Report: Tyler Glasnow, Dodgers Agree to 5-Year, $135M Contract After Trade from Rays

The Los Angeles Dodgers' acquisition of Tyler Glasnow and Manuel Margot will be completed after the right-handed pitcher agreed to a contract extension on Friday.

Per ESPN's Jeff Passan, Glasnow will sign a five-year, $135 million deal with the Dodgers to help facilitate the trade with the Tampa Bay Rays.

On Thursday, Passan reported the Dodgers agreed to send Ryan Pepiot and Jonny Deluca to the Rays in exchange for Glasnow and Margot on a deal that was contingent on Glasnow signing an extension with Los Angeles.

This is a high-risk move for the Dodgers that could pay off great for them. Even with the addition of Shohei Ohtani, they still needed to add impact pitching to their rotation.

Los Angeles' starting staff before the addition of Glasnow included Walker Buehler coming off Tommy John surgery, Bobby Miller (124.1 career MLB innings), Ryan Yarbrough (4.80 ERA in 75 appearances since 2021) and Emmet Sheehan (4.92 ERA in 60.1 innings as a rookie in 2023).

Depending on how Buehler looks in his return from elbow surgery, Glasnow could be the best pitcher in that group by a significant margin. He has a 3.03 ERA and averages 12.5 strikeouts per nine innings in 60 starts since 2019.

Among pitchers with at least 300 innings pitched since 2019, Glasnow's strikeout ranks third in MLB behind those of Spencer Strider (13.6) and Jacob deGrom (12.8).

The main concern is that Glasnow has only thrown 332.2 innings in 60 starts over the past five seasons. He set a career high with 21 starts last season. It was the first time he's appeared in at least 20 games since 2018 when he was used exclusively as a reliever by the Pittsburgh Pirates before being traded to Tampa midway through the season.

Glasnow had Tommy John surgery in August 2021 after initially trying to rehab an elbow injury. The procedure kept him out for most of the 2022 season, though he was able to return for two starts late in the year and a playoff start against the Cleveland Guardians.

A strained oblique suffered in spring training kept Glasnow out of action for the first two months of the 2023 season. He also missed two weeks in August due to a back injury.

The Dodgers can certainly afford to take this type of risk, especially since the lineup with Ohtani joining Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman should score a lot of runs, but there are plenty of reasons to be concerned about Glasnow's injury history.