s a win-win for the team. Some people could probably say that Boston won, because Beeks is 25 and a little old for a good prospect, but he still has some potential left in him and he’s a better fit for a future rotation in Tampa than Eovaldi while Eovaldi is better for the current rotation im Boston rather than Beeks.