Rays Acquire Richard Lovelady From Cubs
The Rays and Cubs have agreed to a swap of left-handers, as the Rays announced that Richard Lovelady has been acquired in exchange for minor leaguer Jeff Belge. In a corresponding move, right-hander Jacob Waguespack was transferred to Tampa Bay’s 60-day injured list to create room on the 40-man roster.
Chicago designated Lovelady for assignment earlier this week, and today’s trade will officially end his Wrigleyville tenure after seven appearances. Lovelady signed a minor league contract with the Cubs over the offseason, and the team’s spate of bullpen injuries created another opportunity for the southpaw in the Show, as his contract was selected to the 26-man roster at the end of April. Unfortunately for Lovelady, he posted a 7.94 ERA over his 5 2/3 innings with Chicago, making him expendable when the Cubs needed a roster spot for the newly-acquired Tyson Miller.
Lovelady has pitched in five of the last six MLB seasons, with a 5.48 ERA across his 70 2/3 innings as a big leaguer. The home run ball has presented some problems for Lovelady and he isn’t a particularly hard thrower, yet some elements to his game hint at the potential for more consistent effectiveness. Lovelady has a 49.8% grounder rate at the Major League level, as well as solid strikeout (22.7%) and walk (8.8%) rates.
If any team can make Lovelady a late bloomer as he approaches his 29th birthday, it might be the Rays, given their history of turning unheralded pitchers into quality contributors. Lovelady is in his final minor league option year, so Tampa Bay has some flexibility in moving him between the majors and minors as circumstances warrant. Garrett Cleavinger is the only other southpaw in the Rays’ bullpen, so Lovelady will bring some more depth against lefty-swinging batters.
The 26-year-old Belge was an 18th-round pick for the Dodgers in the 2019 draft, and he came to Tampa in the December 2022 trade that sent J.P. Feyereisen to Los Angeles. Working almost exclusively as a relief pitcher in his 165 1/3 minor league innings, Belge has a 3.81 ERA and an impressive 32.59% strikeout rate, though his 14.56% walk rate is also inflated. Belge has pitched with Double-A Montgomery for the last two seasons and has yet to make his Triple-A debut.
Waguespack was placed on the 15-day IL on May 6 due to inflammation in his right rotator cuff. The issue is serious enough that he’ll need at least a 60-day stint to fully recover, so he’ll be out of action until the second week of July at the earliest. Waguespack has a 5.40 ERA across 10 innings and four appearances with Tampa Bay this season, which marked his first MLB action since 2020. The interim three seasons were spent in the Blue Jays’ farm system and then with the Orix Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball.
Dodgers Acquire J.P. Feyereisen
3:15pm: The Rays have officially announced the deal.
10:18am: The Rays are receiving minor league lefty Jeff Belge in the trade, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports.
10:10am: The Dodgers and Rays have agreed to a trade sending right-hander J.P. Feyereisen from Tampa Bay to Los Angeles, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link). The Rays will receive a minor league pitcher in exchange for Feyereisen, who underwent shoulder surgery last week and is expected to be sidelined into late August. The Rays designated Feyereisen for assignment yesterday to make roster space for newly signed Zach Eflin.
It’s a long-term play for the Dodgers, as Feyereisen is still controllable through the 2026 season via arbitration. The Rays would surely have loved to keep Feyereisen until this spring, when they could place him on the 60-day injured list and free up his 40-man roster spot. However, Tampa Bay also has righties Shane Baz and Andrew Kittredge recovering from Tommy John surgery and in need of 60-day IL spots when camp opens. As such, carrying all three until Spring Training would’ve effectively amounted to Tampa Bay operating with a 37-man roster instead of a 40-man roster for the balance of the offseason.
Feyereisen’s DFA raised plenty of eyebrows yesterday, as the right-hander rattled off 24 1/3 scoreless innings for the Rays in 2022 before being shelved by the shoulder injury that eventually led to the recent operation to repair both his right rotator cuff and labrum. A year prior, Feyereisen had turned in 56 innings of 2.73 ERA ball, albeit with a bloated 14.1% walk rate that created some skepticism about his ability to sustain that pace.
The now-29-year-old righty (30 in February) not only improved his command in 2022 but sent his walk rate plummeting to 5.8% — a mark that’s leaps and bounds better than league average. All told, Feyereisen has 89 2/3 innings of experience at the big league level and has pitched to a 2.31 ERA with a 23.8% strikeout rate and 12% walk rate. However, if he can sustain any of the 2022 strides he made in terms of strikeout rate (29.1%) or walk rate, he has the potential to be a vital late-inning arm for the Dodgers for three-plus seasons. And, because he’s unlikely to pitch much this season, his first trip through the arbitration process next winter shouldn’t produce a particularly large salary.
Belge, 25, was the Dodgers’ 18th-round pick in 2019 and spent the 2022 season pitching for their High-A affiliate, where he logged a 3.66 ERA in 32 innings and fanned a whopping 36.7% of his opponents — albeit against a concerning 12.5% walk rate. Belge was older than the average competition in the Midwest League in 2022 — his second stint at that level — but has drawn praise from FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen for a 96 mph heater and above-average slider.
The Dodgers have a trio of open spots on the 40-man roster, so it’s far easier for them to roster Feyereisen for the time being, even if he’ll now bump them up to 38. They’ll part ways with a hard-throwing lefty who has a penchant for missing bats and could begin the 2023 season in Double-A. By the time 2024 rolls around, it’s possible that both Feyereisen and Belge are ready for work in their respective teams’ big league bullpens, though Belge is far from a sure thing given his shaky command and a history of eye troubles dating back to a freak injury in his childhood days.